Life Cuisine High Protein Lifestyle Korean Style BBQ Beef Bowl Review

Life Cuisine High Protein Lifestyle Korean Style BBQ Beef Bowl

No, Lean Cuisine hasn’t changed their name, though they did add a new line called Life Cuisine to their portfolio. It’s a sneaky move that allows them to create Power Bowl-style offerings that don’t quite seem like Lean Cuisine frozen meals. This gives Lean Cuisine permission to think outside the box a bit.

Today, we’re trying out the Life Cuisine High Protein Lifestyle Korean Style BBQ Beef Bowl. The package features the word NEW! in all-caps, but this is is actually a larger-sized version of the Sweet & Spicy Korean-Style Beef, which we actually reviewed twice (once when it was part of the Marketplace line, and once after it had moved to the Features line). In both of those reviews, we pointed out some problems with the dish, so we’re hoping that the Life Cuisine version gave Lean Cuisine to fix some of the issues.

This is easy to cook; heating this was never one of its problems! Simply pop it into the microwave for three minutes, give it a quick stir, and pop it back in for two and a half minutes more. It’s a bit longer than your average Lean Cuisine meal, but it’s not at all difficult.

Life Cuisine High Protein Lifestyle Korean Style BBQ Beef Bowl

Unfortunately, Lean Cuisine still hasn’t addressed our biggest issues with the dish. The beef is gritty and tough, and it tastes kind of stale. That’s a product of freezing and reheating this, surely, but even so, other frozen food makers have been able to get around this problem. In fact, even the Marketplace version of this same dish had better beef than this one (though maybe that’s just a variance between batches).

The rice is still bland, but now it’s watery as well. There isn’t enough sauce to save the rice portion, and it ends up tasting really watered down (as a result of the rice being so watery). We think the sauce is pretty good on its own, but all the extra moisture here kind of ruins it.

One twist that this meal adds over its counterparts is scrambled eggs. We’re usually big fans of scrambled eggs in rice-based dishes, but we’re not sure it was the right choice here. The egg flavor clashes with the sweet BBQ sauce, and these scrambled eggs are pretty low in quality on their own.

Another twist is that Lean Cuisine replaced the zucchini with shiitake mushrooms. We actually really enjoy these mushrooms — they might be our favorite part of this dish — but the portion size is really small. We think we found four or five pieces in the entire bowl.

Somehow, despite having a larger size than previous versions of this meal, the calorie count has actually been reduced. This bowl contains 320 calories, which is down from the 330 calories of the Features version (though exactly the same as the Marketplace version). The sodium level, however, has gone up; this meal now contains 810 mg of sodium.

The Life Cuisine High Protein Lifestyle Korean Style BBQ Beef Bowl is the third variation of this dish that we’ve tried, and it feels like it keeps getting worse. Korean BBQ is something that we really love, but this version of it is a travesty.

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

Life Cuisine High Protein Lifestyle Korean Style BBQ Beef Bowl
Life Cuisine High Protein Lifestyle Korean Style BBQ Beef Bowl
Life Cuisine High Protein Lifestyle Korean Style BBQ Beef Bowl
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