PF Chang’s created the Home Menu line of frozen food so you can enjoy their restaurant-quality food at home. Well, that seems like the intent anyway. In actuality, the results are somewhat mixed. Their meals range from mediocre (like their Sesame Chicken) to great (like their Chicken Dumplings), though most of what they offer tends to be in the good-but-not-great category.
So we’re not sure what to expect from the PF Chang’s Home Menu Thai Style Chicken Bowl. It certainly looks amazing, but we’ve been fooled before by amazing-looking food. We definitely have high hopes, though.
This is one of the easiest meals you’ll ever make. Simply pop it in the microwave for four and a half to five and a half minutes. That’s all there is to it. Five minutes did the trick for us. (If you want to read the full cooking instructions straight off the box, check out the package scans at the bottom of this review.)
This comes out of the microwave looking a heck of a lot less beautiful than the image on the box. And, like the entire PF Chang’s Home Menu line, this meal is itself a mixed bag.
The chicken is pretty alright on its own. This is definitely a higher-quality chicken than you’d expect to find in your average Lean Cuisine meal, but it’s not perfect. It’s a little chalky and the flavor is decent but not great.
Of course, if you manage to get some of the Thai style curry sauce on the chicken, then it really pops. It’s this sauce that really steals the show here. It tastes great, with some sweeter undertones, and it has a decent spice level. The only problem is that there just isn’t enough of it. And that feels like a missed opportunity, because this sauce could have made this whole meal amazing.
The rest of the meal is your standard fare: cooked white rice with cauliflower, bell peppers, sweet potatoes, and scallions. Of these, the sweet potato stands out the most, as it comes in gigantic chunks that are a joy to eat. The rest of the veggies feel like they were well chosen for the sauce, which makes it extra unfortunate that there’s so little of it here.
One bowl contains 280 calories and 570 mg of sodium. Both of those figures are below average for a frozen meal, so this is one that dieters can enjoy without guilt.
The PF Chang’s Home Menu Thai Style Chicken has an incredible sauce, but the sauce portion is just too stingy to take this meal from decent to great. With a more generous sauce portion, we could forgive this meal for any of its flaws. As is, it’s an okay meal that has the potential to be so much better.
To learn more about the nutrition content, ingredients, or cooking instructions for this PF Chang’s frozen meal, check out our package scans below.
