Product information
About
The big cup of Nissin's Cup Noodle, in the curry flavour: the size Japanese convenience stores carry. Japanese curry is sweet, thick and mild, closer to a gravy than to anything hot, and this one has fried potato, carrot and Nissin's freeze-dried pork mince sitting on top of the noodles. If you ate one of these at a konbini at midnight, this is that cup.
On the pack: カップヌードル カレー ビッグ (kappu nūdoru karē biggu). Look for the word BIG above the curry lettering.
Cup Noodle Curry comes in three sizes in Japan. Mini, regular and BIG. This is BIG, the convenience-store size, and the step up is real: 120 g against the regular cup's 87 g.
What you're getting
- Japanese curry, which is its own thing: thickened with flour and starch into something closer to gravy than soup, sweetened, and rounded out with cheese and peanut butter. It is mild: Japanese reviewers describe it as gentle, home-style curry rather than a hot one.
- Thick noodles, and a lot of them: a 120 g cup against the regular cup's 87 g, with 85 g of it noodles. Japanese reviewers keep describing the soup as clinging to them rather than sitting underneath.
- The brown cubes are the famous bit: Nissin left them unexplained for 46 years until they became a national in-joke, 謎肉, "mystery meat". The company gave the answer in September 2017, inside a Detective Conan manga: minced pork extended with soy protein, then freeze-dried.
- It is a meal, not a snack: 120 g, and a salty one. Japanese reviewers are consistent about the trade: the regular size leaves you hungry and this one doesn't.
- Allergens: contains wheat, egg, milk, peanut, sesame, soy and apple, plus chicken and pork, which Japan declares and Australia does not.
- Allergens, one more: Australia's allergen chart has no apple category, so apple cannot appear in the pack's allergen box here — check the ingredients, not the chart; ours is the fuller list. Peanut butter is an ingredient, not a trace warning, and sesame is declared for shared equipment.
A few things worth knowing before it arrives. The fill line is moulded into the inside wall of the cup rather than printed on the outside, and it takes 380 mL, more than a regular cup, so boil a full kettle. It is not vegetarian and not halal: there is pork in the meat pieces and pork fat in the soup. And if the Nissin cups you know are the ones in Australian supermarkets, this is a different product: those are 72 to 75 g cups supplied for this market and made outside Japan, and this is the Japanese domestic cup, 120 g, made in Japan.
Ingredients
The maker's ingredient list, translated from the Japanese pack. Anything after the break is an additive — the Japanese label lists those separately.
Fried noodles (wheat flour (produced in Japan), vegetable oil, salt, sugars, soy sauce, pork extract, chicken extract, flavour seasoning), soup (pork fat, curry powder, wheat flour, onion, starch, sugars, flavour seasoning, onion seasoning, margarine, pork seasoning, powdered soy sauce, processed cheese, carrot, peanut butter, salt, skim milk powder, hydrolysed protein, powdered sauce, tomato powder, spices, yeast extract, egg powder, natural cheese), dried toppings (processed pork mince with soy protein, fried potato, carrot, onion, spring onion)
processed starch, flavour enhancers (amino acids etc.), emulsifier, caramel colour, calcium carbonate, flavouring, kansui (alkaline noodle salts), thickeners (polysaccharides), carotenoid colour, spice extract, acidity regulator, antioxidant (vitamin E), smoke flavouring, vitamin B2, vitamin B1.
Nissin renewed this cup in late 2025 under the same barcode, so either recipe may reach you. The list above is the current one. In the earlier version the meat pieces were seasoned pork mince rather than the soy-extended pork mince described above; egg, milk, peanut, soy and sesame were in that version too.
The printed label on the pack is always the authority on ingredients and allergens, not this page — please read it in full before you rely on our summary. If you are unsure about an ingredient, contact us.
Allergens
The maker declares:
- Allergens
-
- Wheat
- Egg
- Milk
- Peanut
- Soy
- Apple
- May contain
-
- Sesame
Not ingredients — these are made or handled on the same equipment as this product, so traces are possible. We list every shared-equipment allergen the maker declares.
- Dietary notes
-
Pork runs right through it: pork mince pieces extended with soy protein, pork fat in the soup, and pork extract and seasoning, while chicken is in it only as an extract in the noodle.
The printed label on the pack is always the authority on ingredients and allergens, not this page — please read it in full before you rely on our summary. If you are unsure about an ingredient, contact us.
Details
- Maker
- Nissin Food Products
- Made in
- Japan
- Net contents
- One cup: 120–121 g depending on the pack, of which 85 g is noodles
Our guide
How to eat it
- Save the soup: in Japan the accepted way to finish this cup is to tip hot cooked rice into what's left and eat it as curry rice.
- Stir the soup through properly before the first mouthful, or the curry sits in clumps at the bottom.
- Lay a slice of cheese on top while it steeps, or drop in a soft-boiled egg: those are the two additions people in Japan reach for most with this cup.
- Pour to the moulded line, which takes 380 mL of boiling water, more than a regular-size cup.
- Then leave it for the time printed on the lid: look for a numeral followed by 分, the Japanese character for minutes.
In their own words
What Japanese buyers say
What do the numbers mean?
Counts of how many reviews mentioned each thing, not a score. One review can mention several. Every quote is our translation, with the original Japanese beneath it.
- What they like
You feel really full once you've finished it.
食べ終わった後の満腹度が高い
mentioned in 14 of 50 reviews we read
- What they grumble about
Supermarkets don't stock the BIG size, so when I find it at a discount shop I buy several at once.
スーパーではビッグが置いていないので、安売り店で見つけたらまとめ買い
mentioned in 6 of 50 reviews we read
Our tip: In Japan the BIG cup is largely a convenience-store format — supermarkets there stock the regular size.
- What they like
The fat noodles and the gloopy soup suit each other, and I like that it really feels like eating curry.
太麺とドロッとしたスープとの相性がよくて、カレーを食べている感があるのが良いです。
mentioned in 6 of 50 reviews we read
- What they grumble about
The curry flavour felt weak to me — maybe because it's the BIG? The medium size has just the right curry punch.
カレー味が薄く感じたけどBIGだからかな？ 中サイズがちょうどカレー味が効いてる
from monolog
Our tip: Stir the soup through fully before eating — undissolved curry powder clumping is the most-cited mistake.
- What they like
Putting white rice into the leftover soup to finish it curry-rice style is the best.
スープに白いご飯を入れてカレーライス風にして締めるのが最高
mentioned in 8 of 50 reviews we read
- What they grumble about
narrow and flat – very standard
from ramen-rater
- What they like
The gentle, home-cooked-curry-like flavour is a relief.
家庭のカレーのような優しい味にほっとします。
mentioned in 4 of 50 reviews we read
- What they grumble about
High in calories.
カロリー高い
mentioned in 5 of 70 reviews we readfrom monolog
- What they like
Cup noodle curry because curry. Curry is life.
- What they grumble about
Too much salt.
塩分は多すぎ
from monolog
Real quotes from Japanese review sites, translated by us. We show no star rating from those sites.
The maker
Where it comes from
- Nissin Food Products
Nissin made the world's first instant noodle in 1958, a bag of Chicken Ramen, and then, thirteen years later, invented the cup. Cup Noodle launched on 18 September 1971.
Curry arrived in the line in May 1973 and has never left it.
Nissin makes Cup Noodle in Japan, across five of its own factories, one each in Ibaraki, Shizuoka and Yamaguchi, and two in Shiga, and a network of partner plants alongside them.
Product facts here are checked against the maker's own page: nissin.com (opens in a new tab)
Often bought together
-
Nissin Cup Noodle Curry BIG — Japanese Curry Cup Noodle, 121g
$6.29
You are on this one
