Lean Cuisine’s Roasted Garlic White Bean Alfredo is supposed to be a “Limited Edition” item. We’re not sure what that means, because it seems like we find this frozen meal everywhere we go. But today, we finally decided to actually see what all this “Limited Edition” fuss is all about.
Now, to be clear, we’re pretty sure this is just a product that Lean Cuisine decided to test out for a short period of time, so it might not be around forever. However, the words “Limited Edition,” as well as the hubbub all over the packaging, means we can’t help but have our expectations raised.
The “Roasted Garlic” part of the title is apt here, because it makes up a majority of the flavor. We want to give it the benefit of the doubt and wonder if the flavors of the individual ingredients just seemed muted in comparison, but we suspect that the garlic was added to cover up the fact that this is a fairly bland meal. This is a heartburn-inducing amount of garlic.
And that’s kind of a shame, because this dish does a few clever things that we could really appreciate. The white beans, for example, seem like an odd choice — obviously, they’re here to add some protein to this meatless dish, but we’re surprised at how well it works. If they had a little more flavor and were a little less dry, these would be an incredible addition to this dish.
Lean Cuisine also slipped in what we thought were yellow bell peppers, but according to the package are actually yellow carrots. They blend in with the linguine noodles so they’re a little hard to spot if you’re not looking for them. This was also a good choice, as it adds some interesting variation to the texture.
And, of course, there’s a good amount of spinach, which we really like.
The problem with all of this is that, as we mentioned earlier, nothing really stands out on its own. Everything feels just a little too bland, except the garlic, which overpowers everything else in the dish. With a little tweaking, this dish could be great.
The packaging of Lean Cuisine’s Roasted Garlic White Bean Alfredo might call it a “Limited Edition” item, but this seems like much ado about nothing. While it does some interesting things, it overcompensates for the blandness of its flavor with too much garlic. We’d like to imagine that there’s an alternate universe out there in which Lean Cuisine got this recipe just right, and it was an instant classic. In our current universe, however, this meal just leaves a bad taste in our mouth. Literally.
If you’re just dying to know more about this frozen food, check out our package scans below for the ingredients and nutrition facts.
