Trader Joe’s Southwestern Chicken Quesadillas with Seasoned Vegetables Review

Trader Joe's Southwestern Chicken Quesadillas with Seasoned Vegetables

When it comes to Southwestern-style appetizers, it’s really hard to top a quesadilla — especially when it’s jam-packed with chicken and vegetables. Trader Joe’s offers their own take on this classic with the Southwestern Chicken Quesadillas with Seasoned Vegetables.

Since the Shrimp Soft Tacos were so delicious, we were itching to get back to Trader Joe’s Southwestern dishes. These quesadillas were the perfect thing.

Trader Joe's Southwestern Chicken Quesadillas with Seasoned Vegetables

One box contains two quesadillas. They’re individually wrapped, so you can eat one at a time if you choose. We always appreciate when servings are portioned out in frozen foods, but we did wrestle with the box on this one a bit. By the time we got it open, we had completely destroyed any hope of using the tab to keep it closed in the freezer.

Trader Joe's Southwestern Chicken Quesadillas with Seasoned Vegetables

Now, there are several different ways to cook this meal, and since we had two quesadillas we decided to try out two of them. The first was the microwave version. We wrapped a quesadilla in a paper towel, then stuck it in the microwave for three minutes. We flipped the thing over and cooked it for an additional minute.

We expected this to come out a bit soggy, but it didn’t. In fact, we’re not sure how Trader Joe’s was able to pull off this magical feat, but these quesadillas come out of the microwave really crispy.

Trader Joe's Southwestern Chicken Quesadillas with Seasoned Vegetables

The box never promised that these would be super thick or anything, but we were still a little disappointed at how thin they end up being.

Trader Joe's Southwestern Chicken Quesadillas with Seasoned Vegetables

But it’s hard to complain once you bite into one of these. Normally, quesadillas come packed mainly with cheese. That’s not the case here — these are stuffed with all sorts of things, including bell peppers, corn, black beans, spinach, and chicken. There is some pepper jack cheese, but it takes a backseat to the other ingredients. In fact, these quesadillas would almost classify as crispy burritos.

The chicken has a lovely roasted flavor, and it sort of takes center stage here. Of course, the rest of the filling blends to create a Southwestern flavor explosion. These quesadillas are delicious. We do have a complaint about the corners, though, as those remain mostly empty, so eating a corner can be a bummer.

As we mentioned above, there are other ways to cook these guys. The second method we tried was in the oven. We preheated our oven to 375 degrees fahrenheit, wrapped the quesadilla in tinfoil, then tossed it onto a cookie sheet and stuck it in the oven. We cooked it for 20 minutes, flipped it, then cooked it for about 15 more.

Trader Joe's Southwestern Chicken Quesadillas with Seasoned Vegetables

The oven version browned a bit more than the microwave one, which was expected. What surprised us, however, was that the filling seemed to puff up a bit, bringing the quesadilla closer to the size shown on the box.

Trader Joe's Southwestern Chicken Quesadillas with Seasoned Vegetables

We’re not sure what caused the change in size here, but we’ll definitely take it, as this is much closer to what we were hoping for from this meal.

Believe it or not, the oven version wasn’t crispier than the microwave one. In fact, we’d say it was slightly less crispy. It had the same great taste, though, and the same empty corners as its microwaved companion.

These aren’t diet-friendly by any means. A single quesadilla has 400 calories (160 from fat), so if you end up eating the full box you’ll consume 800 full calories. On the other hand, the sodium isn’t as bad as so many of the other frozen dinners we’ve eaten, at 490 mg. Now, keep in mind that we wouldn’t consider this sodium level to be low, but it’s not rare that we see twice this much or more in the frozen foods we review here at Freezer Meal Frenzy.

Trader Joe’s Southwestern Quesadillas with Seasoned Vegetables are very good. We really love the Southwestern vibe, and we’re thankful to get something that tastes good even without dumping loads of sour cream and salsa on top (which is what we normally do with our quesadillas). Trader Joe’s has a real winner on their hands.

To learn more about the ingredients and nutrition content in this frozen food, check out our package scan below.

Trader Joe's Southwestern Chicken Quesadillas with Seasoned Vegetables

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