Buldak Ramen is an instant noodle packaged with a flavoring powder and spicy sauce packet. Buldak, which translates to “fire chicken” in Korean, first gained popularity in its native South Korea and recently became the subject of a viral food challenge on TikTok.
Since launching in 2012, sales of Buldak ramen have totaled $2.3B. It’s been tagged in more than 360 million posts on TikTok and has racked up millions of views on YouTube. Aside from cooking the noodles according to package instructions, TikTok users are also getting creative by adding eggs, mozzarella cheese, and heavy cream to the cooked noodles.
Over the past two years, search volume for “cheese buldak ramen” is up 350% and search volume for “buldak recipe” is up nearly 500%.
Buldak Ramen is part of the Viral Korean Food meta trend. There are more than 1.1B posts on TikTok’s food channel, including 750M posts tagged as Korean food. Bibigo is one of the most viral Korean food brands. Their products have been on American shelves since 2010, but in just the past four years, sales have increased 1,100%.
Here are three other viral Korean foods:
Frozen kimbap, a seaweed rice roll, originally went viral for being sold at Trader Joe’s in late 2023, and Costco followed by releasing their own version in mid-2024.
Tissue bread is a loaf with dozens of extremely thin slices. The original bread comes from the Truffle Bakery in Seoul, but TikTok users are making it at home as well.
Hwachae is a Korean punch made with fruit and a carbonated drink. The TikTok video that launched this trend now has more than 36M views.