The Banquet Chicken Fried Beef Steak is not trying to be a light meal. No, this is a Mega Bowl, giving you a microwaveable bowl of protein and veggies to satiate a big-sized appetite. But can a microwavable meal really live up to those expectations? That’s what we’re here to find out.
First off, this has a mega-sized cook time to go with its larger portion size. You’ll need to pop this into the microwave for four minutes, give it a quick stir, then pop it back in for another two and a half to three minutes. That’s six and a half to seven minutes of microwave time. (If you don’t believe us, you can read the back of the box for yourself. We’ve included package scans at the bottom of this review!)
So now that all that cooking business is out of the way, let’s dig in!
As you can see in the image below, this comes out of the microwave with a pockmarked alien-world look to it. That’s not the most appealing thing in the world, but it’s also not a turnoff for us. In fact, one of our favorite frozen meals of all time has this same issue.
The bulk of this meal is mashed potatoes. What’s here is decent — it’s not as thick as we’d like it to be, but it has a decent flavor and a nice creaminess to it (thanks to the cream gravy, which is mixed in). Sometimes, frozen mashed potatoes can end up a bit gravelly or too watery, and neither of those is an issue here. There’s also just a tiny bit of mozzarella cheese here, which really improves the consistency.
Then you’ve got some green beans in the mix, The consistency is a bit rubbery, but they have a really rich, buttery flavor that we like a lot. There’s some corn as well, but it’s much less noticeable than the green beans and it’s not particularly memorable. It’s a bit mushy and mediocre, to be honest.
Of course, the real star of the show is the chicken fried beef steak. In case you’ve never heard of it, chicken fried beef steak doesn’t contain actual chicken — it gets its name because it’s basically beef that’s cooked like fried chicken. We’re not going to try to narrow the definition any further than that because we’re all Minnesotans here at Freezer Meal Frenzy, and this is typically a southern dish. A true southerner would be able to give you a better definition, we think.
As far as flavor, though, we think this is pretty good. The breading can be a little mushy due to it being submerged in mashed potatoes, but it still tastes great. As for the beef itself, we have no complaints. If you strip away all the mashed potatoes and gravy and breading, you’ll find a decent-tasting chunk of ground beef in the middle of it all.
But if you want to munch down on a mega-sized meal, you’re going to have to pay. And we don’t mean that in a monetary sense, because this is actually a budget-priced meal. No, we’re referring to the calorie count. This meal comes loaded with 560 calories and 1,550 mg of sodium. Both of those numbers are way higher than average for a frozen food — the sodium is more than double the average amount! We assume that if you’re eyeballing this meal, you already know the stakes, but it doesn’t hurt to lay them out for curious readers.
Anyway, the Banquet Mega Bowls Chicken Fried Beef Steak doesn’t nail the consistency, but the overall flavor is pretty great. We have some complaints, sure, but at the end of the day we find this to be a satisfying (and filling) frozen meal despite those flaws. If you don’t mind some extra calories (and a whole lot of extra sodium), then this meal gives you a pretty good bang for your frozen-food buck.
To learn more about the nutrition content, ingredients, or cooking instructions for this frozen meal, check out our package scans below.
