Instant noodles are a product used in cooking - a type of pre-cooked noodle. These noodles are cooked at the factory and packaged as dried noodles, often with a special powder that adds flavor to the noodles. The dish is prepared very quickly (usually 5 minutes or less), simply by putting the noodles together in hot water and then adding the powder. A kind of noodle soup is then ready to eat. Unlike most foods they can be safely stored for a long time.
Instant noodles are very popular in Asia, and among many students and poorer people, because they are very cheap to produce and to buy. In the United States, a package of instant noodles sometimes costs only ten cents. They are the main currency of the informal economy in US prisons.
In 2022, according to the World Instant Noodles Association 121 billion servings were sold. If they were laid out in a line it would be 6.2 billion kilometres long.[1]
