Noodles? For lunch AND dinner?! (Sharwood's Thai Rice Noodles - Ready in 5 Minutes)

Member Name: fruityzo

Product:	Sharwood's Thai Rice Noodles - Ready in 5 Minutes
Date:	26/05/09 (75 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good value, easy portion management

Disadvantages: None

Noodles? Yes we all know what they are (especially those among us who've lived the studenty-noodley dream of 3 minute, dirt cheap, hot food)!

However, in my post student times, I've felt the need to be sensible and eat more nutritional, low fat foods, such as salad.
As much as I may try to convince myself otherwise, I just find salads completely boring without filling them with all sorts of gloriously fatty and delicious morsels (thus undoing all my good low-cal work).
This is where Sharwood's Thai Rice Noodles come in...

The Product ----

The noodles come in a fairly distinctive pale green pack, with a large Sharwoods logo in black and pink.

The pack claims they are "Ready in 5 minutes" and "Perfect with salads, stir fries or soups".
It also clearly states the calorific content per 200g serving in the bottom right-hand corner (which also helped me in my decision to try them).

Each packet is 250g worth of noodley goodness, and when you open the pack you will discover the dry noodles have been divided into 4 little bundles (wrapped with a paper tie). I found this fantastic for a couple of reasons:

1. I didn't have to make a first time round trial and error attempt at how many noodles I would need.
2. As part of my decision for buying these was calorie control, it made it even easier to work out how many calories were in each portion.

Ingredients ----

Rice Flour, Water... that's it!
The pack states that the noodles are "Free from artificial colours, flavours & preservatives. Gluten free".
Thus these noodles are suitable for veggies, and the pack also confirms this.

Nutritional content per (uncooked) 100g ----
Calories - 382
Sugar - Trace
Fat - 1.0g
Sat Fats - 0.3g
Sodium - Trace

Per cooked 200g serving you will find 239 cals (12% RDA), BUT as each bundle is around 62.5g, you will be consuming significantly less than this (unless you find them so yummy, that you gobble the whole pack!).

How to prepare ----

These things are honestly the easiest things ever to 'cook'!

The pack gives you clear and simple instructions:

1. Remove paper from the noodles (unless you want added roughage perhaps!)
2. Place noodles in a heat-proof bowl & pour enough boiling water to cover them.
3. Leave to stand for 5 minutes (I would advise that this time is best utilised by making a crackin' cuppa)
4. Rinse through, drain & then add to the food of your choice.

That really is it! Totally easy, minimal effort involved.

One 'bundle' is more than enough for one person I feel, and as rice noodles go, I certainly have no complaints over taste or texture (nice and smooth, without feeling like I've got wriggly worms in my salad mix).

My one tip when 'cooking' these would be to give them a little stir around after a couple of minutes - this will stop any sticking together and staying a bit crispy!

I pick these up in Tesco for 77p per packet, which I deem to be a total bargain.

Even if you don't use these regularly, because of the nature of the product, it has a good long shelf-life, so is worth leaving in the cupboard for when you fancy a bit of a change at lunchie munchies.

I find these to be the perfect accompaniment to salads (amongst other things), they make it more interesting, add texture, and (for me personally) stop you feeling hungry so quickly. I also use these as a side dish to chicken, just sprinkle on some soy sauce or something similar - easy & tasty.

Great versatile little product!

Summary: Yummy noodles & not a waistline destroyer!