We have to admit, we have a lot of affection for buffalo mac and cheese. It takes two things that we absolutely adore — cheesy mac and buffalo chicken — and smooshes them up into one amazing dish. In fact, one of our favorite frozen meals of all time is Devour’s take on this tasty combo.
When we found out that Lean Cuisine had tossed their hat into the buffalo mac and cheese ring, we knew right away that we needed to try it. So today we’re finally doing that, as we’re digging into the Lean Cuisine Oven Fried Chicken with Buffalo-Style Mac & Cheese. This is a review we’ve been excited about for quite some time!
Cooking this is as easy as you’d expect. Toss it into the microwave for three minutes, give it a quick stir, then toss it back in for another 90 seconds. It’s so easy! (If you want to read the full cooking instructions straight off the back of the box, scroll down to the package scans at the bottom of this review.)
Now, as much as we’d like to tell you this is an amazing dish of mac and cheese, it’s actually pretty mediocre. The chicken is bland and rubbery, and even the breading doesn’t do much to make it any better. Even a low-quality chicken can be made at least palatable with a good breading; this stuff just doesn’t do the trick.
The macaroni is soggy, and it has a really generic consistency that’s hard to describe. It’s a bit too wet and slippery, if that makes any sense? Couple that with the fact that the sauce is as bland as can be, and you really have a bowl of disappointment on your hands. Seriously, we were struggling to decided what this was even supposed to taste like, because there’s so little actual flavor.
Somehow, it ends up being a little bit spicy. We’re not sure how Lean Cuisine pulled that off with such a bland sauce, but they did it.
The box claims that this meal has half the fat of a “similar dish with a breaded chicken from a leading frozen brand.” We’re not sure who they’re talking about, and that description is vague enough that it’s actually hard to make a guess. The full boast from the back of the box is “Fat content of this product is 8g per 10oz versus 28g per 10oz for competitor.” Hmmmmmm…
Anyway, this contains 340 calories and 770 mg of sodium, so it’s actually not bad in the calories or sodium departments. So couple that with the reduced fat, and you’ve got a meal that’s pretty justifiable for dieters. That doesn’t excuse the blandness, though.
The Lean Cuisine Oven Fried Chicken with Buffalo-Style Mac & Cheese is a pretty huge disappointment. While we appreciate the lower fat content and fewer calories, this comes at the expense of nearly all of the flavor, apparently. After consuming this entire dish, we’re still confused by it. The taste is so subtle that we can’t even describe it.
If you can spare the calories, we definitely recommend the Devour version over this one. We love buffalo mac, and we just can’t get behind what Lean Cuisine has done to it.
To learn more about the nutrition content, ingredients, or cooking instructions for this frozen mac and cheese, check out the package scans below.
I’m eating it now. Of course I bought it before I read the review… was just looking for recommendations like “just add some hot sauce”
I’d say it’s not as bad as you say… still pretty bad. But I came here to comment that maybe you had COVID when you wrote that review.