Review: Thai Kitchen Noodle Cart Thai Peanut

The quest for gluten free convenience foods has been a difficult one for me. I’m not a huge fan of cereal or most breakfast foods so pre-diet my breakfasts were usually something tossed on a slice of bread. Or, when I had time, a really good Southern breakfast with biscuits and milk gravy, sausage and eggs, maybe even grits.


Since I haven’t figured out how to make gravy or biscuits with rice flour, and am rather concerned about the texture if I did find a recipe, I’ve been searching for other options.

Some of my favorite gluten-free foods now come from Thai Kitchen, a division of Simply Asia Foods in Berkeley, California. The local food co-op carries some of their foods as does Kroger and the other grocery story, a Midwestern chain called Schnucks, has a lot of varieties of Thai Kitchen foods. And, this week, they’re on sale!

That meant that today, I had had Thai Peanut noodles from their noodle cart line for breakfast. Yes, for breakfast. The single serving noodle cart line is on sale for $2 each this week. Not a great price, but it’s not bad for breakfast for one. According to the Thai Kitchen site, my choice for breakfast is in the mild category. I would call it too mild. This breakfast had a nice flavor, but was almost sweet. The peanut bits are nice and the meal prepares in less than 5 minutes in the microwave.

But there are some downsides to my noodle-lovers breakfast.

First, the packaging. I am, by no means an environmental extremists, but the Thai Kitchen Noodle Cart meals are wrapped in a cardboard sleeve with all the nutritional an advertising data. Inside that, is the plastic wrapped plastic container with plastic lid for preparing the food in. The rice noodles and oil are also packaged in plastic. And the meal comes with a plastic fork.

Short version, if you need a fully contained meal to take to work and leave in a desk drawer for those days when you forgot lunch, these are perfect. For me, eating at home, it seemed like a lot of environmental waste.

The other problem I had with this dish was due to operator stupidity. The noodles are warmed for 2 minutes in the microwave and then the lid is added to finish steaming the noodles. The box instructs you to carefully hold the plastic container and drain the excess water through the pre punch holes in the lid. I didn’t hold it tightly enough and some of my noodles slid right down the sink.

Second, the nutrition. For pure calorie content, the Thai Kitchen rice noodles are a decent meal, with about 240 calories for a single serving. However, they have 46 grams of carbohydrates and 390 milligrams of sodium. The nutritional content is definitely not the best.

However, for someone like me who often skips breakfast, the noodles are an easy way to change that. The prep time is short and the noodles taste good. They are a product of Thailand, so the taste is reasonably authentic as well.

Bought by the case at the Thai Kitchen website, the cost of the noodle cart entrees drops to $1.67 plus shipping and shipping is based on the total cost of the order, not weight, so it is relatively reasonable as well.

Other gluten-free favorite from Thai Kitchen include their sweet chili sauce – an excellent sauce for dipping anything—and light organic coconut milk. Until Kroger expands their Thai Kitchen offerings, I’m going to need to shop more at Schnucks.

I know there are cute and fancy ways of adding this disclosure, but for now I'll do it this way. I bought the products mentioned here. I paid for them and ate them. The opinions have nothing to do with any promotional activities from Thai Kitchen and Simply Asia Foods except a decent sale at Schnucks.

What Can I Eat That's Gluten-Free?

In many ways the hardest part of going gluten-free for life is avoiding the sneaky places that the food industry uses gluten. And, not just the food industry.

When I decided to take this journey, my husband decided he was all in to help me. For a guy who loves peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, it was a huge concession to my health. Is it any wonder I love this guy?

So, since we were serious about this, or at least giving it a good go, the first thing we did was learn all the ways that gluten might be disguised in your food. Generally speaking, barley, rye and wheat are the main sources of gluten. Some people who are extremely sensitive to gluten also need to avoid oats because they are often processed in the same facilities.

But none of those words make it clear that malt is a barley derivative swimming in gluten. Or, that modified food starch, especially in a product made outside the United States, may mean gluten. Inside the USA, it usually means modified corn starch, but if you are hyper sensitive to gluten, skip it to be safe.

Hydrolized vegetable protein can mean gluten too.

So, when we started going through our cupboards to remove all the gluten-laden products from our house, the box of food to give away kept growing. And growing.

The websites we had consulted warned us about processed foods. That’s ok, we bravely decided, processed foods are bad for us anyway. Then we started looking at our soup. Noodle soups, well, that makes sense. Give them away.

Cream soups. Oh, flour is used as a thickening agent, give those away.

Chinese food. What? That has rice and veggies, so where is the wheat coming from? Most soy sauce has wheat in it. The exception that we have found so far? Kroger brand reduce sodium so-called soy sauce, purists would disagree, does not have any wheat in it. Yippee!

Breads and pastas. Well, we expected that one.

Medications. What? Many of the fillers used to make pills are wheat based, so check with your drug manufacturer or pharmacist to find gluten-free options.

Makeup. Huh? Again, gluten is often used as a filler. I wonder if that’s why even quality makeup makes me break out so badly?

We missed some the first time we went through the cabinets and the first shopping trip to replenish our food options was a nightmare. Who knew that most cereal, even Rice Krispies, are flavored with malt syrup?

But the most devastating discovery was the Lindt milk chocolate is flavored with malt syrup. Lindt truffles has become a staple of our movie going experiences and dessert most nights. Three truffles are not terribly diet-breaking, about 170 calories, and Lindt is so rich that three is enough to satisfy the chocolate urge.

It’s good that the Lindt discovery came after I could feel my foot. Otherwise, this change might have been doomed from the start. The good news? Lindt white chocolate is gluten-free.

After four months on a gluten-free diet we have identified a number of products that we can use and do use, but adjusting to them takes some effort.  More on that tomorrow…