Review: Chef Ming Tsai's New Meal Line Is Anything But Mild

Ramen is a beloved source of sustenance for me. It's my go-to order at restaurants that specialize in the soup, and the Korean comfort food ramyeon holds a near-permanent spot in my pantry. It just doesn't get much better than warming up a noodle lunch for that midday meal break. 

So, when I heard that Ming Tsai of "Iron Chef" fame was introducing a new frozen food line, Mings, I was eager to sample the meals to find some new favorites to keep on hand. I got an early taste of these meals, and even had a chance to ask chef Tsai a few questions to learn more about Mings.

Chef Tsai isn't new to grocery store aisles. His line of handheld snacks called MingsBings is one of the viral foods that catapulted to grocery store shelves. For the new Mings line, chef Tsai took inspiration from his own experiences, bringing flavors from his restaurants to your home. To decide if you should try these meals when you see them in the freezer aisle, I sampled each one, and assessed every variety on how enjoyable the taste and texture were while considering the nutritional value of these meals.

Recommendations are based on firsthand impressions of promotional materials and products provided by the manufacturer.

These meals encapsulate an "East meets West" style of cooking, according to Ming Tsai, who is one of the best celebrity chefs you can book on Cameo. Every Mings meal "takes the combination of flavors and techniques for both Eastern and Western cuisines, and marries them to create delicious food." The meals within this line are inspired by some of the favorite menu items from chef Tsai's restaurants, made available to customers through their local Walmart freezers. 

The Mings lineup consists of four meals: Spicy Beef Ramen, Spicy Dan Dan Noodles, Sweet Chili Chicken & Broccoli, and Chicken Ramen. All four of these are noodle dishes, with the two ramen offerings providing typically broth-heavy meals. Chef Tsai explains that he "wanted to make sure there are a variety of perfectly textured noodle options, including ramen, wheat, and rice noodles, for people to try."

The meals are also created so that they can be dressed up in any number of ways. Of course, you could add additional condiments like sriracha or chili oil, but chef Tsai also recommends adding greens like scallions and spinach, or even topping the noodles with a soft-boiled egg. The latter suggestion is an ideal way to add protein to a noodle dish, since soft-boiling is one of the healthiest ways to cook eggs. 

The new lineup of Mings meals will be available in Walmart stores nationwide by April of 2025. You'll find them alongside other brands of frozen meals already lining the aisles, but the colorful packaging of Mings will likely catch your eye. Although it is competing with many other lunches and dinners, based on my shopping experiences, there aren't any products identical to Mings in Walmart's freezer case.

Mings meals are initially being offered for a recommended price of $4.88, though there may be some cost variance depending on your Walmart location. Comparatively, this is on the pricey side for frozen meals of a similar cuisine. A boxed Healthy Choice Café Steamers Sweet Sesame Chicken Bowl, for instance, is sold by Walmart for $2.96. The discrepancy becomes greater as you start looking into comparisons with non-frozen instant noodle options, but those aren't really comparable here, since they're missing the fresh ingredients that Mings meals are clearly full of.

For nutritional content, I noticed one interesting aspect right away: the amount of sodium in Mings meals. It simply seemed high, even when considering that there's a lot of sodium in many processed foods. Containing 45% of the daily recommended level of sodium, a single serving of Mings Spicy Dan Dan Noodles is packed with 1,030 milligrams of sodium — and that's the lowest amount of sodium among these meals. The highest sodium content belonged to Mings Spicy Beef Ramen, with 1,820 milligrams of sodium, comprising 79% of the recommended daily sodium intake. Looking again at the Healthy Choice Café Steamers Sweet Sesame Chicken Bowl, which has 20% of your daily sodium recommendation with 460 milligrams, the sodium levels of this new Mings lineup seems exceptionally high.

While Mings Spicy Dan Dan Noodles is lowest in sodium, that variety has 520 calories per serving, which is the highest quantity among the line. The variety with the lowest calorie count is the Sweet Chili Chicken & Broccoli variety, at 300.

All of the Mings meals offer a significant protein load, and this attribute is even advertised on the front of each box. The Spicy Dan Dan Noodles has the highest count among them all, with 28 grams of protein per serving, but the Chicken Ramen comes close, with 23 grams of protein. The Spicy Beef Ramen and Sweet Chili Chicken & Broccoli options both offer lower protein levels, featuring 19 grams and 14 grams, respectively. 

The Spicy Beef Ramen variety was the first of the Mings meals that I tried — and I noticed right away that the food looked very appetizing, even before heating it. Everything appears freshly prepared, and the ingredients appear to be of high quality. The soup base, frozen at the bottom of the tray, mixes and smoothens nicely into the water, making a richly flavored broth.

With the first bite, I learned very quickly that when chef Ming Tsai labels something as spicy, it is. The bright red broth should have been a warning to take it slow, but I plunged in with a full spoonful right away. Now, I am a fan of spicy foods, but I prefer spiciness that has flavor behind it. The spice level should complement the rest of the dish and seasoning, not just stand out to set my mouth ablaze. With the Mings Spicy Beef Ramen, the very first thing I tasted was pure fire, and a whole lot of it.

I enjoyed how tender the noodles were, but wished the beef had seemed a little less stewed. It didn't feel like tender cuts that I might get in a beef ramen, but more like leftover beef that was used to make ramen. 

While the uncooked ingredients in the Mings Spicy Beef Ramen looked appetizing, I didn't find that to be the case with the brand's Spicy Dan Dan Noodles. Instead of offering solid chunks of chicken, the poultry pieces throughout this variety looked like small, cubed chicken crumbles ... which did not appear very appetizing. While the ramen looked fresh, these noodles looked processed. I hoped that upon cooking this meal, the chicken and noodles would look better, and they did — but not enough.

Like the Spicy Beef Ramen, there was a clearly zesty element to this dish, and in the Spicy Dan Dan Noodles, this flavor was not as difficult to discern as in the ramen. I enjoyed the taste here, finding it to be better seasoned than the Spicy Beef Ramen, while the spice acted much more as a flavor enhancer than as a fiery test for the taste buds. However, in addition to this lighter spice level, I noted some bitter elements that were unexpected, and didn't enhance the flavor favorably. 

Like the overly stewed beef, the protein in Mings Chicken Ramen has a very soft consistency. It reminded me of the chicken I might taste in a too-moist casserole. However, rather than being shredded, it is provided in chunks for this meal. I've never quite seen chicken look the way it does in this ramen, and I can't say it was particularly appetizing. Interestingly, the chicken on the packaging looked seared in places, but that's not what I saw in my portion. The veggies felt and tasted fresh, but I just couldn't get past the texture of the chicken.

I also found it notable that these noodles were flat and straight, as opposed to round and curly. I recognize that ramen comes in all textures, but I wish there were some visual differences between the different types of noodles between these four Mings meals, because even though they have different ingredients and preparations, they all seemed quite similar to one another. 

My favorite of the Mings meals was the Sweet Chili Chicken & Broccoli variety. This is primarily a noodle dish, not soup, and it has chicken, sauce, broccoli, and bell peppers. Unlike the poultry in the Chicken Ramen, the meat in this dish didn't seem as overly stewed. The boxes for both the Chicken Ramen and the Sweet Chili Chicken & Broccoli both promise "seasoned dark meat chicken" inside, so the difference between the dishes is likely due to the way that the meat interacts with the rest of the ingredients, and is not necessarily because of the chicken itself.

This variety also had just a touch of spice, and though the title doesn't explicitly call this option spicy, some might find it fairly piquant. I, however, enjoyed this little bit of spice quite a lot — it played well with the sweetness of this dish. Overall, this was an easy favorite, even if, as with so many frozen meals, the portion felt a little on the small side. 

The grocery store freezer section is so full of meals from a wide variety of brands that competition is fierce. While I didn't enjoy as many of the new Mings meals as I would have hoped, the Sweet Chili Chicken & Broccoli was a tasty lunch. So, that option is definitely worth a try for a slightly spicy, mostly sweet noodle dish. 

Unfortunately, by and large, these meals missed the mark because they were too spicy, sometimes not flavored enough, and often too high in sodium for my liking. That said, I appreciated the substantial protein content of each meal, and the meals did deliver satisfaction for the amount of food there. 

The Mings meals generally seem very impressive because, looking at the ingredients, everything appears to be chosen carefully. There are a lot of items listed because the meals contain many components. The lists are long due to the number of ingredients accompanying the main components, such as the different sauces. This shows that care and dedication went into crafting the recipes. Another area that showed a lot of intentionality and attention to detail was the directions for preparation. The ramen instructions differed from the noodle dishes, and the ramen dishes even required that I add some water to prepare them. 

I love noodle dishes, so the opportunity to sample a line of meals devoted to noodles was just too good to pass up. To determine if these were meals that you should pick up on your next Walmart run, I prepared them according to the package instructions and sampled each one. 

I assessed each meal's flavor, the textures at play, and the nutritional content. For flavor, I looked for taste that was enjoyable, and something I would want to eat again. The ideal texture would be something that feels tender, but not mushy, since microwaved meals can sometimes feel that way. Finally, for nutritional value, I wanted a nice balance without going overboard in one particular nutritional aspect.