Frozen Korean food can be pretty hit or miss. We’ve found some excellent options — especially the Bibimbap Bowl from Trade Joe’s — but we’ve also found quite a few duds. Lean Cuisine throws its own hat into the frozen Korean food ring with the Sweet & Spicy Korean-Style Beef.
First of all, this comes out of the microwave smelling great. It has that sweet Korean BBQ scent, which we love. That’s because of the sauce, which may look a little runny in the picture below, but it tastes great. It relies far more heavily on the “sweet” part of its name than the “spicy” part, so spice-o-phobes should be okay with this.
The beef is a little iffy. The texture is great, and it has that melt-in-your-mouth consistency, but the taste is a little off. That’s actually not a big deal here, though, because once you dowse the beef in the delicious Korean-style sauce, it really comes together. It’s also a bit gristly around the edges, which some people might find off-putting, but we really enjoyed it.
Unfortunately, this dish is about two thirds rice. That wouldn’t be a problem if this rice were good, but it’s as bland as can be. You’ll want to slosh some sauce onto it, though you’ll run out of sauce long before you run out of rice. There are some yellow and orange carrots mixed in, but they’re not enough to save the rice.
The package advertises nice cuts of zucchini. While zucchini is present in this dish, it comes in small bits and there really isn’t a whole lot of them. We only counted a few pieces in our dish. More zucchini would have been a welcome respite from the barren wasteland that is this rice.
Lean Cuisine’s Sweet & Spicy Korean-Style Beef is a mixed bag of pros and cons. While the beef and sauce portion is really good, the rice really brings down the overall quality of the dish. The small amount of veggies tries really hard to make up for it, but there’s only so much a tiny portion can do. This meal might get you out of a pickle if you’re craving Korean food and don’t know where to turn, but there are plenty of better options out there. We strongly recommend Trader Joe’s Bibimbap Bowl (which we mentioned before) or Evol’s Bulgogi Beef over this Lean Cuisine frozen meal.
If you want to learn more about the nutrition content and ingredients of this Korean-style frozen food, check out our package scans below.
