We tend to really like the Stouffer’s brand of frozen food, especially when it comes to frozen lasagna. However, their Bowl-Fulls line has been kind of hit or miss with us.
For example, we thought the Cheesy Chicken Parmesan Bowl-Full was alright, but we wished it had used better chicken. So when we stumbled upon another box of the stuff and saw the “New Improved Chicken” stamp on the front, we had high hopes that this would be an improved version of the dish we tried not all that long ago.
So today we’re doing a re-review of the Stouffer’s Cheesy Chicken Parmesan Bowl-Full. Our fingers are crossed that this chicken has indeed been improved, because that was our one big complaint the last time around.
First, of course, we must cook this up. Like so many of Stouffer’s other frozen meals, this takes a good amount of time to cook. Pop it into the microwave for four minutes, give it a good stir, then pop it back in for two more. That’s a total of six minutes. We’d expect this kind of cook time for a frozen lasagna, but this does seem a bit long for a chicken parmesan bowl.
But now that all that is out of the way, let’s dig in!
We really like the pasta here. It comes in a ribbed spiral shape, and it’s a bit al dente. This means the texture is lovely, and it feels really satisfying to scoop a forkful into your mouth.
The sauce is a basic tomato paste, but that’s not a bad thing. As we mentioned in our previous review, this actually serves the dish quite well. You don’t always need a super-fancy sauce to make a good pasta dish.
This time around, we did find the meal to be less cheesy than before. We remember being pleasantly surprised at the amount of gooey, stretchy mozzarella here. This time, it kind of seems like an afterthought. Perhaps we’ve just been desensitized to mozzarella after eating a couple dozen Lotzza Motzza pizzas, but for whatever reason, this really doesn’t seem as cheesy as we remember it being.
Of course, the entire reason we checked out this dish a second time was to see just how much the chicken had improved (if at all). So we’ve come to the moment of truth… (drum roll, please).
And, well, this does seem to be a better chicken. It’s still not perfect — the breading has a sogginess to it that we’re really not fans of and the chicken itself is a little chalky — but the flavor is spot on. In fact, the breading actually has some spiciness to it now, though that might be done intentionally to mask the true flavor of the chicken. Still, it works here, and we definitely found ourselves enjoying the chicken portion a lot more than we did the last time.
So good on you, Stouffer’s, for correcting the biggest problem with this otherwise tasty dish.
Of course, this was never a diet-friendly meal, and this fact hasn’t magically changed. This still has 520 calories, and the sodium has increased a bit to 1,190 mg (up from the 1,110 mg of the previous version). So despite the improvements, you still don’t want to make this a regular meal.
Stouffer’s has now corrected the biggest issue with their Cheesy Chicken Parmesan Bowl-Full, making it a pretty worthy addition to their frozen food lineup. While it’s still not perfect, this is a much-improved version of the chicken parmesan bowl, and we appreciate the fact that Stouffer’s put in the effort to turn this thing around.
To learn more about the nutrition content, ingredients, or cooking instructions for this Stouffer’s Bowl-Full, check out our package scans below.
