Archer Farms Penne Marinara Review

Archer Farms Penne Marinara

The name “penne” comes from the Italian word for “pens.” While this pasta might not look much like the kind of pens we use today, its shape is designed to mimic the nibs of old-fashioned fountain pens. It’s not exactly an appetizing object to make into a pasta shape, but we’re big fans of penne pasta nonetheless. The Archer Farms Penne Marinara is a basic pasta dish for anyone that prefers their meals frozen.

You’ll want to show a little bit of caution when cooking this on the stovetop. The instructions require you to add both oil and water to the pasta as it’s cooked, and combining these ingredients could cause a kitchen disaster. Make sure you don’t add the water to the pan until your pasta is completely covering the oil. As long as you do that, you shouldn’t have any problems heating this up. All you really need to do is add the contents to the pan and stir.

Archer Farms Penne Marinara

As you might be able to tell from the image above, this isn’t an especially saucy dish. We had enough sauce to coat all of our penne noodles, but there wasn’t really anything left over. If you’re adding additional ingredients to this, like say, some veggies or your favorite frozen sausage, this could be a problem. You might be able to thin the sauce out by adding an extra spoonful of water, but since this is a pretty basic sauce, it could leave you with a plain-tasting dish.

Aside from the lack of sauce, we didn’t have any real problems with the dish. The texture of the noodles is perfect, and the tomato sauce is pleasant enough. Still, we can’t help but think that there are better options for frozen penne. This can’t compare to Trader Joe’s saucy, slightly spicy Penne Arrabbiata. If you’re looking for a fast pasta dish, we’d recommend you try Lean Cuisine Origins Spicy Penne Arrabbiata or Penne Rosa instead. There’s nothing wrong with this meal, but you’ll find better options in the freezer aisle.

The Archer Farms Penne Marinara is a decent frozen pasta meal, but it didn’t really impress us. If you’re a big fan of Target’s Archer Farms line, you might want to give this a try. Otherwise, we’d suggest that you look elsewhere when you’re craving penne. There’s stiff competition when it comes to frozen penne dishes, and this meal just doesn’t measure up,

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

Archer Farms Penne Marinara
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