While they definitely have some misses in their lineup, Healthy Choice makes some pretty good low-calorie frozen meals. So we had high hopes when we dived into their Kung Pao Chicken. We were especially excited about the calorie count, which is only 270.
Now, we know we’re repeating ourselves here, but we think it’s worth mentioning that this comes with a colander that keeps the ingredients elevated above the sauce while you’re cooking it.
When you’re done cooking, you simply dump the colander into the dish below, which contains all the sauce, and stir.
While this works really well for many of Healthy Choice’s pasta dishes, we’re a bit less enthused about it in their Asian-inspired dishes. And that holds true for the Kung Pao Chicken as well. We would have loved that nice glaze on the chicken that sort of drips into the rice while it’s cooling. Instead, the whole thing is just all mixed together — unless you carefully separate everything before stirring. And who has time for all that?
The kung pao sauce is pretty good, all things considered. Plus, the chicken isn’t half bad. While it’s white meat, so it has a bit less flavor than its dark counterpart, it’s still juicy and textured, and it tastes great with the kung pao sauce.
There are also some veggies mixed in. While the edamame and bell peppers are a wonderful choice, we’re not enthused about the water chestnuts. Now, your milage may vary on this, so take this with a grain of salt, but we really, really don’t like water chestnuts. We find their crunch to be disconcerting and their flavor to be fairly bland. But we understand that not everyone feels this way — we’re sure there are many lovers of water chestnuts out there.
All this comes on a bed of brown rice.
Healthy Choice’s Kung Pao Chicken isn’t exactly the meal we were hoping for, but it isn’t bad. We’re not excited enough about it to incorporate it into our regular frozen food repertoire, but we don’t hate it either. it’s just not really for us, and that’s perfectly okay.
If you want to know more about the ingredients or nutrition content of this frozen food, check out our package scans below.
