A burrito bowl can be a wonderful thing to enjoy on a chilly day. In fact, it was a cold, dreary morning when we decided to check out the Smart Ones Beef Barbacoa Flavored Bowl. It seemed like a perfect fit for such weather — something that could warm our bellies to stave off winter’s chill. And with only 280 calories, all this warmth comes without dire consequences in the diet department.
This meal is easy enough to cook; simply pop it into the microwave for two and a half minutes, give it a stir, and put it back in for a minute and a half. Simple. (If you’re using a lower-power microwave, the cook time will be a little bit longer, but still just as simple. You can see the full cooking instructions by checking out the package scans at the bottom of this review.)
After that simple process is complete, you’ll pull out a dish that smells quite lovely, despite it’s pale, bland look.
The beef tastes more roast-beefy than barbacoa-ey, and we’re not sure we enjoy that as much as some other people will. Still, we can’t deny that this meat is tender and rich with flavor, which are excellent qualities for burrito-bowl beef to have. It’s a little gristly, but not enough to affect the overall quality of the meat. The portion size is not incredibly generous, but it’s enough that we’d avoid using words like skimpy or sparse. It’s the right amount of meat for this dish, we think.
The rest of the dish is made up of white rice, which is swimming in a tomato-based sauce that’s a little soupy. We’ve definitely had better rice blends, and the sauce is really just okay. It has a little bit of a bite to it and a decent flavor, but we don’t think we’ve stumbled upon our next big craving here. It’s more concerned with being inoffensive than it is with actually being good.
There are some black beans mixed into the rice, but they’re not that good. They’re a bit dried-out, so the insides can be a little crunchy, and we prefer our black beans to be soft in the middle. We do enjoy black beans generally, but these ones have us feeling a little bit disappointed.
The Smart Ones Beef Barbacoa Flavored Bowl is not horrible, but it’s also not anything special. It can’t hold a candle to the Frontera line of burrito bowl-style frozen meals, of course, so if you’re looking for a low-calorie burrito-bowl fix, Frontera has a lot of great offerings that put this Smart Ones meal to shame.
To learn more about the nutrition content, ingredients, or cooking instructions for this Smart Ones barbacoa bowl, check out our package scans below.
