We are quite fond of Trader Joe’s frozen meals here at Freezer Meal Frenzy. While we haven’t loved absolutely everything we’ve tried from TJ’s, we have found some really good frozen foods. So we review TJ’s frozen food as often as we can.
However, sometimes we wander away from the freezer aisle for a bit and something catches our eye — something tasty-looking but not frozen. In these cases, we’ll sometimes make an exception and review something that doesn’t go into the freezer. Today we’re checking out something we found in the refrigerated section of our local TJ’s (it was close to the burritos), the Trader Joe’s Chicken Asada.
While we’re usually excited about the short cook times of non-frozen foods, this one does take a bit of time if you choose to heat it in the oven (like we did). There’s always the microwave, but we really felt like this one needed some oven cooking. Plus, we had some time on our hands (as many of us do these days). If you want to read the full cooking instructions, you can see those at the bottom of this review (check out the package scan).
After a good 25 minutes of baking (20 minutes didn’t seem like enough cook time), we had ourselves the meal you see pictured below.
The bulk of this meal is two big hunks of grilled chicken breast. These pieces are a bit larger than they first appear because they’re quite thick — each piece is about an inch and a half thick at the thickest point. The meat is juicy and succulent, and it’ seasoned well.
Even though white-meat chicken tends to be less flavorful than dark meat, it works really well when it’s paired with a tasty sauce. The sauce here is absolutely delicious. It’s a red sauce, but it’s quite a bit sweeter than we were expecting. We have a feeling that comes courtesy of the pineapple juice, which is the primary ingredient. It has a little bit of a bite to it, but we’d be hesitant to refer to it as spicy — our friends from the South would laugh at us if we did.
This is a pretty simple dish. Aside from the chicken and sauce, you’ve got a heap of veggies — onions, red bell peppers, and poblanos. We think the veggie portion is a bit too much, but that opinion would likely change if we served this over rice.
According to the package, there are two servings here, but unless you eat this with a huge side of something else, we’re pretty sure that ambitious eaters could scarf down the whole thing in a sitting without too many problems. Of course, that knocks the 240 calories (50 from fat) of one serving up to 480 (and 100 from fat), so be warned. This isn’t the low-calorie dish it might appear to be at first. To be fair, the package does suggest that you pair it with rice or pasta.
The Trader Joe’s Chicken Asada is pretty alright on its own, though it’s clearly designed to be paired with something else. A lovely spanish rice would probably be perfect with this (and that would make it a lot more likely that you’d eat just one serving instead of the whole thing).
If you want to learn more about the nutrition content, ingredients, or cooking instructions for this Trader Joe’s Chicken Asada, check out our package scan below.
