Eating Well Chicken & Wild Rice Stroganoff Review

Eating Well Chicken & Wild Rice Stroganoff

Writing frozen food reviews can be a thankless job sometimes. When we’re reviewing something we absolutely love, like the Trader Joe’s Broccoli & Cauliflower Gratin, then just getting to eat a delicious frozen food is its own reward. But when it comes time to review something by Eating Well, we know it’s not going to be a good day.

We’ve eaten several Eating Well meals now, including the Spicy Asian Inspired Chicken, Steak Carne Asada, and the Vermont Cheddar Mac & Cheese, just to name a few. One frequent complaint is that these meals tend to have low-quality ingredients that are just barely saved by a tasty sauce.

We also think Eating Well’s Fresh-Seal technology is ridiculous. This food is basically vacuum-sealed, which is supposed to preserve the freshness and flavor, though it ends up doing neither of those things. It’s nothing more than a gimmick, and we’re pretty sure Eating Well knows this. But it you take away the Fresh-Seal, there’s nothing left but a really generic frozen food. So they’ve sort of painted themselves into a corner with this one (or, more accurately, they vacuum-sealed themselves into a corner).

Needless to say, we weren’t excited to try the Eating Well Chicken & Wild Rice Stroganoff. We wanted to point that out before we got to the review, because it’s possible that our negative perception of the brand might color this whole review.

Now, the cook time on this is confusingly long. There are three sets of cooking instructions for three different microwave wattages, and even if you have a 1,100-watt microwave (like we do), you’ll have to cook this for four to four and a half minutes, then stir, then cook for another minute and a half to two minutes. The minimum cook time, then, is 6 minutes. If you have a 900-watt microwave, prepare to spend seven and a half to eight and a half minutes heating this thing.

Eating Well Chicken & Wild Rice Stroganoff

We’re actually not sure why this needed to be cooked so long. After our first four and a half minutes, it seemed pretty much done. Yet we obeyed the instructions and popped it in for two more minutes in case there was something going on that we just weren’t understanding.

The best part of this entire meal is the chicken. It’s juicy and rich, and it even has subtle hints of a smoky flavor. Of course, not all the chicken in this dish is created equal, and we ended spitting out a few pieces because they were too gristly to even chew properly. And we’re nervous that we might have ended up with a fleck of bone in one piece, though it’s hard to say for certain.

The Brussels sprouts are actually pretty tasty on the outside, though they’re a bit slimy. The big problem, however, is that they’re brown on the inside. Yes, these actually look kind of rotten. They taste rotten too. And the rotten insides really make you second guess those tasty, beautifully green outsides.

The carrots taste a little funky as well, and we’re really not sure what went wrong here. Underneath the carrot-y taste, which is quite good, there’s something lingering that we just don’t like.

The wild rice is halfway decent. It’s not the best wild rice we’ve ever had, but it’s pretty good. The problem is that we don’t think it mixes well with the sauce. We absolutely love mushrooms, so a mushroom sauce would normally make us very happy. This stuff, however, is kind of bland, and the little bit of flavor it does have is just kind of gross. We probably still have those Brussels sprouts on our mind, because we think this sauce tastes a little bit rotten.

One of the benefits of this meal is that it’s low in calories. At 290 calories (80 from fat), you’re not going to ruin a diet with this. So if you end up eating this, you won’t waste a cheat day. It’s also not very big, so even if you do manage to choke down the rotten bits, you will end up still being hungry.

The Eating Well Chicken & Wild Rice Stroganoff certainly won’t end up on any “Best Frozen Food” lists. If you don’t mind the taste of rotten food, you’ll probably think this is okay. If you’re a normal person and think rotten food is gross, you’ll still be able to pick a few pieces out of this meal that are pretty good. But is it worth the effort? We really don’t think so.

If you’re curious about the nutrition content or ingredients in this Eating Well frozen food, check out our package scans below.

Eating Well Chicken & Wild Rice Stroganoff

Eating Well Chicken & Wild Rice Stroganoff

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