The Banquet Family Size Creamy Sauce with Broccoli & Chicken over Rice is a product that doesn’t really have a title. What’s written on the box (and what we just called the meal) is more of a list of components than a true title. If we were to casually recommend this meal to a friend in a verbal conversation, it would be difficult to remember what to call it. We’re not sure who named this, but it’s basically a chicken and rice bake — they could have called it that.
Anyway, despite the unconventional naming scheme, this concoction looks quite appealing to us. It actually reminds us of Stouffer’s Grandma’s Chicken & Vegetable Rice Bake, which we really love (and which has an actual name). So we’re actually pretty excited to be trying this out today.
The box features cooking instruction for the microwave and conventional oven. We definitely think this was intended to be microwaved — judging by the size of the microwave instructions in comparison to the oven instructions — but we went with the oven anyway. We had some extra time on our hands, so we figured what the heck! (If you want to see the full cooking instructions, check out the package scans at the bottom of this review.)
Now, after the recommended 57 minutes, we took our rice bake out of the oven and saw that it was a little bit sloppy still. We ended up popping it back in for about five extra minutes. It still looked a little runny, but we took it out anyway and it ended up thickening up a bit as it cooled.
This actually comes out of the oven smelling like a wet white rice, which surprised us. Even though it’s loaded with cheese and broccoli, both of which we thought would have overpowered the rice, it’s the rice that you’ll smell right away.
This is because neither the broccoli or cheese has a lot of flavor. The broccoli tastes decent, but muted, and we’d say the same about the cheese sauce. This is a cheddar cheese sauce, so we expected it to taste a little more potent than this. And the whole thing is saltier than we would have liked.
There’s also chicken in here, as the box suggest, but it’s cut into small little chunks and it ends up kind of soggy. It doesn’t do enough to make up for the blah flavor of the cheese sauce, either. The chicken is just as blah as the sauce.
According to the package, there should be about three and a half servings per container in the box. If you stick with that amount, you’re looking at 200 calories and 850 mg of sodium. The sodium is a bit high, but those calories don’t look bad at all. However, we think you’ll probably end up eating more than the recommended serving. If you split this meal in half (you can see half the box in a serving dish in the image above for reference), those numbers go up to 350 calories and 1,487.5 mg of sodium. It’s not the calories that will get you here; it’s the sodium.
The unfortunately titled Banquet Family Size Creamy Sauce with Broccoli & Chicken over Rice is also unfortunately bland. We’re not sure what went wrong here, because a rich cheddar sauce and some potent broccoli would have really made this a killer dish. Throw some panko bread crumbs on top and you’d really have a great meal on your hands. As is, it’s just kind of weak and flavorless. If you’re looking for a better alternative to this, we highly recommend the Stouffer’s Grandma’s Chicken & Vegetable Rice Bake, which we mentioned earlier in this review.
To learn more about the nutrition content, ingredients, or cooking instructions for this frozen meal, check out our package scans below.
