Smart Ones Cordon Bleu Panini Review

Smart Ones Cordon Bleu Panini

When you think of frozen food, we’re pretty sure paninis aren’t the first thing that pops into your mind. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t a whole bunch of frozen food companies attempting to make great frozen paninis. Brands such as Stouffer’s and Lean Cuisine have been making paninis for a while now, and Smart Ones has finally gotten into the frozen panini game. Today, we’re checking out the Smart Ones Cordon Bleu Panini.

Smart Ones used to be connected with Weight Watchers, which meant there would always be a SmartPoints number on the side of the box. It seems that this is no longer true, as this box doesn’t have the number on it. It doesn’t seem like there was a falling out between Smart Ones and Weight Watchers (Smart Ones products still show up on the Weight Watchers website). Plus, as far as we can tell, Weight Watchers is still using the SmartPoints system. We really don’t know what happened here.

But let’s forget about any potential Weight Watchers drama and focus on the sandwich itself.

Smart Ones Cordon Bleu Panini

First off, we should point out that this comes with a crisping tray, which can be placed on top of the box once it’s folded properly. There are perforations where you’re supposed to tear it, but we struggled a little bit and ended up ripping our box in the wrong place. Everything still worked, of course, it just wasn’t as seamless as Smart Ones was probably hoping it would be. They need to look into some better perforation tech, we think.

Aside from all that box-tearing business, this sandwich isn’t difficult to cook. Set the two halves on top of the crisping tray (which should be placed on top of the folded box), and microwave for three minutes and 20 seconds. Then, just smoosh the two sides together and you’ve got a hot panini, ready to be eaten.

Smart Ones Cordon Bleu Panini

The crisping tray really seems to work here. In fact, it might work a little too well. Even though the inside of the panini ends up being kind of greasy, the outside of the bread ends up hard. You’ll want to let this sit for a moment to allow some of the grease on the inside to sort of soften it up before you take a bite.

As for the filling, there’s not much to it. You’ve got some cubes of rib-meat chicken, which are actually not bad, along with some ham, which is diced too small to really have much of an impact on flavor. There’s mozzarella and swiss cheese, which makes everything stick together nicely, and there’s a garlic sauce that brings it all together. It’s not bad, it’s just that the portion sizes are so small that a vast majority of the sandwich is just bread. We’d estimate that this is close to 80% bread.

This panini has 350 calories, which isn’t all that bad until you factor in how small this actually is. We doubt this will be enough to keep you full if you have this for lunch without any sides. In fact, we think you could probably polish off two of these suckers in a sitting.

The Smart Ones Cordon Bleu Panini is a decent attempt at a frozen panini that could really use more filling. Give us a bit more meat and we think we’d really enjoy this. As is, though, it’s just kind of alright, and it’s not filling enough to justify the calorie count.

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

Smart Ones Cordon Bleu Panini
Smart Ones Cordon Bleu Panini
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