Lean Cuisine Bowls Sesame Stir Fry with Chicken Review

Lean Cuisine Bowls Sesame Stir Fry with Chicken

In an effort to keep up with the freezer-aisle Joneses, Lean Cuisine has added yet another line to their perpetually growing line of frozen foods. Yes, the Lean Cuisine Bowls line is here, offering new versions of classic meals served in bowls instead of the usual plastic trays. We’re always excited to try the newest frozen-food offerings, so today we’re checking out the Lean Cuisine Bowls Sesame Stir Fry with Chicken.

According to the package, this meal features 20% more ounces of food than the non-Bowls version of this same dish. We’re actually not familiar with that meal — the closest thing to it that we’ve reviewed is the Sesame Chicken. This means we can’t really comment on how much of an impact this size increase actually has.

We can talk about cooking, however. This is simple enough to heat in the microwave. Simply pop it in for three minutes, give it a quick stir, and pop it back in for two and a half more. This is pretty standard stuff as far as microwavable meals are concerned, though we do recommend a vigorous stirring when you get to that part. There will still be some frozen portions after the first three minutes, and you’ll want to break those up to get a nice, even heat.

Lean Cuisine Bowls Sesame Stir Fry with Chicken

Earlier, we compared this to the Lean Cuisine Sesame Chicken, though on closer inspection, the two dishes are less similar than we initially thought. The Sesame Chicken has chunks of breaded chicken, while this meal contains simple cubes of white-meat chicken. The chicken here is inoffensive but not great — it doesn’t have a ton of flavor and it can be a little dry in places.

There’s a pretty generous portion of broccoli here as well, and, like the chicken, it’s passable but not amazing. It’s soggier than we would have liked, and also not as rich. There are also some pieces of yellow carrot, though you might hardly notice that they’re even there until you get to the end of the meal. The carrot portion is not substantial, and it tends to get sifted down to the bottom of the dish.

The majority of this meal, though, is pasta. These noodles are pretty good, and they have a nice slick consistency to them. We think they’re maybe a bit too soft for those who enjoy a good al dente pasta, but they work well enough with the rest of this dish.

All this comes coated in a chili garlic sauce. It’s a decent-tasting sauce, with hints of soy and ginger, and it almost has a nutty flavor to it. In fact, after our first bite, we thought this might be a peanut sauce (it’s not). We wouldn’t call this sauce spicy, though we did find our sinuses to be clearing out as we ate this meal.

Considering this is an upsized version of another dish, the calorie count isn’t bad. With just 350 calories, this isn’t a meal that’s loaded with guilt. Of course, the sodium is a bit high, at 890 mg, so you’ll want to keep that in mind if you’re trying to reduce your sodium intake.

The Lean Cuisine Bowls Sesame Stir Fry with Chicken is not amazing, but it’s a competent meal with a low-ish calorie count. If that’s all you’re looking for, you won’t be disappointed, but we wouldn’t expect you to be blown away by this either.

To learn more about the nutrition content, ingredients, or cooking instructions for this Lean Cuisine bowl, check out our package scans below.

Lean Cuisine Bowls Sesame Stir Fry with Chicken
Lean Cuisine Bowls Sesame Stir Fry with Chicken
Lean Cuisine Bowls Sesame Stir Fry with Chicken
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