We consider Stouffer’s to be a mid-tier brand of frozen food. They don’t make the incredibly high-quality, indulgent meals that top-tier brands like Devour or Deep Indian Kitchen make, but they’re also higher in quality than low-tier brands like Eat! or Smart Ones.
That said, we typically rank Stouffer’s near the top of the mid-tier brands. They’ve put out some really great frozen meals, and we’re always excited to try something new from them. So of course we’re happy to see that they’ve been adding to their Bowl-Fulls line — especially when it means there’s more mac and cheese for us to try.
Today we’re checking out the Stouffer’s Chicken Mac & Cheese Broccoli Bowl, which is part of the Bowl-Fulls line.
Like so many of Stouffer’s products, this one takes a bit longer to cook than your average frozen meal. Toss it in the microwave for four minutes, give it a good stir, then pop it back in for two more minutes. Six minutes isn’t the worst cook time we’ve ever seen, but it’s definitely longer than average. And be careful here — this comes out very hot.
This is a pretty simple dish, actually. It takes a shell pasta, mixes in some breaded chicken and broccoli, and covers the whole thing with a creamy cheese sauce.
Now, shells are a great pasta shape for a mac and cheese, and we appreciate their use here. Unfortunately the pasta is a bit mushier than we were expecting.
The chicken here is a basic breaded white meat, and we found it to be kind of flavorless and rubbery. The breading has a strange consistency as well, with almost a sliminess to it. It feels kind of icky in your mouth, and we found ourselves a little grossed out by it, to be honest.
This is labeled as a “Broccoli Bowl,” and with good reason. The broccoli gives this dish a lot of its flavor. If you don’t like cheesy broccoli, you’re going to want to skip this dish, as every bite has that broccoli flavor. That said, the broccoli is actually kind of soggy here. If this stuff had a nice crisp to it, the broccoli overload would be a welcome thing. As is, it only brings the overall quality of the meal down a bit.
This thing is a monster in the calorie department. With 590 calories, this is certainly not for dieters. Throw in the 1,390 mg of sodium that this contains and you’re really looking at a horror show of a diet-buster. Clearly, it takes more than a little broccoli to make something into a health food.
The Stouffer’s Chicken Mac & Cheese Broccoli Bowl tastes pretty alright if you enjoy broccoli, but everything in this dish is a bit too soggy. From the soggy noodles to the slimy chicken to the mushy broccoli, there’s just an overall sog factor that makes every bite feel kind of unpleasant. That’s rather unfortunate, because the concept is good and the flavor is decent. Something just went wrong in the execution, making this whole affair seem like a missed opportunity rather than a tasty bowl of broccoli mac.
If you’re willing to consume this many calories for a frozen mac and cheese, we definitely suggest Devour’s Buffalo Chicken Mac & Cheese over this one. With Devour’s take, those calories end up contributing to an indulgent frozen meal rather than a sub-par one.
To learn more about the nutrition content, ingredients, or cooking instructions for this frozen macaroni bowl, check out our package scans below.
