Sometimes, a simple dish of chicken fried rice is the perfect thing to hit the spot. We were feeling the fried rice craving in the Freezer Meal Frenzy office, so we decided to check out the Tai Pei Chicken Fried Rice. This is a new brand for us; we’ve not actually tried anything by Tai Pei before, so this should be an interesting experiment.
One thing we learned before digging in is that this meal actually comes in three sizes. There’s the single-serve carton, an 18 oz. bag, and a whopping 40 oz. bag. We’re reviewing the single-serve size today, which features 11 oz. of fried rice.
Cooking this is simple. Just peel back the plastic around the lip of the container and pop it into the microwave for four minutes. Then let it stand for two additional minutes and pop that bad boy open. (If you want to read the full cooking instructions straight off the carton, you can check out our package scans at the bottom of this review.)
The rice portion is pretty decent, though we’d say it’s a bit heavy on the soy. It’s also lacking in eggs, which is the biggest bummer, though we suppose you could add your own. Overall, flavor-wise, we’d say this is pretty good but not great.
The veggies here are actually quite lovely. You’ll find carrots, peas, and roasted corn, and they all taste pretty fresh. They help offset the abundance of soy too, so we’re thankful that they’re here.
Unfortunately, the chicken portion isn’t great. In fact, this dish would have been better without it. The chicken here is dry and rubbery, and it has a stale taste to it. Normally we’d see a small chicken portion as a negative, but here it’s actually a positive. (If it looks like there’s a lot of chicken in the image a few paragraphs above, that’s because all of the chicken is on top. What’s in that image is the entire chicken portion for this dish.)
This does pack some calories, so be careful. At 510 calories, this probably won’t be a go-to meal for dieters. There’s also 740 mg of sodium here, which is about average for a frozen meal and honestly a little bit less than we were expecting. We should point out, however, that this isn’t a lot of food, and it seems like it was designed to serve alongside some sort of protein, perhaps some General Tso’s Chicken. That will add even more calories and sodium, so don’t overindulge!
The Tai Pei Chicken Fried Rice is an alright batch of fried rice, though we certainly don’t think it’s the best on the market. In fact, both Trader Joe’s and InnovAsian have better takes on this classic Asian dish. If this Tai Pei Chicken Fried Rice doesn’t do it for you, you can always try one of the alternatives.
To learn more about the nutrition content, ingredients, or cooking instructions, check out the package scans below.
I got beef & broccoli there was only 3 pieces of meat and very sweet.