We appreciate the Michelina’s brand for making super-low-cost frozen meals in a variety of flavors for a variety of folks. Their meals aren’t always great — or even good, really — but they’re generally better than you’d expect for something that costs a dollar. And if you find them on sale, Michelina’s meals are often just a buck.
But we’re a little hesitant to try the Michelina’s Beef & Broccoli Pasta in a Savory Ginger Sauce. To be perfectly honest, the “Beef & Broccoli” part seemed kind of boring. But then we say the “Savory Ginger Sauce” part, and we were intrigued. One-dollar beef and broccoli is bound to be a disaster, but one-dollar pasta? Now you’re talking our language!
Cooking this is super-duper simple. Peel open the corner of the box, then toss the whole thing in the microwave for three minutes. Give it a quick stir, then pop it back in for 90 more seconds. That’s all there is to it. (If you want to read the full cooking instructions straight off the box, check out the package scans at the bottom of this review.)
As you can see in the image above, Michelina’s cuts the cost of these meals by skipping the inner tray entirely and just making the cardboard box the tray instead. It’s not the best way to preserve the freshness of the meal, but it does seem like it works to keep the cost low, so we’re not going to complain.
Now, we weren’t expecting much from these noodles, so we weren’t disappointed. The pasta here is just alright — it’s not great, but it’s also not bad enough to complain about. But it’s the sauce that really does all the work here. This is a soy-based sauce with hints of ginger and brown sugar, which gives it that kind-of-sweet, kind-of-salty flavor. It’s not bad.
Considering the first part of the title is “Beef & Broccoli,” the portion sizes of both those things are remarkably small. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing, as the beef is pretty generic-tasting, and the broccoli is mushy and overcooked. Neither is offensively bad in the portion size they’re available in; if there were more of both, the overall quality of the meal would decline.
This meal contains 290 calories and 700 mg of sodium. While the calories are low, the sodium-to-calorie ratio seems pretty high to us. Plus, this meal isn’t super big — we don’t think it will fill you up if you’re pretty hungry before digging in.
The Michelina’s Beef & Broccoli Pasta in a Savory Ginger Sauce tastes like what happens when you get Chinese takeout, then put the leftovers in the fridge and forget about them for a few days. You’ll then question whether you should reheat them or toss them out, and you realize you don’t really want to cook something more involved, so you just pop them into the microwave. Basically, this is edible and it costs somewhere around $1.50 (and even cheaper when it goes on sale). And that sort of meal needs to exist, so we’re glad it does. We’re just probably not going to eat it again unless things get real dire around here financially.
To learn more about the nutrition content, ingredients, or cooking instructions for this frozen pasta, check out our package scan below.
