A little at a time, we’ve been working our way through the Bowl-Fulls line by Stouffer’s, which is designed to feature better-tasting (but more calorie-loaded) takes on classic frozen meals. Sometimes, this works wonderfully. The Chicken Bacon Ranch Pasta, for example, is a real winner. However, sometimes this ends up being kind of a disaster, such as the Southwest-Style Mac & Cheese, which is barely recognizable as a macaroni and cheese dish.
Today we’re checking out the Stouffer’s Fried Chicken & Mashed Potatoes Bowl-Full, and we’re hoping we can file this in the winners category rather than the losers.
Like many Stouffer’s meals, this is no slouch when it comes to cook time. This one will spend seven entire minutes in the microwave. That certainly puts this on the high end of single-serve microwavable meals. This might actually be outside the range of something you’d be comfortable taking to work, as seven minutes is a lot of time to hog the microwave in a cafeteria filled with your hungry coworkers.
So what’s in the box? Well, as you can maybe tell from the image above, you’ve got chunks of fried breaded white-meat chicken on a bed of mashed potatoes, which is covered in gravy and kernels of corn. It’s quite a feast, and the overall portion size is surprisingly generous.
Of course, a majority of that portion size is the mashed potatoes. We’d say the potatoes are about 3/4 of the contents of this meal. Now, that’s not necessarily a bad thing if you love potatoes — these are halfway decent for a frozen batch of mashed potatoes — but we were sort of hoping this would lean a little more heavily toward the chicken side of the equation.
The chicken pieces are a bit smaller than we were expecting. In fact, we’d say each one is maybe half the size of your average chicken nugget. The breading tastes great, but the chicken itself is a bit rubbery. It’s also a white meat, which means it just doesn’t have a lot of flavor. A rich-tasting meat would have really made up for some of this meal’s flaws. It is nice and juicy, though, so it’s not completely without its merits.
Honestly, the gravy doesn’t do this meal any huge favors. It’s an alright-tasting chicken-broth-based affair, but it’s a bit light on flavor and the portion size is stingy compared to how much potato is here. The corn is a nice touch, though it’s not exceptionally high-quality corn or anything. It’s better than some of the frozen corn we’ve tried, but it’s really only so-so.
In case you didn’t believe us when we called the Bowl-Full line “calorie-loaded,” this one has 470 calories. Even worse is the sodium, at 1,260 mg. This is clearly not a meal designed for dieters. Of course, it’s also a pretty sizeable portion of food, so we’re guessing it will fill you up rather than leaving you unsatisfied.
The Stouffer’s Fried Chicken & Mashed Potatoes Bowl-Full is pretty much just alright. This frozen meal is generous when it comes to portion size, but a little bit stingy when it comes to flavor. It’s quite a bit better than Stouffer’s mainline chicken dinner, but it’s nowhere near what you’d expect from a home-cooked meal.
To learn more about the nutrition content, ingredients, or cooking instructions for this frozen dinner, check out our package scans below.
I love this product! Tastes exactly like KFC’s Famous Bowl! Problem is, ever since Stouffers introduced all the new Macaroni and Cheeses bowls, this bowl has been pushed way to the back at every single store within 20 miles of me. They all say they will order it and call me when they come in. But the stores NEVER call! No emails, either! I have offered to buy a case at a time direct from them. No luck. Everyone passes the buck and NO ONE CARES!