Frontera Barbacoa Taco Bowl Review

Frontera Barbacoa Taco Bowl

The Frontera line of frozen taco bowls is supposedly by the world-famous chef Rick Bayless. We’re not sure if that by  means created by, inspired by, or simply licensed by. Regardless, we thought the Frontera Barbacoa Taco Bowl was worth a try.

First things first, let’s talk about the beef. There are some pretty nice-sized chunks in this meal, and the flavor is great. Some of the pieces even have a bit of charring along the edges to give it that grilled flavor. However, we did find it to be just a little too dry. If we could pair this rich flavor with a juicier meat, we’d have found the perfect beef.

A lot of the bowls we’ve tried — whether Mexican-style or Asian-style — pad out their content with heaps of rice. That’s not the case here. While there is definitely some rice in this dish, it’s spaced out between generous fajita and bean portions. Plus, this is a mix of several different types of rice: you’ve got white rice, brown rice, and red rice, and all of it is seasoned with a bit of amaranth.

Frontera Barbacoa Taco Bowl

There’s a pretty good amount of vegetables in here. This meal doesn’t skimp on the red bell peppers, which are fire-roasted and flavorful. You should also expect to find decent-sized chunks of tomato and onion.

The barbacoa sauce is a bit runnier than we expected, so it seeps down to the bottom of the dish. Now, you can actually use this to your benefit if you make a conscious effort to mix the beef chunks down to the bottom of the dish and let them soak for a little bit — then you end up with some pretty darn tasty beef.

This dish has been given a medium spice rating, though we think that’s a bit of an exaggeration. We’d be tempted to give this a mild spice rating, though we did notice the heat tends to build over time. Perhaps it does work its way up to a medium by the time you’re done with it. We certainly did find our sinuses to be clearing out by the end.

Okay, so maybe we do agree with the medium rating.

This is actually a low-calorie dish, with only 290 calories inside. It also keeps the sodium nice and low, at only 480 mg. For a dish with this much going on, that’s pretty impressive.

The Frontera Barbacoa Taco Bowl isn’t perfect, but it’s pretty darn good. We found the beef and sauce to be a little inconsistent, which is a problem that works itself out if you make a conscious effort to eat everything in a particular order. Even if you don’t want to put in all that effort, it’s still a pretty high-quality taco bowl as is.

To learn more about the nutrition facts or ingredients in this frozen taco bowl, check out our package scans below.

Frontera Barbacoa Taco Bowl

Frontera Barbacoa Taco Bowl

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