Portal:Instant foods
Portal maintenance status: (October 2018)
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Introduction
This is a list of instant foods. In contemporary times, instant foods can be defined as foods that provide convenience to consumers and assists in reducing "the time of preparation/cooking and drudgery", whereby no more than five minutes of time is required from the time of food preparation to the food being consumed. Some instant foods include food products that involve the dissolving of a powder in hot water, or the dilution of a concentrated stock solution, such as occurs with condensed soup. The category of "ultra-instant food" comprises instant foods that require less than one minute of time to prepare, such as instant tea. Some instant foods are prepared using freeze-drying.
Selected general articles
Gravy is a sauce often made from the juices of meats that run naturally during cooking and thickened with wheat flour or cornstarch for added texture. In the United States and Singapore, the term can refer to a wider variety of sauces. The gravy may be further colored and flavored with gravy salt (a simple mix of salt and caramel food colouring) or gravy browning (gravy salt dissolved in water) or ready-made cubes and powders can be used as a substitute for natural meat or vegetable extracts. Canned and instant gravies are also available. Gravy is commonly served with roasts, meatloaf, rice, and mashed potatoes. Read more...- Smash is a brand of Instant mashed potatoes in the United Kingdom.
It was launched in the UK in the 1960s by Cadbury, which was primarily a manufacturer of confectionery at the time. Smash was reasonably successful. However, it was not until 1974 that Smash became popular in the convenience food market after Cadbury launched an advertising campaign by agency Boase Massimi Pollitt featuring the Smash Martians, who would watch humans preparing mashed potato the traditional way on television instead of using potato granules, and laugh at them. The 1970s adverts and their 'For Mash Get Smash' catchphrase were voted TV ad of the century by Campaign Magazine, and 2nd best television advert of all time in a 2000 poll conducted by The Sunday Times and Channel 4, beaten by Guinness' Surfer advertisement from 1999. Read more...
Funmatsucha: instant green tea
Instant tea is a powder in which water is added, in order to reconstitute it into a cup of tea. The earliest form of instant tea was developed in the United Kingdom in 1885. A patent was granted for a paste made of concentrated tea extract, sugar, and evaporated milk, which became tea when hot water was added. However, no notable developments were made until spray drying technology allowed for drying the tea concentrates at a temperature which did not damage the flavors of the product. Read more...- Portable soup was a kind of dehydrated food used in the 18th and 19th centuries. It was a precursor of the later meat extract and bouillon cubes, and of industrially dehydrated food. It is also known as pocket soup or veal glew. It is a cousin of the glace de viande of French cooking. It was long a staple of seamen and explorers, for it would keep for many months or even years. In this context, it was a filling and nutritious dish. Portable soup of less extended vintage was, according to the 1881 Household Cyclopedia,
"exceedingly convenient for private families, for by putting one of the cakes in a saucepan with about a quart of water, and a little salt, a basin of good broth may be made in a few minutes." Read more... - Tang is a fruit-flavored drink that was formulated by General Foods Corporation food scientist William A. Mitchell in 1957, and first marketed in powdered form in 1959. The Tang brand is currently owned by Mondelēz International, a 2012 North American company split off of Kraft Foods Inc.
Sales of Tang were poor until NASA used it on John Glenn's Mercury flight in February 1962, and on subsequent Gemini missions. Since then it has been closely associated with the U.S. manned spaceflight program, and created the misconception that Tang was invented for the space program. Read more...
Commercial soup became popular with the invention of canning in the 19th century, and today a great variety of canned and dried soups are on the market. Read more...
Close-up of a Times Square advertisement for Cup Noodles. Notice the actual steam rising from the cup.
This is a list of instant noodle brands. Instant noodles are a dried or precooked noodle block, usually sold with a packet of flavoring powder and/or seasoning oil. Dried noodles are usually eaten after being cooked or soaked in boiling water, while precooked noodles can be reheated or eaten straight from the packet. The instant noodle was invented by Momofuku Ando of Nissin Foods in Japan. They were launched in 1958 under the brand name Chikin Ramen. Read more...- Various dried foods in a dried foods store
This is a list of notable dried foods. Food drying is a method of food preservation that works by removing water from the food, which inhibits the growth of bacteria and has been practiced worldwide since ancient times to preserve food. Where or when dehydration as a food preservation technique was invented has been lost to time, but the earliest known practice of food drying is 12,000 BC by inhabitants of the modern Middle East and Asia. Read more...
Instant soup is a type of soup designed for fast and simple preparation. Some are homemade, and some are mass-produced on an industrial scale and treated in various ways to preserve them. A wide variety of types, styles and flavors of instant soups exist. Commercial instant soups are usually dried or dehydrated, canned, or treated by freezing. Read more...
The Meal, Ready-to-Eat – commonly known as the MRE – is a self-contained, individual field ration in lightweight packaging bought by the U.S. Department of Defense for its service members for use in combat or other field conditions where organized food facilities are not available. While MREs should be kept cool, they do not need to be refrigerated. MREs replaced the canned MCI, or Meal, Combat, Individual rations, in 1981, and is the intended successor to the lighter LRP ration developed by the United States Army for Special Forces and Ranger patrol units in Vietnam. MREs have also been distributed to civilians during natural disasters. Read more...- A drink mix, or powdered drink mix is a processed-food product, a powder designed to mix usually with water to produce a beverage resembling fruit juice or soda in flavor. Another type of drink mix is represented by products that must be mixed into milk. Read more...
- Coconut milk powder is a fine, white powder used in Southeast Asian and other cuisines. Coconut milk powder is manufactured through the spray drying process of raw unsweetened coconut cream and is reconstituted with water for use in recipes that call for coconut milk. Many commercially available coconut milk powders list milk or casein among their ingredients. Read more...
Quaker Instant Oatmeal (Instant Quaker Oatmeal until 1995) is a type of oatmeal made by the Quaker Oats Company, first launched in 1966. Read more...
Backcountry camping food includes ingredients used to prepare food suitable for backcountry camping and backpacking. The foods differ substantially from the ingredients found in a typical home kitchen. The primary differences relate to campers' and backpackers' special needs for foods that have appropriate cooking time, perishability, weight, and nutritional content.
To address these needs, camping food is often made up of either freeze-dried, precooked or dehydrated ingredients. Many campers use a combination of these foods. Read more...
Cup-a-Soup is an instant soup product sold under various brands worldwide. The soup is sold in sachets of powder which can be poured into a mug or cup, which is then filled with near-boiling water and stirred.
In the United States and Canada the product is manufactured and marketed by Unilever's Lipton brand, and in Australia under the Continental brand. In the United Kingdom the product is sold as Batchelors Cup-a-Soup, a brand which is now owned by Premier Foods.[citation needed] In the Netherlands it is sold under the Unox brand. In South Africa, Sweden, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Argentina and Poland it is sold under the Knorr brand. Read more...- Bisto is a well-known brand of traditional British foods in the United Kingdom, most famous for its gravy products. Read more...
- Instant breakfast typically refers to breakfast food products that are manufactured in a powdered form, which are generally prepared with the addition of milk and then consumed as a drink. Some instant breakfasts are produced and marketed in liquid form, being pre-mixed. The target market for instant breakfast products includes consumers who tend to be busy, such as students and working adults. Read more...
- Nesquik is a brand of products made by Nestlé. In 1948, Nestlé launched a mix for chocolate-flavored milk called Nestle Quik. This was released in Europe during the 1950s as Nesquik.
Since 1999, the brand has been known as Nesquik worldwide. Today, the Nesquik name appears on a wide range of products, including breakfast cereals, powdered mixes for flavored milk, syrups, ready to drink products, candy bars, chocolate fondue fountains, hot cocoa mix, and more. Read more...
Ovaltine (Ovomaltine) is a brand of milk flavoring product made with malt extract (except in the blue packaging in the United States), sugar (except in Switzerland), and whey. Some flavors also have cocoa. Ovaltine, a registered trademark of Associated British Foods, is made by Wander AG, a subsidiary of Twinings, which acquired the brand from Novartis in 2002, except in the United States, where Nestlé acquired the rights separately from Novartis later on. Read more...- A cup of roasted beef and ramen instant noodles
This is a list of instant foods. In contemporary times, instant foods can be defined as foods that provide convenience to consumers and assists in reducing "the time of preparation/cooking and drudgery", whereby no more than five minutes of time is required from the time of food preparation to the food being consumed. Some instant foods include food products that involve the dissolving of a powder in hot water, or the dilution of a concentrated stock solution, such as occurs with condensed soup. The category of "ultra-instant food" comprises instant foods that require less than one minute of time to prepare, such as instant tea. Some instant foods are prepared using freeze-drying. Read more... - Milo /ˈmaɪloʊ/ (stylized as MILO) is chocolate and malt powder that is mixed with hot water and milk to produce a beverage popular mainly in Oceania, South America, South-east Asia and certain parts of Africa. Produced by Nestlé, Milo was originally developed by Australian inventor Thomas Mayne in 1934. It is marketed and sold in many countries.
Most commonly sold as a powder in a green tin, often depicting various sporting activities, Milo is available as a premixed beverage in some countries, and has been subsequently developed into a snack bar and breakfast cereal. Its composition and taste differ in some countries. Read more...
Instant noodles are a noodle dish, sold in a precooked and dried noodle block, with flavoring powder and/or seasoning oil. The flavoring is usually in a separate packet, although in the case of cup noodles the flavoring is often loose in the cup. Some instant noodle products are seal packed; these can be reheated or eaten straight from the packet/container. Dried noodle blocks are designed to be cooked or soaked in boiling water before eating, but can be consumed dry.
The main ingredients used in dried noodles are usually wheat flour, palm oil, and salt. Common ingredients in the flavoring powder are salt, monosodium glutamate, seasoning, and sugar. The dried noodle block was originally created by flash frying cooked noodles, and this is still the main method used in Asian countries, but air-dried noodle blocks are favored in Western countries. Read more...
Powdered eggs are fully dehydrated eggs. They are made using spray drying in the same way that powdered milk is made. The major advantages of powdered eggs over fresh eggs are the reduced weight per volume of whole egg equivalent and the shelf life. Other advantages include smaller usage of storage space, and lack of need for refrigeration. Powdered eggs can be used without rehydration when baking, and can be rehydrated to make dishes such as scrambled eggs and omelettes.
Powdered eggs appear in literature as a staple of camp cooking at least as early as 1912. Read more...
The Individual Meal Pack or IMP is one type of field ration used by the Canadian Forces. The IMP is designed so that a continuous diet provides all the nutrition needed to sustain a soldier in the field. The IMP meets Canada's nutrition requirements, with the exception of calcium and folic acid, which are not significant if the consumption period of rations is less than 30 (consecutive) days. IMPs will provide 1200-1400 calories per meal.
Contents of the combat rations are subject to a three-year research and development cycle, where new meals are added, and some replaced. Every second year, new meals are field tested by three groups of 60 people drawn from each of the three Canadian Army brigades. In all, there are 21 meals available broken up into two categories of seven breakfasts and 14 meals suitable as noon or evening meals. In addition to the main meal, each IMP contains assorted basics such as powdered coffee, protein and sports drink mixes, energy bars, trail mix, peanut butter, cereal, condiments, candy, chocolate, gum, a plastic spoon, a wet towelette and matches. Read more...- The oat grains are dehusked by impact, then heated and cooled to stabilize the oat groats – the seed inside the husk. The process of heating produces a nutty flavour in the oats. These oat groats may be milled to produce fine, medium or coarse oatmeal. Steel-cut oats may be small and contain broken groats from the dehusking process (these bits may be steamed and flattened to produce smaller rolled oats).
Rolled oats are steamed and flattened whole oat groats. Old-fashioned oats can be thick and take a while to boil to make porridge. Quick-cooking rolled oats (quick oats) are cut into small pieces before being steamed and rolled. Instant oatmeal is precooked and dried, often with a sweetener, such as sugar, and flavourings added. Read more...
Bird's Custard is the brand name for the original powdered, egg-free imitation custard powder, now owned by Premier Foods. Custard powder and instant custard powder are the generic product names for similar and competing products. The product is a cornflour-based powder which thickens to form a custard-like sauce when mixed with milk and heated. Read more...
Instant coffee, also called soluble coffee, coffee crystals, and coffee powder, is a beverage derived from brewed coffee beans that enables people to quickly prepare hot coffee by adding hot water to the powder or crystals and stirring. Instant coffee is commercially prepared by either freeze-drying or spray drying, after which it can be rehydrated. Instant coffee in a concentrated liquid form is also manufactured.
Advantages of instant coffee include speed of preparation (instant coffee dissolves quickly in hot water), lower shipping weight and volume than beans or ground coffee (to prepare the same amount of beverage), and long shelf life—though instant coffee can spoil if not kept dry. Instant coffee also reduces cleanup since there are no coffee grounds, and at least one study has found that it has a lower environmental footprint than other preparation methods. Read more...
Humanitarian daily rations (HDRs) are food rations manufactured in the United States intended to be supplied to civilians and other non-military personnels in humanitarian crises.
Each is intended to serve as a single person's full daily food supply, and contain somewhat over 2,200 calories. They have shelf-lives of about 3 years, and their contents are designed to be acceptable to a variety of religious and ethnic groups.
The rations were first used in Bosnia in 1993. Read more...
Instant white rice (microwave ready, not dehydrated) sold in Korea
Instant rice is rice that has been precooked. Some types are microwave ready. Some types are dehydrated so that they cook more rapidly. Regular rice requires 18-30 minutes to cook while instant rice needs 1-7 minutes. Because it has already been cooked, all that is necessary to prepare instant rice is to simply microwave it or re-hydrate it with hot water. Read more...
Powdered milk or dried milk is a manufactured dairy product made by evaporating milk to dryness. One purpose of drying milk is to preserve it; milk powder has a far longer shelf life than liquid milk and does not need to be refrigerated, due to its low moisture content. Another purpose is to reduce its bulk for economy of transportation. Powdered milk and dairy products include such items as dry whole milk, nonfat (skimmed) dry milk, dry buttermilk, dry whey products and dry dairy blends. Many dairy products exported conform to standards laid out in Codex Alimentarius. Many forms of milk powder are traded on exchanges.
Powdered milk is used for food and health (nutrition), and also in biotechnology (saturating agent). Read more...
Instant mashed potatoes are potatoes that have been through an industrial process of cooking, mashing and dehydrating to yield a packaged convenience food that can be reconstituted by adding hot water or milk, producing an
approximation of mashed potatoes. They are available in different flavors.
Mashed potatoes can be reconstituted from potato flour, but the process is made more difficult by lumping; a key characteristic of instant mashed potatoes is that it is in the form of flakes or granules, eliminating the chunkiness. Analogous to instant mashed potatoes are instant poi made from taro and instant fufu made from yams or yam substitutes including cereals. Poha, an instant rice mush, is also much in the same spirit, as more broadly are other instant porridges, formed from flakes, granules, or pearls to avoid lumping. Brands include Smash and Idahoan Foods. Read more...
Instant pudding and pie filling is an instant food product that is manufactured in a powder form and used to create puddings and pie filling. It is produced using sugar, flavoring agents and thickeners as primary ingredients. Many flavors of instant pudding are produced by Kraft Foods and Jel Sert and marketed under the Jell-O and Royal brand names. Instant pudding can be used in some baked goods. Read more...
Did you know...
- ... that some instant puddings are vegan?
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Selected images
Instant rice – pictured is a microwaveable brown rice
Mixed Bird's Custard
A cup of hot Milo
An opened cup of an instant noodle brand that is packaged with dehydrated fried tofu
A prepared chicken & vegetable cup-a-soup
Various reconstituted instant teas
A cup of roasted beef and ramen instant noodles
Contents of a Meal, Ready-to-Eat package
A box of U.S.-made powdered eggs, prepared using whole dried eggs
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