Healthy Choice Creamy Dill Salmon

January 8, 2007 | Reviewer: Abi

Price: $2.00
Serving: 1 package, 10oz.
Calories: 240
Fat: 9%, 6g
Sodium: 25%, 600mg
Protein: 19g
Carbs: 9%, 26g
Fiber: 20%, 5g
WW Points: 5 Points

Healthy Choice says: Tender wild salmon is sliced and covered in a savory creamy dill sauce and served over penne pasta with a side of fresh broccoli florets.

Abi says: I’ve been thinking a lot about the ingredients in Healthy Choice’s Creamy Dill Salmon meal. When you consider the salmon, it initially seems to be one of the nobler fish in the sea. But upon further review, I must say that the salmon leads a rather unsatisfactory life, a life that ends with either laying eggs and dying or spraying sperm over eggs and dying. I don’t think that’s the way I’d want to go.

The wild salmon, despite its horrible sex-related death, is generally a delicious creature. It is full of nutrients and makes for a wonderful addition to caesar salad, fettuccine alfredo, or bagels with cream cheese. I prefer my salmon fully cooked, and even blackened, but today I learned that frozen salmon cooked in a microwave is a way to terrorize your coworkers and your palate at the same time.

Dear coworkers, let me apologize for the disastrous odor streaming out of the microwave. I knew it was going to smell that bad (hello, salmon and broccoli), but I put the needs of the readers of HeatEatReview.com ahead of your own need to work without horrible smells wafting from the kitchen.

Dear mouth, I am so, so, so sorry for forcing you to endure the agony of microwaved frozen salmon. While fresh salmon may be steamed (in a special container) and emerge from the microwave in a state of deliciousness, frozen salmon was not made for the nuclear era.

Healthy Choice’s broccoli is reminiscent of baby food; mushy and largely flavorless. Fortunately, that is just a small part of the meal. Unfortunately, it turns out to be the best part. The texturally frightening salmon in this meal is cloaked in a dill sauce that never gets past a globularity that would make any cook cringe. If you’re a dill fan (by that I mean that you enjoy all other flavors in a meal being overcome by dill), then you might be able to overlook the lumpy sauce, unevenly cooked pasta, and need to turn partially cooked salmon halfway through the microwaving process. Unfortunately, I am not a big enough fan of dill to overlook those enormous faults in this meal.

On a lighter note, if you’re on a starvation diet you could just heat up this meal and put yourself off food for the rest of the afternoon.

comments

24 Responses to “Healthy Choice Creamy Dill Salmon”

Sir Jorge on January 8th, 2007

Fish in a microwavable package? I’m not a big fish guy, but I know for a fact that things in the microwave aren’t that good when it comes to the 7 seas.

Healthy Choice should know better than this.
MaryAnne on January 8th, 2007

Oh Abi. As soon as I saw what you were reviewing I silently mouthed an “oh nooo” to myself here at the office. This sounds so far from appetizing that I am no longer hungry for my mid-morning snack. I might reread this review whenever I get hungry. Thanks for the great diet aid! I must say that this review was very amusing. When I cook a delicious salmon dinner for myself, which ends up being about twice a week, I always wrap up the leftovers and think about what a great lunch it will make the next day. Every single time I am wrong. Reheating salmon, which is what healthy choice is doing since it is already cooked, is absolutely disgusting. Say goodbye to a flakey texture and savory fish taste and hello to pink rubber and a taste that has no name other than nasty. It gets my gag reflex going every single time. Also, I do not understand why the picture on the box make it look like pink slice of chicken. Salmon does not cut into pieces like that. Or at least it’s not supposed to.
Ace N. on January 8th, 2007

Isn’t this the worst frozen dinner ever created? It was by far the most vile thing that I’ve reviewed…and quite frankly, I should have known better. Fish just isn’t meant to be cooked this way. Maybe if they vaccuum sealed the fish and made you boil the pouch separately it would be okay, but that would sort of defeat the purpose of a convenient meal.
Debbie on January 8th, 2007

Love your site and wondering if you’ve ever tried meals from homebistro.com? I see them advertised all the time in NY Times and the New Yorker and wondering if they’re any good? They’re not cheap at all, but the meals are all “chef-prepared”. They’re vacuum sealed, flash frozen, and delivered to you.. and then you simply simmer them. Very curious….
Colleen on January 9th, 2007

I hated that meal! Bleckity bleck bleck.
Crow on January 10th, 2007

Um, “smell bed?”
Zunina on January 14th, 2007

Um. . .my first trial of this didn’t result in any rubbery salmon nor any unevenly cooked pasta–the pasta was al dente and the salmon was just starting to flake before I took it out–it was neither overcooked nor rubbery. I actually found this much better than a lot of microwave fish dishes (and I agree that fish is hard to do well in the microwave) The dill was great, but then, I love dill.
Laura on February 7th, 2007

I hate frozen dinners, but due to living alone and being a busy medical student I’ve started eating them. This dinner actually converted me, I thought it was decent compared to the alternative of Ramen noodles or cereal. Definately not something I’d serve to guests, but not nearly as bad as you’ve made it out to be. I found your website searching for a picture to send a link to a friend so they can try it…
Christina on February 12th, 2007

Responding to Debbie’s post, I have tried Homebistro.com meals and they are FABULOUS! I got their meals as a gift from a friend and the taste blew me away considering they are literally all boil in a bag type meals. Unfortunately since the meals range from $15-22 a pop I probably won’t be getting many more, but my husband and I agree they are a nice treat when we want a fancy low-calorie meal without all the work in the kitchen.

As for the Healthy Choice meal above, all I can say is….yuuuuck!
Mazella Fuller on March 11th, 2007

I love to purchase Healthy choice Foods and ice cream. The lemon pepper fish is one of my first choies. salmon dill is great too. would like to receive coupons and other promotional items.
Rebecca on March 14th, 2007

Okay, so I had a big craving for Dill Salmon. Last week I bought the LeanCuisine version and totally loved it. This week Healthy Choice was on sale, and they also had a Dill Salmon. I like dill, but I also have certain expectations of dishes. The salmon had dark spots on it that I could not bare to eat. The noodles were extremely too done. I steam broccolii (that the right spelling?) quite often, so that part was not too different than a usual meal for me. The sauce was suffecient. However, I also just got done at the gym, was totally hungry, and between cooking for my family and wanting to eat right away, I ate it anyways. However, I have also learned my lesson.
Asher on March 27th, 2007

This is a copy of the email I just sent to ConAgra (the corporate behemoth responsible for this nauseating crap.)
———
I have never written to any company about anything like this, but felt compelled.

I frequently enjoy Healthy Choice frozen dinners, and have for a while. Granted, one never fills me up so I almost always have to purchase and prepare two at a time (Way to go marketing dept! Portions barely able to satisfy an appetite works wonders to double sales!), I have not had much from Healthy Choice that I didn’t ‘like’. Some, I definitely haven’t loved, but I have at the very least ‘liked’ them all enough to finish them and/or buy them a second time… until I heated up the new(ish) Creamy Dill Salmon.

It’s bright yellow tag: “Flavor Adventures!” is ironically accurate. Eating this meal was an adventure into the flavor of putridity. This is by far the most disgusting frozen dinner I have EVER had… and I have had ALOT. There have been some microwavable or otherwise ‘instant’ meals in the past that have been pretty gross. But this outranks them all and goes on a flavor adventure into uncharted territory of rank-ness. The only other time I’ve eaten salmon that tasted, and smelled like this, it was served to me at a roadside gas station/restaurant at 2am on a road trip in the middle of Nevada - and I became ill with food poisoning that lasted with painful and constant vomiting for 24 hours.

NOTE: Microwavable pre-cooked frozen fish is a HORRIBLE IDEA. Microwaves and fish just don’t go together. Unless you’re talking about fish sticks. In which case, the fish is barely fish, and although soggy, the breading usually makes the overcooked ‘fish’ inside bearable.

The dill alfredo sauce in this meal tasted and looked more like coagulated water with a hint of dill. The only thing more nauseating than the flavor (especially combined with the putrid fish) was the mere sight and texture of the sauce. The smell of the whole dish wretchedly stunk up my house and wouldn’t go away for about an hour and some incense.

Like I said… I have never written to a company to complain about a product in my life. I am not just writing this for kicks. I want to offer you this one suggestion: GET RID OF THIS PRODUCT TODAY! It is a hairy, rotten fish smelling, puss-filled growth on the face of an otherwise decent product line. In the meantime, I will let others know that they should avoid this product like the plague and do what I can to warn the world’s salmon that the Healthiest Choice they could make is to swim faster upstream to avoid meeting their end to become a completely reviled and possibly regurgitated meal.

Sincerely wishing it was out of my body already,

E. Asher

p.s. Lest you think that I am just someone who doesn’t like a strong-flavored fish — I eat alot of seafood prepared all kinds of different ways. I am not one of those who are generally bothered by “fishy” fish. And will take genuine ‘flavor adventures’ and try alot of new and sometimes exotic things. And while I don’t really care for the texture or flavor of sea urchin… it doesn’t make me want to gag like your salmon did.
Abi Jones on March 27th, 2007

Asher - I hope they take you seriously.
Edward on March 31st, 2007

Although it isn’t my favorite, I think it is better than many other fish tv-dinners. The salmon was pretty good, and I guess I like dill more than you. Not great, but nowhere near zero stars.
jamie on November 22nd, 2007

they have since come out with a cafe steamer version of this dish, which i tried without thinking. i’m not that into dill, and i’m rather picky about salmon. i had to throw it away OUTSIDE because just the smell nauseated me so.
JG on November 27th, 2007

I have found ALL of the Healthy Choice meals to be awful. They often smell good but do not taste anything like they smell. Yuck! I prefer Lean Cuisine for sure.
Becky on December 11th, 2007

This meal has the honor of being the ONLY frozen meal that I haven’t been able to finish…and I am a huge fan of salmon, dill, creaminess, broccoli, and noodles. This was pure nastiness, and Healthy Choice should be ashamed.
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milo on January 13th, 2008

Ok so I just found this in my fridge and I remembered this review so I decided to make it.The smell is foul and smells like a mix of pickles and rotten fish.

I will get through this though!
milo on January 13th, 2008

Well, I didn’t quite make it.

Meh.
Tristyn on January 27th, 2008

I’ve had this one a few times… as an amateur connoisseuse of frozen diet meals, I can confidently say that much, much worse products exist. This one really wasn’t that bad. 0 stars, really? How harsh!
kat on April 3rd, 2008

I can say this version of the dill salmon was terrible; however, the cafe steamers version is a bit of an improvement. The broccoli has a little more of a crunch and the salmon is a tad more moist. However, the “creamy” sauce is still just as runny.
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