Smart Ones Stuffed Turkey Breast

November 26, 2008 | Reviewer: Guest Reviewers

Smart Ones Stuffed Turkey Breast Price: $1.99 (on sale)
Serving: 1 tray, 10.0 oz.
Calories: 290 per serving
Fat: 9%, 6g
Cholesterol: 9%, 25mg
Sodium: 36%, 870mg
Protein: 17g
Carbohydrates: 14%, 42g
Fiber: 16%, 4g
Sugar: 5g
Weight Watchers Points: 6 points

Smart Ones says: Savory slices of all-white meat turkey, drizzled with gravy and served over herb stuffing, with buttery grean beans, carrots and potatoes.

Tara says: First off, I think it is important to note that the name of this meal is misleading. The turkey is not “stuffed” with anything, it is merely resting atop some stuffing. Just because there is some stuffing in the mix does not mean you can get away with calling this meal “Stuffed Turkey Breast”. I think “Weird Fused-together Turkey Parts Resting on Soggy Stuffing” would have been a better name. Second, Smart Ones describes this as one of its “Bistro Selections”. This did not remind me of any bistro that I have ever been to. They could have gotten away with categorizing this meal as “home-style favorites” perhaps, or maybe even “riddled with enough salt to bloat you for days”, but not Bistro Selections.

Upon inspecting my meal after heating (which was, as always with Smart Ones, a simple process), I noticed two things. First, there were a lot of veggies. This is good. Second, the turkey was strangely shaped into perfect little meat pancakes. Really thin, anemic looking pancakes, but much more pancake-like than turkey-slice like.

I started off my meal by tasting the potato/veggie medley. The potatoes were dry, much like most frozen red potatoes turn out to be. They were much tastier when dipped into the gravy, but I’ll come back to that later. The green beans and carrots were actually quite delicious, and the green beans felt more like I was eating fresh-cooked green beans than anything that was frozen/canned. The veggies were also a bit shiny, so I would conclude that they were indeed buttery as described on the package.

Next, I moved on to the stuffing (I was trying to avoid the turkey pancakes for as long as possible). I lifted up the turkey slices and saw, to my disappointment, that there was only gravy on the very outer edges of the stuffing. Anything that was covered up by the meat was shielded by the gravy that had once rained down upon this dish. The stuffing on the outer edges of the stuffing pile was crispy, while the stuffing in the center of the pile was much soggier. I liked the crunchy parts because the texture was better, and I’m sure the added gravy helped as well. In general, the flavor was decent, similar to any pre-packaged stuffing you might encounter (ex: StoveTop), but it was very salty. The picture on the box shows large pieces of celery mixed in with the stuffing, but I found a hefty portion of zero pieces included with my meal. The inclusion of celery chunks or even some onion would vastly improve this stuffing. The crispness of either vegetable would have countered the sogginess, making for a much more pleasurable experience.

The gravy that I skipped over a ways back is brown, a feature (to my disappointment) due to our good friend caramel color. The gravy was thick and tasted pleasantly meaty, probably because of the inclusion of “chicken fat” which made an appearance 3 times on the ingredients list. As stated previously, there was not enough gravy to go around, but my arteries are thanking Smart Ones for skimping on it.

After trying every other item on the try, I finally got around to the turkey. I made a mistake of lifting up one thin, flappy slice to come eye to eye with a horrible beast. The top slice was masked by the brown gravy, but the bottom slice was pure white and had weird swirl marks in it, which I believe started to spin in an attempt to hypnotize me into thinking that a human should eat this crap. I used my plastic fork & knife to cut a small piece of the turkey. Fortunately for me, it tasted like gravy. The texture is a bit bouncy, but after a few seconds my teeth were able to break the surface of the meat-cake. It could have been worse, I guess. I continued to mask the pale white processed flesh with some caramel coloring and stuffed my face because I was really, really hungry. And even now, I am still hungry, and am thinking about getting something out of the vending machine.

So much for eating something “low calorie” for lunch.

comments

2 Responses to “Smart Ones Stuffed Turkey Breast”

Laura on November 29th, 2008

“The inclusion of celery chinks or even some onion would vastly improve this stuffing.”

Uh I think you meant celery CHUNKS!
Abi Jones on November 29th, 2008

Thanks Laura! The mistake (now fixed) is definitely mine, not Tara’s.

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