Trader Joe’s offers several easy-to-make bagged freezer meals, and we’ve had the pleasure of trying a few of them now. The Fettuccine with Mushrooms is a mushroom-lover’s delight, and the Seafood Paella is a true kitchen classic.
So we’re looking forward to trying out the Trader Joe’s Low Fat Chicken Chow Mein. This is part of the Trader Ming’s line, though all that really means is that this is an Asian-inspired meal by Trader Joe’s.
This comes with most of the ingredients in the bag, with the noodles bunched into clusters, while the sauce is in its own little packet that will need to be thawed in a cup of warm water. Simply pull the sauce packet out, then dump the rest of the contents of the bag into a pan with some vegetable oil. Cover and cook until it’s ready.
While we were cooking this, there was one particular noodle cluster that just wouldn’t come apart. We stirred it and poked at it, but this thing just wouldn’t budge. Eventually it did break itself up, but we were getting worried that the rest of the noodles were going to burn before these ones even came apart.
Thankfully, this all came out as it should, and a potential catastrophe was avoided. So let’s eat!
First off, the chicken is fantastic. This is some Asian-restaurant-quality chicken, with that pan-fried flavor and consistency. It’s also a perfect match for the sauce.
Now, the sauce is where the problems begin. This sauce has a nice sweet flavor, but it also has some burnt-tasting undertones. These undertones actually work well with the chicken, giving it a hint of grilled flavor, but it makes everything else taste a little burnt. Burnt noodles and burnt veggies are no treat.
The noodles are a bit too rubbery. And since they take up a majority of this dish, that means that the whole thing becomes a bit tricky to eat. You’ll always end up with a bit of noodle in your mouth that you just can’t chew. Plus, as we already mentioned, the noodles taste a bit burnt because of that sauce.
Then there’s the mix of veggies. It’s nothing special, simply a blend of bell peppers, broccoli, and carrots. It’s pretty much what you’d expect from any stir-fried dish. And, as you can probably guess, they pick up some of that burnt flavor from the sauce.
One bag is supposedly three servings, though we’d say we think it’s closer to two. A serving contains only 200 calories (15 from fat), so a half bag contains 300 (22.5 from fat) and a whole bag contains 600 (45 from fat). While the full bag portion starts to seem a bit high in calories, we really don’t recommend eating a full bag at once. It’s a lot of food.
Of course, the sodium is very high. One serving has 960 mg, which means a half bag has 1,440 mg and a full bag has 2,880 mg. While we still don’t recommend eating the full bag at once, even a half bag has a tremendous amount of sodium. Be careful with this one!
Trader Joe’s Low Fat Chicken Chow Mein is better than a lot of its competitors. It’s a huge step over So Right’s Chicken Lo Mein, and it’s also better than anything Healthy Choice offers in this category. Yet it still doesn’t stand out to us as something we’d want to keep coming back to. Perhaps if Trader Joe’s could do something with those burnt undertones, we’d change our minds. But until then, this strikes us as a fairly mediocre Asian-inspired dish.
To learn more about the nutrition content or ingredients in this Trader Joe’s chow mein, check out our package scan below.
I just tried this and was amazed at the flavor and texture, as if it was made from scratch at home. No burnt taste at all. Good flavor overall. Both my wife and I enjoyed it… and we’re not particularly fans of frozen food. So… if you’re reading this post, it might be worth trying this dish again.