Price: $2.00 (sale at Giant)
Serving: 1 package, 16 oz.
Calories: 1040
Fat: 93%, 61g
Sodium: 111%, 2670mg
Protein: 32g
Carbs: 30%, 90g
Fiber: 33%, 8g
Weight Watchers Points: 25 Points

Hungry-Man says: Flame broiled beef patty with cheese on a bun and potatoes with cheese sauce. We know what it takes to satisfy the heartiest of appetites. Now you can enjoy popular varieties from your favorite sports grill in front of your own TV.

Nicole says: I was so excited to find Hungry Man meals on sale that I called Abi while I was still at the grocery store. Unfortunately, she didn’t answer. I was still, however, very excited when I arrived home with my booty that I called her again. This time she answered.

I’d like to state up front that my excitement is about the sale HM meals has nothing to do with a particular cranky, threatening reader’s comments. It was entirely to do with my desire for more calories and fat from sale frozen meals. But in case my reference was too oblique, here is the comment:

Hi. I’m starting to get sick of this site. This site is called “Heat. Eat. Review”. You should name it “Become a damn hippy. Eat. Review”. All you do is review inferior products that are GOING to taste like crap because they’re either “organic”, “low fat”, or “gourmet”, none of which are suitable fare for frozen dinners.

I have commented once before. I DEMAND that you include Swanson meals in your surveys. Your whole site screams “female” and “granola eating hippy” to me. Some of the HUNGRY-MAN meals are large enough to fill you up for a whole day, just about, and while not as health concious as your other reviewed items, can be placed into a well balanced diet IF USED CORRECTLY. I have facts and figures to back up my claims. When considering the serving sized of HUNGRY-MAN meals to what you review, often the grams of fat and sodium are not that different.

Stop being whining pansies looking for quality “mud food” (i.e. indian. wtf?) in a frozen dinner and review the REAL frozen dinners most people are eating. If you do not, you will suffer consequences.

Thanks!
Greg

Greg: There are certain hippie-ish reviewers on this site, that’s undeniable. But you don’t have to be a hippie to wish to save money by buying frozen meals on sale for $2.00 or $2.50. Write Swanson and let them know they need to offer more sales. Or write Giant and tell them to offer Swanson meals on sale more often. Don’t chastise us for saving money and liking a variety of cuisines. Or, donate $5 and let us know what frozen meal you’d like us to review.

Back to the 1040 calorie meal at hand.

Preparation was too complicated, but what do you really expect with a freaking microwavable burger? You had to remove the bun top before heating the entire meal, then add the bun top for the last 45 seconds.

I was pleasantly surprised by the size of the burger - I was expecting a McDonald’s standard cheeseburger size. The slice of cheese on the burger could’ve been a bit bigger, but there was plenty of cheese for the fries. The bun didn’t turn out all that soggy, just soft and the meat tasted like any frozen burger patty. So, the cheeseburger was better than fair. The fries were either too crispy (around the edge of the plate) or too soft (middle of the plate) but they were reasonably tasty and crispness is far less important with these home-style fries anyhow. The cheese sauce was decent - more like CheezWhiz on a cheesesteak than cheese sauce on nachos. The big disappointment with this meal came when I got the the center of the fry compartment. The center bottom of the pile were not fully cooked, and I wasn’t going to put them back in the microwave for another go. It was okay, I was already quite full. Lucky for you, Swanson!

I am a bit confounded by the idea of cheese fries with a cheeseburger. I feel that if I were ordering a cheeseburger, I wouldn’t necessarily be seeking fries with a topping. And if I were, it’d be chili cheese fries. Don’t get any ideas, Hungry Man division of Swanson!!

Price: $2.00
Serving: 1 package, 16 oz.
Calories: 710
Fat: 45%, 29g
Sodium: 90%, 2160mg
Protein: 34g
Carbs: 29%, 86g
Fiber: 25%, 6g

Hungry-Man says: Fried chicken patties with mashed potatoes, corn and a brownie

Abi says: There were two good parts to this meal: chicken and brownie. Not very good parts: potatoes and corn. This was the exact opposite of what I expected when heating this meal. I was looking forward to buttery salt-laden potatoes. Instead, I ate a forkful of bland reconstituted potato matter and wept silent tears for the Idahoans against whom such cruelty had been committed.

Ok, I didn’t cry. Instead, I moved on to the corn. Corn is so hard to screw up, yet Hungry-Man somehow manages to overcome that barrier. What’s especially confusing is that Hungry-Man is made by Swanson, the company that introduced the TV Dinner. Shouldn’t they be really good with the corn and mashed potatoes? They’ve had 50 years to perfect this, haven’t they?

On the other side of the dinner coin, Hungry-Man has discovered the secret to producing crispy chicken patties in the microwave: coat them with an impossibly thick layer of fried breading. While a little salty for my taste, the chicken was darn good. I can’t believe I’m saying that, but really it was quite delicious.

You know what else was good (for being from a microwave)? The brownie. Ok, it wasn’t so much good as ‘not awful’. There’s nothing like a dinner of fried chicken and brownie.

And for all of you Hungry-Men and Hungry-Women out there: the portions in this meal are enormous. If they cut the meal down to one patty, some delicious corn, a dollop buttery potatoes, and kept the brownie, I would probably buy this again. They could call the meal Hungry-Abi. Catchy, no?

Ok, it isn’t catchy and I probably won’t buy this again, but if you’re looking for a Hungry-Man meal, I can definitely recommend this one over the Mexican Style Fiesta.

Price: $2.00 (sale at Giant)
Serving: 1 package, 1 pound
Calories: 620
Fat: 25%, 16g
Sodium: 58%, 1380mg
Protein: 28g
Carbs: 28%, 84g
Fiber: 24%, 6g

Hungry-Man says: Rigatoni Pasta with Hearty Meat Sauce Topped with Mozzarella Cheese with a Garlic Bread Stick

Nicole says: Are the rigatoni supposed to be jumbo or is the serving size of rigatoni supposed to be jumbo? The former would be a false claim, the latter would be right on. I’d say that this pasta-sauce-cheese serving is three times the size of those in Lean Cuisine or Healthy Choice meals (the tray is not only wider but deeper,) and over twice the size of a Stouffer’s or Boston Market pasta serving.

This Hungry-Man meal also comes with garlic bread. We all know that microwaving bread for too long is not good. Don’t worry, you don’t add the bread to the microwave tray until the last 45 seconds of cooking. Yes, it stills turns out a bit soft and squishy, but it is palatable. I’d recommend a quick trip to the toaster oven for the garlic bread, if available.

The first thing I noticed after heating the meal was that the rigatoni around the edges was dried out and hardened. Even after stirring the cooked meal and waiting a few moments, these pieces (about 4) could not be properly revived. I still ate them in all of their chewiness. The cheese portion on top of the noodles is reasonable. I would use more cheese if I were making something like this at home, but I think we all know that I don’t MAKE any food at home. I heat it up. The sauce is tomato-ey and not too watery. The meat in the sauce actually impressed me - it is spiced with a bit of hot and a bit of sweet. Quite tasty, especially when you can tell just by taste that your meat sauce uses sausage-like meat versus plain old ground beef.

This meal tastes good and fills me up!

In which Nicole eats half of a Hungry-Man meal and declares herself unsatisfied in multiple ways.

Price: $2.00 (sale at Safeway)
Serving: 1 package, 20 oz.
Calories: 870
Fat: 58%, 38g
Sodium: 93%, 2230mg
Protein: 24g
Carbs: 38%, 113g
Fiber: 53%, 13g

Hungry-Man says: Beef enchiladas in chili sauce with Mexican style rice, refried beans and a brownie.

Nicole says: I could eat this entire meal. But I wouldn’t enjoy it. Not that I would be painfully full, though I am reasonably satisfied after half of the meal and a small salad. It would be painful because this meal really does not taste good. The enchiladas are in the same class as Banquet’s enchiladas: untextured meat (though this is supposed to be shredded, from the photo), soggy shells, and a sauce with enough flavor to make these bits of American-Mexican cuisine palatable.

The refried beans were very disturbing, however. The first bite and every one thereafter had a distinct chemical taste. In refried beans, of all things. These are a protein you can safely eat straight from a can, but for some reason Swanson needed to add some freaky nasty preservative that make them taste worse than cold refired beans from the can. Pfft.

Abi gave me a heads up that the brownie was disappointing. I stil looked forward to it, though. She was right - though it’s clear that there is some chocolate or chocolate flavor in this, the dessert is quite bland. It’s like bad vegan chocolate. The texture was not hideous, though, compared to microwave brownies in meals that I’ve had in the past. This may be related to the fact that you have to remove the brownie part way through cooking. This meal gets knocked up half a star only because the whole thing would be a filling meal for $2.00 (on sale.)

Click here to read Abi’s review of this meal.