Now, don’t get us wrong here; we actually quite enjoy the Michelina’s brand of budget-friendly frozen food. While not everything in their line is a winner, we have found some things we quite enjoy, all for the low, low price of $1.50 or less. But let’s be honest here: We just don’t think that Michelina’s has what it takes to make a decent sweet and sour chicken.
We’d love to be wrong, though, so we picked up the Michelina’s Sweet & Sour Sauce with Chicken & Rice. Our first red flag here is the fact that this meal is titled as if it’s mostly just a sauce, with some chicken and rice tossed in for good measure. That’s not a display of confidence in the quality of this meal, and that comes directly from the Michelina’s marketing team. If even they aren’t confident in this meal, why should we be?
But we’ll press on anyway to satisfy our curiosity. Again, we’d love to be wrong about this.
So now let’s cook this up to see what it’s really about. That’s a simple process. Just peel open one corner, toss this into the microwave for two and a half minutes, give is a quick stir, then cook it for another 60 to 90 seconds. Boom. Easy. (If you want to read the full cooking instructions straight off the box, check out the package scan at the bottom of this review.)
As you can see in the image above, Michelina’s cuts corners a bit when it comes to their packaging. Instead of having an inner tray, like a Lean Cuisine meal, the cardboard box does double duty as the tray. It’s maybe not the best way to seal in the flavor, but it does seem to be a decent way to keep the price low. So we guess we’ll take it.
Now, before we get any deeper in this review, we should say right away that we actually really enjoy the sauce. It has a great flavor, and while too many of the sweet and sour sauces we taste have a bit of a chemical taste to them, this one doesn’t.
But our enjoyment of this meal ends there. The rice, which makes up a majority of this dish, is bland and has kind of a freezer-burnt taste to it. This really takes away from the flavor of the tasty sauce. Plus, there’s hardly any chicken or veggies (which are mostly carrots), and those aren’t very good anyway. With better ingredients to match the quality of the sauce, this could have been an excellent meal. As is, it ends up being pretty unappealing.
If you’re a dieter, there’s not much to fear with this meal, as it contains just 310 calories and 600 mg of sodium. Yes, that sodium level is a little bit high for normal food, but it’s actually low for a frozen food — and it’s especially low for a frozen sweet and sour dish. Of course, the portion size here is really small, so it’s only inevitable that the calorie count and sodium level would be low — there’s just not enough food here to include more of that stuff.
We had low expectations for the Michelina’s Sweet & Sour Sauce with Chicken & Rice, and we were still disappointed. The portion size is scant, the majority of the meal is rice, and the chicken and carrots aren’t very good. Yes, the sauce is great, but it’s not enough to make up for this meal’s flaws.
To learn more about the nutrition content, ingredients, or cooking instructions for this frozen sweet and sour dish, check out our package scan below.
