May 142006
Jo asks: How long can you keep Ramen noodles in storage before they are no good to eat.
Unfortunately, there is no easy answer to this question. On one hand, ramen noodles are fried (most of the time). On the other hand, ramen is packed with preservatives. Regardless of the presevatives, ramen will tend to stale over time, and although it will generally still be edible, it may not taste as good.
Personally, I would keep ramen (in plastic packets) for up to six months. Use some of the recipes here and eat it up!
Anyone have any anecdotes of keeping ramen for long periods of time (years even) and how it tasted? Was it stale? Did you get sick?
87 Responses to “Ramen Expiration Dates”
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I had beem given a pack of Korean ramen from a friend that she had gotten on her trip to Korea, and it looked so pretty, it was hard to eat
So i kept it in it’s package for probably two years. I was really hungry one day, and brave, so I decided to eat the spicy ramen. I was only able to tell it was spicy because of the hot spicy pepper symbol. The rest was Korean. 
Well back to the story.. X_x .. I had opened it and it smelt a tiny bit stail, but I cooked it and it tasted great. You could not tell it was 2 years old probably.
If one eats the noodles in the “Ghetto Chips” style – which I love doing, you will most likely taste staleness. However if cooked, there is nothing noticible as far as I have tasted. So if it has been sitting about for a good year – cook it.
I found a package tucked away under a kitchen cabinet drawer. The plastic packaging was intact, but it was obviously beyond the ‘six-month’ window. The noodles didn’t smell funny, and the seasoning packet was likewise still sealed. After cooking for just a minute though, this foul odor came from the pot, and I almost spit it out when I tried to taste it (yes, not even foul odors from old ramen deter a TRUE ramen-lover). I ended up flushing the rest of the pot on the grounds that it was no longer Ramen Noodles, but rather had mutated due to untraceable Gamma radiation, much as Spiderman’s little buddy. Sad, but I consoled myself by buying a fresh pack and savoring every bite.
I just got an great idea!
I\\\’ll put few packs of ramen into a frame thats used by the butterfly collectors (like this!) with little nametag and date, and open the case after few years and try the ramen.
Btw, hash anyone eaten a noodlebrand called \\\”Mama\\\’s\\\”, its from thailand and is widely propular in Finland.
Btwbtw. This site should have forums
I found 4 packets of ramen(2 chicken, 2 beef) hidden high in my cupboard. I could not see them at first, but after cleaning our my cupboard i found them. They all had 2004 exp dates and its 2006! I really wasn’t concerned too much unless something seemed different when i cooked them. I just know that a lot of food companies products don’t really go bad on the date on the bag. I have long used items past their date unless I detected some weird anomaly in the cooking process. I think they do that so they won’t get sued. Anyway, i have finished all four packets over the last several days and … its almost as if the exp date didn’t matter even 2 years past the date. I am pretty sure we got them from walmart just in case anyone was wanting to know. I don’t know how long they are supposed to last but 2 years from the date seemed as if it would have been bad. It wasn’t. I did not get sick nor did I get any strange odors cooking them. Everything worked as if I bought them yesterday and cooked them today. Whew! now its time to cook some more!
I had a box of about 20 packs of ramen hidden in my room (my whole family loves ramen) and I forgot about them. About a year later, I found them and ate some over the span of a couple of days. I couldn’t tell that any of them were old except for a pack I ate as free base. It was a little stale, but not really that bad. Now, I usually have my secret stash eaten up in a few days.
I use Ramen soups for every meal. In the morning I have a little fruit over cold noodles. Lunch can be handled by cutting up any leftover meat with a handful of condiments added to any flavor of noodle. (My condiments are made ahead of time & stored in small containers.)(I use yellow onion, sweet & hot peppers, scallions, water chesnuts & a little garlc.) For a little twist at dinner I throw in a lot of vegetables & top with a good amount of cheese. Getting to the original question . . . I’ve used Ramen soup stored for more than 18 months & I can’t detect a difference in taste!
I just finished a styrofoam container of (Maruchan Brand) Ramen that has been sitting in my garage for at least three years. I removed the plastic outside as I was bowling the water in the microwave, and noted the odd discoloration splotches on the outside over the styrofoam. Upon closer inspection, I realized it was the flavoring that somehow had escaped through the tiny pores in thes styrofoam container (there were no noticeable fissures on the container.)
After pouring the hot water, and letting it sit for three minutes, I opened the container to find the Ramen tasted surprisingly good! Although it had a slightly odd odor to it, but no matter, the jalapeno slices I added more than made up for any sort of smell that potentially was present. After finishing the noodles I have a habit of drinking the deadly, MSG infested broth, but this time the broth had a rather unpleasant odor, so I discarded the noodle-less Ramen container in full. All in all, I’d say if you have an old container of Ramen, just cook it well, eat with hot sauce and (at least with the noodles), you shouldn’t notice the difference (with the Top Ramen, there is no issue of styrofoam contamination, so its even more of a reason to chomp down!)
I’m a college student, and my buddy’s uncle gets all sorts of wierd ass deals, like shit that was in a fire, and so fourth. We’ve got boxes of ramen (you know, like you get at costco, the 40 packs or whatever) that we got for free. I’m going to let you in on a little secret. RAMEN DOESNT GO BAD. They’re already cooked, if the package is intact, they’re good to eat. I woudln’t be suprised if ramen was up there with twinkies, and those fuckers are good forever. And I dont mean 3 years forever, i mean untill ww3 nuclear genocide, world dominated by alien race forever. And then some.
My wife has dozens of packages of various varities of these noodles, from 2 months to 2 years or older. Does any one know how to translate date codes to check on freshness? I hate to throw them all out.
The “Taste and Die” method of checking freshness is not very appealing to me even though that may be how many of our favorite foods and preservation methods were discovered like wine, cheese and beef jerky.
I do see that Maruchan has a web site but it is down at the moment, http://www.maruchan.com .
What is the source of monosodium glutamate in your ramen products
I have a ramen package that I opened. The bag was sealed and there is a dead bug inside stuck to the noodles. What is the deal?
i am looking for the mushroom flavor of ramen noodles. seems they might of stopped making it. it is my favorite flavor. i cant seem to find it any stores where i live. i would like to see it be made again.
i liked a flavor of tomato that they came out with and i wish they never stopped making it bacause that was out favorite flavor
I buy the beef flavor 12 packs all the time and we are addicted to it. I bought a 12 pack last week just before Christmas and 6 of the packages did not have the flavor packet inside. Although they are good with just butter, they are a lot tastier with the packet so needless to say we would have rather had them with the packet. I hope we don’t run into any more without the packet inside. We boil the noodles and drain them and put a bit of butter on them with the flavor packet and mix them up. They are great that way. I couldnt very well take them back to the store opened, so we just did without. Who ever packs them or inspects them should look a little more closely, because there are people like us that really enjoy the flavor packs. That is what gives the noodles their unique flavor. As a remark on the freshness of the noodles they are usually gone before they have a chance to spoil. They are delicious. Thanks Paula Reagan 4322 Rainier Street #1123 Irving Tx 75062
I just went to make the maruchan instant lunch, and guess what I found inside. Fucking spider webs! No shit. Actual, real, fucking spider webs. gross. I think I’m going to throw up. Good thing I live close to their office. What the fuck!!!
So, I like many of you, just found a package of ramen in my cupboard. And since no one in my family including me had ever liked ramen, I’m sure it was there for even longer than 2 years. After going to college however I developed quited the taste for it and was going through withdrawl. So I came here to see the expiration date. Upon reading your stories I decided to eat the potentially tainted product and see what came of it. I’m currently enjoying my bowl of ramen right now, and while the noodles taste a little off color, the salty chicken flavor for the most part covers it up! If I get sick I’ll be sure to warn you about that later! Enjoy!
I just bought a package of your beef Top Ramen from Ralph’s grocery store in M.V. and my son and I found a dead bug in it. He was so grossed out and used to love to eat Top Ramen without cooking it, but he won’t eat it now. Why would a dead bug be inside one of your sealed packages????
My roommate found a finger nail in Maruchan Roast Beef Flavor Cup of noodles. What might be our next step?
Contact the new media.
Contact an lawoffice.
Ship the empty cup and finger nail back to you for internal investation.
Please help me out here
03/02/08
Hi i want to make a complaint my son cook a beef cup of noodles yesterday. He put it in the microwave for 3 minutes and just about the last 10 seconds the dam thing exploded and cought the microwave on fire. My microwave is know fried it sells so bad i cant even cook in it. The thing is sitting on the back portch so i dont have to smell it. I would love someone for the company to get a hold of me and let me know what you are going to do about replacing my microwave. I will go to the newspaper or the new if i have to just to get my microwave replaced. The funny thing is my nepew cooked his for 2 1/2 minutes my 10 year old son cooked his for 3 minutes and my 14 year old cooked his for 2 1/2 minutes and 10 seconds before it was done the thing exploed into fire. The thing stinks and the inside it black. I dont think i will be cooking these again in a microwave. Please contact me by e-mail which is gsthompson1@msn.com
Ok…. First of all, Your not suppose to put the cups in the microwave!! You cant hold them accountable for your own mistake!!! Maybe your microwave was defective, besides why would a cup cause a microwave to do that!!! Im tired of people trying to get money out of companies when its there fault!!!!! Maybe you shouldnt cook so many Instant lunches in one day!! maybe if people would follow INSTRUCTIONS on the top label there wouldnt be any EXPLOSTIONS going on in microwaves…. hehehehe
I just Found a pack of old Ramen From about…4 years ago. I just cooked it about a min. ago and It tastes fine! I love it!
My friend found a pack of Ramen noodles in his kitchen that was SIX YEARS OLD… before he added the flavor packet it smelled like a hampster cage… but he ate it anyway and nothing bad happened. so i guess they’re fine for a mad long time!
I am currently eating Chicken Flavored Ramen Noodles that are a year past the expiration date and they taste fine. I did boil the noodles and broth and did not notice any funky flavors or odors… However, I did have the Ramen packages stored in my cool and dark cupboard for the past 3 years. I bought them from Walmart years ago and forgot about eating them. Well, it’s one of those hard times where I’m out of a job and with no money. Ramen is my last step before I go to beg for food at our Church’s food pantry. Needless to say I’m doing healthy, as I ate 3 packages over the last 2 days and I’m okay. No running to the bathroom or anything either. Ramen noodles and some vitamins have been keeping me alive while we go through this Recession.
Well now, I finally made it to the bottom of the list and so now it seems to be my turn to leave a comment for advice. I just found a bag of lime shrimp ramen noodles on top of my freezer and skeptical to just throw it in the microwave and eat, i had a strange feeling this bag was older than imaginable so i checked the date of this bag…and it was fresh in 2002. So now should I eat these noodles knowing they’re six years old? Well, I decided to be brave enough to go ahead and open the package and dump them in the bowl, then I noticed the lime shrimp packet was fine too when I poured it in my bowl. So yeah, it all seemed good to go and I put the bowl in the microwave for 3 minutes. Well, unfortunately when I opened my microwave, I thought I smelt the combination of rotten eggs, windex and a foul ass lime wonabee scent. This had me scared to try it so I looked at the package again and it said the noodles where Limon’ flavored. Well I didn’t know what to decide so I came on this computer and read all of your comments. To be honest, all of the comments I read actually made me feel better about my cooked noodles, so I went ahead and tried to eat them past the deadly smell it was giving off. Well, you wanna know what happened next? I started to taste that decayed lime in my noodles and the smell only got worse as my stomach wouldn’t allow me to swallow this bunk so I spat it back on my bowl and scrapped the rest off my bowl into the garbage and now I have a nasty aftertaste as if something crawled on my tongue and died. Here’s what I learned, you guys may be right about eating ten year old delicious ramen noodles and not discovering the difference. Though the differences is on the flavors. I know the beef and chicken are good past they’re due date because I tried them before and found nothing wrong, but don’t you dare touch that lime shrimp because you’ll have nightmares and so will your stomach. That stuff’s not limon yum flavor, it’s die man if you savor…get it? Thanks guys, your words helped me learn something today.
So I found about four or five packages of Maruchan ramen noodles in my refridgerator this past week. The expiration date said it expired 3 years ago. Why I have 3 year old ramen sitting in my fridge, I’m not quite sure. The packages were all in tact and they tasted exactly the same as “fresh” ramen. So here’s a solution: Put it in your fridge to keep it fresh…
Thank you. =)
I had to work a double shift in the office today, and I was starved. So I searched the cupboard for any food whatsoever. I happened to stumble upon a lonely bag of ramen noodles. Not having anything to boil water on, I decided to put in a glass bowl and cook it on the coffe pot. It worked well enough, and after the extremely long wait I chowed down. As I was going to throw the wrapping away I glanced the experation date, 2002!! I have just consumed 6 year old Top Ramen. I decided to type this is up in case of my unfortunate demise. On a brighter note… It tasted fine. Cough Cough…. dying, dying, death:(
Guess its my turn to leave something on here…well I will say that Ramen is very good, never found anything out of the ordinary in the bags, and is awesome for someone that only makes 7.25 an hour and has bills upon bills to pay. Its chjeap, easy to fix, and comes in a variety of flavors. I pretty much have nicknamed it “survival food” because that is exactly what it is! Im eating the shrimp flavored ramen noodles as I am writing this, I like all the flavors but I will say that the Roast Chicken and Oriental are my 2 favs. But I will also eat the other flavors as well.
http://www.maruchan.com can’t get there…Well now, I finally made it to the bottom of the list and so now it seems to be my turn to leave a comment for advice… I tried to go to http://www.maruchan.com and then I stumbled upon this “Official Ramen Homepage” and read all of your comments. While eating a Maruchan Instant Lunch Chicken Flavor ramen noodles, I twirled noodles on to my fork and bit down on a 1/4″ wide by 3/4″ round in diameter hard plastic ring thing…code on the bottom of the package is: 080909 HH 17:25
This was purchased recently (1 month ago) from Sam’s Club, Auburn, WA…I think if I digested this, it would have caused some major damage…
Blog, blog, blog…maybe this will save someone else, check your fork first…don’t eat plastic ringlets or bugs…
Im about to cook some ramen, but then i realized it has been in the cupboard for a few years..so i came to this website… but after reading all these comments about how it doesnt go bad im stoked!! I love love ramen!!!!
I went to the local oriental supermarket a few days ago to purchase some goods for making sesame balls and bought some Nissin Demae Ramen. I hadn’t noticed until yesterday that the “best before” date was marked for May 2005, and it happens to be December 2008. I figured that dry noodles with preservatives and the packet of seasoning couldn’t possibly go bad anytime soon. Much to my logic, it was absolutely delectable when cooked; nothing was wrong or tasted remotely off-key.
Definitely good for 3 1/2 years.. =]
You really shouldnt eat product that is that old…. The oils in the noodles go bad, though not life threatening it really shouldnt be eaten! Well it just depends how you store this type of product , thats really determines the life span!! Good luck to all!! MARUCHAN rules!!!
chili flavored 4 years old. Yum. no problems at all… remember in case of nuclear holocaust… have your ramen ready. Although it requires water and msot likely all of the water will be tainted… however eating 4 year old ramen… goes hand in hand. Here’s to a 3rd eye.
Remember 2000 yr. to 2001 yr. ? the change will be the end of the world. So i have boxes of MARUCHAN RAMEN noodle soups . Are they still Good ?
I used google to see how long till ramen expires and came up with this page. my concern was if I should eat this bag of 2 year old oriental Marachun ramen. The numbers on the back says 122806. Well I cooked it anyways after reading a few of these comments. it smells a bit stale but tastes fine. Hopefully I’ll turn out ok haha.
Don’t believe the hype. I just had some ramen that were sealed in a Styrofoam cup.They were chicken flavored but they smelled bad. I tried eating them. I am poor as hell so I will eat about anything on the planet with calories. I couldn’t stomach them. Ended up trashing the full cup. What a waste. 35 cents wasted. :^)
It’s really late, I’m hungry, and there’s nothing in the fridge…so I found this shrimp flavored cup of noodles from like 7 years ago. The little shrimps were black the peas were gray and I had no idea what the third ingredient was, but I was freakin hungry, so I boiled up some water threw in the noodles and they tasted fantastic! Those things last fooorevvver! Seriously!
I just got back from the day old bread store and bought some cheese on wheat crackers and got thinking that some Ramen noodles would be great with them, so I dug in my cupboard and found some dated 2004 and I heated them for 4 minutes in the microwave and I am eating them as I am writing this. They are delicious and I am not even hungry just snacking.
I spent the day home yesterday with a cold and since i was always told to make soup when you’re sick i made a packet of top ramen. I love ramen and used to eat it all the time. So i made my self some ramen and it was going to be the first real thing i ate all day. It looked okay. When it was done and the seasoning was in the noodles still looked a little gray but i figured i didnt cook it long enough {even though i always set the timer}and i ate it anyway. not to long after i finished it i began burping up ramen smelling burps and then i got very sick wanting to throw up. i had lower stomach pain and upper stomach pain and felt like something was trying to rip out my stomach. This morning i feel better so i checked the date of the ramen cause i know it was in there for a while. Turns out it expired in november of 2008. I dont know how you guys eat ramen thats years old, but it made me very sick.
Does anyone know how Carbs are in just the seasoning/flavoring packets?
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by MicronBOMB: @Jillsmiley apparently there is a 6 month window but its prob just a ploy to get u to buy more ramen http://www.mattfischer.com/ramen/?p=453…
I was about to eat an expired (almost a year) maruchan instant lunch, but reading all of your comments about spiders and fingernails and foul odor has turned me off. think i’ll make a cup of tea instead. mine does have a slight off smell, like stale beef. and the corn looks a bit brown. when in doubt, throw it out – as they say.
I love ramen noodles. I have eaten ramen noodles that were years past the expiration date, and had no problems. Yum!
where can i find the chile noodles, they are my favorite but are really hard to find, i’m in chicago, help i’m craving CHILI flavored noodles
I used to be really into ramen maybe 5 years ago, so my father got me and my sister a big package of chicken flavor from Sam’s. We never touched it. Today, I was craving some noodle-y soup and couldn’t find my normal, nicer ramen (fewer cals, lighter noodles, much less sodium, no MSG) so I decided to try the old chicken flavor. It had expired in early 2008. I thought the flavor package might be sketch, so I just used some salt and pepper, a couple spices, threw in some mushrooms, hummus, and some artichoke hearts. It was pretty good.
I just found ramen packets that had expired 8 of 08. . Cooked up some pork, threw in some green beans and some sun chips. Yummy.
I just ate some Shin Ramyun (korean stuff) and it expired in 2005. This is 4-5 year old ramen. The package was still sealed and I ate some of it two years ago (when it was 2-3 years old) and so… I didn’t get sick THAT time and I hope not to this time. I shall let you know. Has anyone eaten Ramen older than five years?
i can’t find the expiration date but its showing that it was probably made in 2001? i’m eating the cup of noodles brand “souper meal” its a really big cup of noodles, haha! but anyways, i guess almost a decade later its still tastes okay! when i opened the little packages, i found that the corn was almost pale looking, the leaves were almost black, a dark ass green, and the powdery chicken flavor was actually hard.. i had to break it into peices and spread it all around. after heating it up, there was a little more color and i could smell the flavor. still good!!! hope i don’t get sick!! …. a DECADE ago, hahaha
I wasn’t completely sure if they had an expiration date, there wasn’t one on a ramen box unopened, so checked online and found this place. Since no one came back and said they nearly died or anything like that, I tried it. 4 years old and tasted fine.
so i just at one that was from 5 years ago and it was alright not as good but still did the trick but if i die i swear to god that i will haunt everyone of you that said they had good experiences with old ramen