On a cold evening, there are few things more craveable than a nice helping of General Tso’s chicken. Healthy Choice makes a frozen version of this classic dish — weighing in at about 290 calories — so dieters can get some of that Tso’s without having to leave the house or cheat on their diet. We took this dish for a little taste test on a cold evening to see if it could satisfy our craving.
Like many of Healthy Choice’s other dishes, the General Tso’s Spicy Chicken comes with its ingredients in a plastic colander where they stay elevated above the sauce in the bottom of the bowl.
Once you finish heating up this dish, simply peel of the plastic and mix them all together.
Of course, while this works pretty well for pasta dishes, we tend to be less enthused about it when it comes to stir fry dishes. Without some careful manipulating, it’s no simple task to get the sauce on the chicken where it belongs instead of just mixed in with everything else. That’s a flaw we’ve dinged Healthy Choice dishes for in the past, and it rears its ugly head here too.
Now, don’t get us wrong here, the Tso’s sauce is pretty tasty. It’s also a tad spicy, and it gives your belly that nice warm feeling. In fact, we found ourselves scraping the bottom of the colander to get more of that Tso’s sauce into the meal. But this is supposed to be Genral Tso’s chicken on a bed of rice and veggies, not General Tso’s everything-mixed-together. Plus with the low calorie count, we weren’t allowed enough sauce to really cover the rice and veggies. Removing the colander system would have been a better choice for this particular dish.
The chicken is alright as far as texture goes, but it’s a lean white meat without a lot of flavor of its own. It really needs to be drenched in sauce, which, as we’ve already explained, there just isn’t enough of. The white rice is also designed to soak up sauce, so it also suffers when the sauce portion is too small to accommodate all the rice.
The veggies are a similar story. There are chunks of carrots and some peas, but they really don’t do much for the overall flavor of the dish. Drown ’em in sauce, we say! Obviously, that’s not a feasible choice.
Healthy Choice had a chance to really nail the General Tso’s Spicy Chicken, but the dish ends up falling short. Interestingly enough, we think every one of this dish’s flaws could be easily covered with just a little more generosity from the sauce department. Even if extra Tso’s sauce would pump the calories up to, say, 350, we’d be pretty happy with this dish. As is. it’s not really what we were hoping for, and we still find ourselves craving a less healthy version of this dish.
To learn more about the nutrition or ingredients found in this frozen food, our package scan below has more info.
