PF Chang’s Chicken Pad Thai Review

PF Chang's Chicken Pad Thai

If you live in a North American suburb and you enjoy Asian-style restaurants, you’re probably familiar with PF Chang’s. This restaurant chain serves up quality dishes for the Asian-food-craving masses. However, sometimes you don’t want to sit in a restaurant or even call out for takeout. If so, PF Chang’s offers yet another way for you to enjoy their food: the PF Chang’s Home Menu line of frozen meals.

We’ve been sampling our way through this line for a while now, having checked out dishes like the Chicken Fried Rice and a couple varieties of lo mein. Today, we’re continuing our adventure through their line with the PF Chang’s Home Menu Chicken Pad Thai. This dish seems a little similar to the Chicken Lo Mein, though obviously the noodles are different.

So how does this dish stack up against the lo mein? Well, let’s dive in and figure it out!

PF Chang's Chicken Pad Thai

When we first pulled this dish out of the microwave, we were surprised at just how packed with veggies this meal is. In fact, we were wondering where the noodles even were. You can see what we mean in the picture above.

However, once we stirred this a bit, we learned that the noodles are at the bottom while everything else is simply piled on top. You’ll need to give this a little stir to bring the noodles to the surface. Once you do, the vegetable portion sizes don’t seem quite as impressive — they’re fairly average as far as Asian-style frozen meals go.

PF Chang's Chicken Pad Thai

As huge mushroom fans, it was the shiitake mushrooms that really excited us. The pieces are pretty large here rather than being chopped up into itty-bitty chunks, which allows you to pull a mushroom of the top and savor it. And these mushrooms taste really, really good, though the consistency is just a little too rubbery for us.

The carrots are really flavorful as well. We’ve had some pretty tasty carrots in our day, even ones that were frozen and reheated, but we’re amazed at how rich the flavor in these carrots is.

The sauce is far sweeter than we were expecting. It tastes great, of course; it’s just really sweet thanks to the addition of tamarind. It also has a little bit of spiciness to it. It won’t have you running to the fridge for a cold glass of milk, but it will probably make your lips and tongue tingle a little bit.

The chicken is really just okay. It’s about average-quality chicken for a frozen meal, and parts of it are a little dry. Thankfully, the sauce really works to elevate the chicken portion.

This dish has 350 calories, which probably won’t ruin a diet for calorie-counters, though it’s slightly outside the range of what we’d call “diet-friendly frozen food.” The sodium here is a killer, however, at 1,000 mg. Yikes!

All things considered, the PF Chang’s Home Menu Chicken Pad Thai is one of the best dishes in PF Chang’s frozen food line. It’s not without its flaws, but it’s so packed with great flavor that we really can’t complain too much. If you’re trying to decide between this and the Chicken Lo Mein we mentioned earlier, we’d absolutely recommend the pad thai over the lo mein.

To learn more about the nutrition content, ingredients, or cooking instructions for this frozen pad thai, check out our package scans below.

PF Chang's Chicken Pad Thai
PF Chang's Chicken Pad Thai
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B. Handel
B. Handel
1 year ago

How this fiery meal could be called Pad Thai, is beyond me. It was not the delicately flavored dish I have had in Thai restaurants. The 2 pepper indication hidden on the package did not prepare me for way-overly spiced dish, which I had trouble finishing. It hid any subtlety in flavoring. There were several little vegetables, a couple of mushrooms and a few nuggets of dried, small chicken chunks. The noodles were good and quite ample. I would never recommend this to anyone.

Graham
Graham
1 year ago
Reply to  B. Handel

I totally agree with everything you said. I have NEVER had Pad Thai in a restaurant that was hot and fiery like this. I also did not see the hidden 2 pepper indicator. Of course, I was actually not looking for it because I’ve never had “Hot Pad Thai”. I had to throw it out …. a complete waste of time and money.

ECS
ECS
1 year ago
Reply to  Graham

Thanks for your fair, honest opinion. Please pardon the ignorant comment below…there is no place here for that behavior.

Lin
Lin
1 year ago
Reply to  B. Handel

Tell me you’re white without telling me you’re white 🙄 And it’s painfully obvious that at least one of the other comments is from you as well.

ECS
ECS
1 year ago
Reply to  Lin

Lovely racist comment, Lin. Yes…it is racist. Regardless of what our current “culture” seems to be encouraging, this behavior is reprehensible and only making the right entire anti-racism effort more difficult. Please refrain from it.

B.K.
1 year ago

Have to agree with the two prior people, much hotter than expected, rated two reds on the box but could have been four. Lucky for me I had an iced beverage to cool my mouth. Never expected the heat with a two pepper rating. Never again.

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