Good frozen orange chicken is hard to find. While there are some brands that pull it off (Trader Joe’s Mandarin Orange Chicken is great, for example), far too often orange chicken just doesn’t turn out very well in the microwave.
So with a little bit of hesitation, we’re checking out the Smart Ones Orange Chicken Bowl. We’ve tried some of the Smart Ones Asian-inspired meals in the past, and we admittedly weren’t all that impressed. We’re hoping they really knock this orange chicken out of the park, but we know better than to get our hopes too high.
As far as cooking goes, this is a cinch. It will take about four minutes in an 1100-watt microwave, though you will have to take it out in the middle of the process and stir it a bit. Still, this is quick and simple enough that you could definitely take this to work with you.
The chicken surprised us. It looks pretty pale, so we were expecting something dry, gristly, and flavorless, but it actually has a lovely flavor and a nice, moist consistency. Some pieces are a little bit chalky and grainy, but the other pieces are fantastic.
Unfortunately, the sauce, which is the centerpiece of this dish, is not very good. It has that low-budget, orange-peel flavor that plagues so many of the frozen orange chicken meals we try.
This thing is loaded with veggies — in fact, we’d estimate that almost 2/3 of this bowl is just vegetables. It’s a blend of broccoli, red bell peppers, and carrots, but none of these are very good. They’re all kind of soggy and the broccoli is a really terrible contrast against the sauce. These things just don’t work together at all.
There’s some brown rice in the mix as well. Brown rice isn’t particularly exciting or offensive, but here it absorbs the flavor of the sauce and ends up tasting pretty bad as a result. That orange-y aftertaste just won’t leave your mouth.
This meal has hardly any calories at all. At just 200 calories (and a measly 35 from fat), you can chomp down this orange chicken without feeling guilty about it. Of course, the flipside of that is that it’s not filling at all.
The Smart Ones Orange Chicken Bowl isn’t a very satisfying meal. It’s not filling and it doesn’t taste very good. The chicken in here is surprisingly good, but it’s completely surrounded by low-quality ingredients that drastically bring down the overall quality of the meal.
To learn more about the nutrition content, ingredients, or cooking instructions for this frozen food, check out our package scans below.
