The Stouffer’s Bowl-Fulls line is a valiant attempt at mimicking what the Devour brand has been doing for years: creating high-calorie, richly flavored frozen meals for people who want to indulge. However, this line is not without its misses (to be fair, neither is the Devour frozen food line). Still, we’re always excited to try Bowl-Fulls offerings.
Today we’re delving deep into this frozen food lineup to check out the Stouffer’s Slow-Roasted Steak & Potatoes Bowl-Full. Will this be a fantastic meal that blows Devour out of the water, or will this just be a slightly higher-calorie dud? Let’s find out!
First off, this is a Stouffer’s meal, which means the cook time is absurdly long. Even in the microwave, this thing will take seven minutes to heat. They weren’t kidding when they called this “Slow-Roasted!” This sort of meal is probably out of the question as a work lunch if your workplace has limited meal time and long lines at the microwave. (If you want to see the full cooking instructions, check out the package scans at the bottom of this review.)
This meal is built to satisfy those “home-cooked meals from mom” cravings. It’s a bowl of mashed potatoes and gravy, covered in steak and veggies. However, the long cook time means that everything in the bowl sort of melts together into a mashed potato soup. And yes, this is a bit soupy — it’s not as bad as some of the other frozen mashed potatoes on the market, but this does end up thinner than we’d like. Mom would never tolerate this watery consistency in her mashed potatoes!
The flavor of the potatoes is pretty good, though. It has that savory, seasoned flavor of higher-tier frozen mashed potatoes. It’s just a little runny and gravelly, which prevents it from being a truly great potato portion. The gravy is also a bit bland, which means the potatoes rely a bit too much on garlic to stand out.
The steak is alright. The flavor is pretty decent, though not exceptional, and the meat can be a little dry in places. Of course, if you mix your steak down into the mashed potatoes, you’ll mitigate the dryness quite a bit. There’s not a ton of steak here, though. We found one large chunk, with three or four smaller chunks surrounding it. If you’re here for the steak, you’re probably going to be disappointed by the portion size.
Then there are the veggies. The green beans might actually be the best part of this whole meal. They’re rich with flavor and they’re not mushy, which is too often the case for frozen green beans. The carrots have a nice crunch to them, but they’re surprisingly lacking in flavor — cooked carrots usually have a much more prominent flavor profile, so we’re not sure what went wrong here.
Considering this is a Bowl-Full item, the calories aren’t horrendous here. 370 calories is outside the range of diet food, but it’s nothing like the Chicken Bacon Ranch Pasta (with 610 calories) or the Spicy Italian Sausage Pasta (at 660 calories). 370 is actually pretty low for a Bowl-Full. Plus, this is a pretty decent amount of food — it’s not a wimpy serving size!
The Stouffer’s Slow-Roasted Steak & Potatoes Bowl-Full is good but not great. With thicker mashed potatoes, a better gravy, and a little more steak, this one could have been a homerun. As is, it’s an alright way to chow down on some steak and mashed potatoes if you don’t feel like making that stuff from scratch. It certainly can’t compare to Mom’s home cooking, though!
To learn more about the nutrition content, ingredients, or cooking instructions for this frozen steak bowl, check out our package scans below.
