Instant corn noodles can be manufactured using the air drying and frying process. The objective of this study was to determine the optimum process parameters and emulsifier concentration to produce instant corn noodles from 100% corn flour with relatively good quality characteristics using a cooking-forming single screw extruder. This study consisted of two stages, namely the determination of corn noodles with the fastest cooking time using emulsifier concentrations of 0, 0.5, 1, and 1.5% from the weight of corn flour, as well as the optimization of the manufacturing process using Response Surface Methodology. Wet corn noodles were dried using dry air at room temperature and fried using deep fat frying. The results showed that the dry corn noodle with a 1% emulsifier has the fastest cooking time of 6.1 minutes to reach the optimum cooking level. The optimum process combination was a drying time of 0 minutes and a frying process at 115 °C for 10 minutes. The verification of this process showed that instant corn noodles' water content, cooking loss, and elongation percentage were 13.32%, 10.50%, and 127.48%, respectively, in a 95% confidence interval. In addition, the cooking time of these optimized instant corn noodles was 6.8 minutes.