Alpha Plant-Based Chik’n Verde Tamale Review

Alpha Plant-Based Chik'n Verde Tamale

While we have been fortunate enough to review a few of Alpha’s products in the past, this vegetarian-friendly brand has been quite elusive. We do want to check out more of it, but we struggle to find it anywhere in town. Supply chain issues are not making this any easier for us.

So you can imagine our surprise when we were out on a random errand and stumbled upon the Alpha Plant-Based Chik’n Verde Tamale. Obviously, we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to give it a try!

You can go the traditional route with this if you’d like to boil it, but we decided the microwave was good enough for us for the sake of this review. Plus, it’s super fast, taking only about two and a half minutes in the microwave. (If you want to read the full cooking instructions, check out the package scans at the bottom of this review).

Alpha Plant-Based Chik'n Verde Tamale

As you can see in the image above, the shell on this tamale is pretty thick. That’s not a bad thing here, as even in the microwave it ends up a little bit moist, kind of sticky, and loaded with flavor. As a corn flour shell, this thing tastes strongly of corn and has the consistency of cornbread.

The downside of having a thick shell, though, is that there’s not a whole lot of room for the filling. What’s there is incredibly tasty. There’s a soy-protein-based faux chicken here, and while it’s mostly chopped up too small to really investigate, we did find one pretty large chunk. It has a very prominent smoked flavor to it, which makes it taste a little bit fake.

The bulk of the flavor, however, comes from the verde salsa, which tastes really, really good. It also comes packing just a little bit of heat — we’d hesitate to call this spicy, but it did get our midwestern tongues tingling a little bit.

And then there’s a vegan mozzarella, which is scant in this tamale. But even so, it does lend the filling just a little bit of creaminess. We appreciate that.

One tamale contains 290 calories and 690 mg of sodium. Neither of those is unusual for this type of frozen food, but those numbers aren’t exactly ideal considering this isn’t going to fill up an adult human’s tummy.

The Alpha Plant-Based Chik’n Verde Tamale isn’t perfect, but it’s still pretty darn tasty. We do wish the shell-to-filling ratio were weighted a little more toward the filling side. As is, though, we still think this is a delicious little tamale.

To learn more about the nutrition content, ingredients, or cooking instructions for this frozen tamale, check out our package scans below.

Alpha Plant-Based Chik'n Verde Tamale
Alpha Plant-Based Chik'n Verde Tamale
Alpha Plant-Based Chik'n Verde Tamale

We do apologize for the difficult-to-read ingredients, as our package ripped when we tried to photograph it. So we decided to copy the ingredients list straight from the Alpha website:

Corn Masa: (Water, Non-GMO Corn Flour [Corn Treated with Hydrated Lime], Non-Gmo Canola Oil, Vital Wheat Gluten, Cane Sugar, Salt, Baking Powder [Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate, Sodium Bicarbonate, Corn Starch, Monocalcium Phosphate], Seasoning Blend [Sea Salt, Onion, Garlic, Red Bell Peppers, Chili Peppers, Spices], Turmeric, Spices), Chik’n: (Filtered Water, Soy Protein Concentrate, Structured Vegetable Protein [Isolated Soy Protein, Wheat Gluten, Wheat Starch], Seasoning [Tapioca Maltodextrin, Yeast Extract, Maltodextrin, Gum Arabic, Natural Flavors, Salt, Grill Flavor {Sunflower Oil, Citric Acid}], Soybean Oil, Soy Sauce [Water, Soybeans, Salt, Alcohol, Wheat], Methylcellulose, Wheat Gluten, Cellulose Fiber), Salsa Verde: (Tomatillos, Jalapenos, Water, Green Peppers, Salt, Sugar, Garlic, Cumin), Vegan Mozzarella: (Filtered Water, Coconut Oil, Modified Potato and Corn Starch, Sea Salt, Natural Flavors [Plant Sources], Olive Extract, Beta Carotene [Color], Vitamin B12), Green Peppers.

CONTAINS:

Wheat, Soy, Coconut

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