At a quick glance, it might be easy to confuse chicken marsala and chicken masala — they are only one letter apart, after all. However, these two dishes are quite different. Marsala is an Italian American dish, while masala is a spice used in a lot of South Asian dishes. The meal we’re reviewing today features the latter of the two — we’re taking a look at the Evol Chicken Tikka Masala (Meals for 2).
Now, we have reviewed a smaller version of this dish a while back (as well as a burrito version), but we think it’s time to give it a second look. Plus, this larger version is designed for stovetop cooking rather than microwave heating (though you can microwave it if you’ like). While we really enjoyed this the last time we tried it, we thought that cooking this on a stovetop would take it to a whole new level.
The bag claims there are two servings inside, but we’re not so sure about that. The image below shows what a full bag looks like in a serving dish. A single person could definitely polish off this serving of food, right? (Though a full bag will leave you feeling really, really full — take it from our overly ambitious taste testers!)
We said this when we reviewed the smaller version, but we think this is a very tasty frozen meal. The Meals for 2 version ends up being slightly dryer, but that’s not really a bad thing. This isn’t dry enough to be a problem; it’s just that the rice ends up being not soggy at all, whereas the single-serve version’s rice has a little bit of dampness to it.
The chicken is as wonderful as ever. We complimented the chicken the last time we reviewed this, but we think the stovetop only helps to enhance it. This is high-quality chicken, and it deserves to be heated in a skillet.
One thing that surprised us this time around is just how flavorful the carrots are here. They have a strong, fresh flavor that contrasts with the masala in a really satisfying way. When cooked on the stovetop, these carrot chunks also retain some of their crunch, which really helps give the meal as a whole a great consistency.
But how spicy is this? We’d say the spice level here is mild, though spice-ophobes might be inclined to disagree. It will clear your sinuses and make your lips feel a little tingly, but it won’t make the inside of your mouth feel like a furnace. Some might call that a medium spice rating.
Evol recommends half a bag as a portion here, and that’s slightly bigger than a portion of the single-serve version — which is good because we found the smaller portion to be less filling than we hoped it’d be. If you stick with half a bag, you’ll end up eating 300 calories (100 from fat) and 930 mg of sodium. That really, really adds up if you end up eating the whole bag at once, which you could very well end up doing. As we mentioned earlier, this isn’t as extremely large a portion as Evol seems to think it is.
The Meals for 2 version of the Evol Chicken Tikka Masala is even better than its single-serve counterpart. Cooking this on the stovetop really brings a lot of the flavor to the surface and prevents the rice from getting soggy. Plus, the portion size is slightly larger, which makes it a bit more filling.
To learn more about the nutrition content, ingredients, or cooking instructions for this Evol frozen meal, check out our package scans below.
