When we picked up Lean Cuisine’s Parmesan Crusted Fish, we knew there were two major ways this could shake out. This could either be a total disaster like the Tortilla Crusted Fish, or it could be a pretty tasty meal like many of Lean Cuisine’s pasta dishes. Since we have to eat this food to review it, we obviously hoped for the latter, though we tried to not get our hopes too high.
While this didn’t blow us away, with tampered expectations it’s halfway decent.
Let’s talk about the fish first. If you remove the fish from the breading, you’ll find it to be pretty bland and even a bit slimy. However, the breading is actually quite good, so it sort of balances out. Plus, you can swirl the fish in the sauce a little bit to make it taste a bit more interesting. Be warned, though, there’s hardly any sauce here, so you won’t want to use it liberally on the fish unless you don’t mind eating sauceless penne noodles afterward.
Then again, we might want to use the word “paste” instead of “sauce,” as it better describes the consistency of the tomato-based topping. It tastes very good and has some sweetness to it, as Lean Cuisine’s red sauces typically do. Unfortunately, it starts out congregated mostly around the veggies, and even a good amount of stirring won’t change that. No matter what you do, you’ll likely be eating a majority of the noodles on their own.
The box shows some mozzarella cheese on top of the fish portion, but ours ended up along the edge of the fish, mostly covering a few penne noodles that happened to stray over to that edge of the dish. We’re glad it was there, but we’d have appreciated a bit more precision in the application of the stuff. This would have accented the fish pretty well, further covering the flavorlesness.
There’s not as much zucchini as we hoped. The box doesn’t show a massive amount, but we expected more than three small chunks, which is what we got. Then again, it’s a little too soggy as well, so missing out on more of it might not be the worst thing in the world. This meal is loaded up with carrots, though.
Ultimately, Lean Cuisine’s Parmesan Crusted Fish is a pretty decent frozen fish meal. It’s certainly better than their Tortilla Crusted Fish, which is a complete disaster, though it does have some flaws. So while our feelings are mixed, we’re leaning more toward the positive side with this, and we wouldn’t mind tossing a few of these into the freezer for when that fish craving strikes.
To learn more about the ingredients and nutrition info for this frozen food, check out our package scans below.
