When you think of a classic American homestyle meal, we wouldn’t be surprised if chicken and mashed potatoes come to mind. This is a longstanding American comfort food, as Colonel Sanders knew well.
This is the sort of meal that a lot of frozen food companies try to create frozen versions of. We’re checking out just one of many options today — the Banquet Mega Meats Original Crispy Chicken with Homestyle Mashed Potatoes. This will actually be our first time digging into the Mega Meats line, though we’ve been testing out Banquet’s Mega Bowls line for a while now.
This is a decent-sized meal, and thus it requires a longer cook time. Remove the film over the chicken portion, then pop the tray into the microwave for four minutes. Give those potatoes a good stir and then pop this back into the microwave for three to four additional minutes. Yes, this takes seven to eight minutes of cook time. You probably don’t want to bring this to work with you if you have long lines for the microwave in your break room — your coworkers will really be grumpy at you!
You can also cook this in the oven if you’d like, but that will take even longer, with a cook time of 45 to 50 minutes. We stuck with the microwave for the sake of this review. (If you want to read the full cooking instructions straight off the box, check out the package scans at the bottom of this review.)
Our meal contained one chicken drumstick, one thigh, and some mashed potatoes. When you see it all laid out before you, it’s perhaps less impressive than the box would have you believe. Of course, by that point, it’s too late to ask for your money back, so you might as well eat it!
Let’s start with the chicken. Both pieces of chicken are breaded, but we found the breading to actually be kind of hard — especially on the thigh meat. The breading tastes decent enough, but we found the tough consistency to be a bit disappointing.
The actual meat portion tastes fine. With a drummy and a thigh, you’re looking at dark meat, which is more flavorful than white meat. It’s nice and juicy here, and we don’t have any complaints about the meat itself. We should point out, however, that both pieces do have the bones still in them. Opinions on that vary wildly, so we won’t weigh in on the boneless vs. bone-in drama (though we acknowledge that this is usually more of a thing in the chicken-wing fandom rather than the chicken-leg fandom — the leg people tend to be a much quieter bunch).
The mashed potatoes here are pretty decent, though they are made from rehydrated potato flakes rather than fresh potatoes. They have a little bit of a gravelly texture and they can be kind of runny in places, but they also have a nice buttery flavor that we enjoyed. We did find once stray piece of green onion in our mix, but it wasn’t enough to turn the tide here. We admire the little guy’s tenacity, though! Ultimately, these are not the best mashed potatoes we’ve had in a frozen food, but they’re far from the worst. We’d file them into the “good enough” category.
This mega-sized meal contains 510 calories and 1,540 mg of sodium. Both of those numbers are pretty dang high, but you didn’t expect this to be a diet food, did you?
Then again, take a look at what this actually includes. A lot of the box is empty space. You’ve got a drumstick, a thigh, and a generous portion of potatoes (though without gravy). It’s filling enough, but it’s certainly not the feast that the term “Mega Meats” conjures up in our imaginations.
The Banquet Mega Meats Original Crispy Chicken with Homestyle Mashed Potatoes is a decent chicken dinner but not an amazing one. The general concept is solid, but the execution is a little off. Overall, we think this is a pretty alright meal, but not a great one. With better mashed potatoes and better breading, this could have been a knockout. As is, it’ll curb that fried chicken craving, but it won’t swing wide the heavenly gates of Flavortown.
To learn more about the nutrition content, ingredients, or cooking instructions for this frozen chicken dinner, check out our package scans below.
