El Monterey Signature Chicken Quesadilla Meal Review

El Monterey Signature Chicken Quesadilla

We don’t usually look to the El Monterey brand for gourmet-quality meals. However, we did find one diamond in the rough: the Charbroiled Chicken & Monterey Jack Cheese Quesadillas. Those quesadillas are so good that we find it hard to believe they’re made by El Monterey, a brand that’s generally known for making super-cheap burritos.

Now, we did strike out with the Signature Three Cheese Quesadilla, which doesn’t hold a candle to the five-pack version. So what was the deciding factor? We think it’s probably the cooking method — the charbroiled quesadillas can be cooked in a skillet, so they come out perfectly. However, we couldn’t entirely rule out the addition of chicken as the thing that tips the scales.

But today, we’re going to try the El Monterey Signature Chicken Quesadilla Meal. This is the chicken-filled version of the Signature Meal, which gives us a chance to compare all three versions against each other.

First up, we have to cook this, and the package only gives instructions for the microwave. So that’s the method we’re going with today. It’s super simple, and you can read the full instructions by checking out the package scans at the very bottom of this review.

El Monterey Signature Chicken Quesadilla

As you can see in the image above, this meal contains a single quesadilla with a dollop of queso sauce and a side of rice. And you know what? This combo actually really works for us. The quesadilla might not be the best in quality, but it does taste pretty decent. And the queso sauce is a pretty nice touch.

This does still have the problems we pointed out in our last El Monterey quesadilla review — the shell ends up super soggy in the microwave, and super-soggy quesadillas are vastly inferior to crispy quesadillas. But the flavor is good overall, and we even found the chicken portion to be surprisingly competent. This also has a ton of cheese, which definitely scores it some points with us.

The side of rice doesn’t have a ton of flavor. It’s not bad, but it’s certainly not the centerpiece of this meal. We found ourselves just kind of eating it because it’s there rather than because we enjoyed it at all. It’s not bad enough to turn us away, but it’s not good enough to draw us in. It’s just kind of bland but inoffensive.

El Monterey Signature Chicken Quesadilla

El Monterey is not really in the business of making diet-friendly frozen meals, so it probably shouldn’t come as a surprise that this is loaded up with calories. At 510 calories and 850 mg of sodium, this meal isn’t messing around.

The El Monterey Signature Chicken Quesadilla Meal is surprisingly tasty. No, it’s not a high-quality meal, and the side of rice will make that fact very much apparent. But the quesadilla, despite being soggy, has flavor and cheese to spare. And that has to count for something, right?

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

El Monterey Signature Chicken Quesadilla
El Monterey Signature Chicken Quesadilla
Subscribe
Notify of
guest
0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x