Price: $2.00 on sale
Serving: 1 package, 10.58oz.
Calories: 360 per serving
Fat: 12%, 8g
Cholesterol: 7%, 20mg
Sodium: 28%, 670mg
Protein: 18g
Carbohydrates: 19%, 56g
Fiber: 8%, 2g
Sugar: 11g
Weight Watchers Points: 7 Per Serving

Simply Enjoy says: A delicious medley of vegetables - red peppers, sugar snap peas, and carrots, mixed with white chicken tenderloins seasoned in a honey ginger sesame sauce. Our Sesame Ginger Chicken is served over crisp and delicious Chow Mein noodles for a sweet and savory flavor. This is a meal bound to be a favorite with every member of your family.

Jess says: I’ve been pretty skeptical of the Simply Enjoy brand. For one, they are always dirt cheap. Well, not as dirt cheap as a Lean Cuisine on sale, but these things usually hover at about $2.50 a pop. Now I’m no economist but I think the rules of supply and demand state that no one else is eating these. Or maybe they are just trying to build hype? For two, the box is very unassuming. They make almost no bold, sales statements long the lines of “this meal will cleanse your soul” or “eating one of these meals a day will protect you from regret”. Staying true to their motto, they just seem to want you to Simply Enjoy. That’s weird. I’m just not getting their simplistic motivation.

Upon heating this particular sucker up, I noticed that the noodles were a frightening radioactive shade of yellow. Abi tried to assure me that I was just crazy and that the noodles were a standard microwavable hue but I was not convinced. You can be your own judge but I think that there is definitely some excessive amounts of yellow-40 up in that piece. But the sauce is so gingery delicious that once I got busy eating, I couldn’t care less about any of the dye toxins I may have been consuming. I’ve seen microwave meals try to flavor things with ginger and normally it just tastes slightly, unidentifiably spicy but in this meal the ginger flavor really does come through. Also there were plenty of water chestnuts and they were fun. So crunchy, but also chewy! So texturally interesting! And the water chestnuts pair nicely with the ginger sauce and day-glo noodles. The chicken was fine. I really can’t remember much about it because it didn’t add or take away much. I can safely say that its coloring was not alarming.

I was quite happy with this and will come back to it again. At this price, this may end up being one of my rotating staple items, until, of course, my skin looks jaundiced and the poison-induced facial ticks start. That’s when I guess I’ll have to move on to something new.

Price: $2.50 (on sale)
Serving: 1 package, 10.58 oz.
Calories: 300
Fat: 11%, 7g
Sodium: 41%, 980mg
Protein: 13g
Carbs: 16%, 49g
Fiber: 8%, 2g
Sugar: 12g

Simply Enjoy says: Our Chicken Pad Thai is made with deliciously seasoned white chicken tenderloins that are simmered in authentic Thai-style peanut sauce. Served on a bed of traditional rice noodles this tangy-sweet Thai-style dish is destined to become a favorite with your friends and family

Jenn says: The name makes it sound so simple – SIMPLY enjoy. Ok, I thought at the grocery store this morning. I can do that, especially if the meals are on sale.

Indeed, I did enjoy my lunch today. The meal I removed looked like the meal on the box. Connoisseurs of frozen food know that this is a big deal. Having a frozen food meal that actually looks like the picture on the box is akin to having a politician follow through on a campaign promise. The noodles in the pad Thai were very similar to those I find in my neighborhood Thai restaurant. The chicken was tender and moist and ineEvery few bites I experienced the salty crunch of peanuts.

I was about to follow the directions and SIMPLY enjoy my meal, but something was off – the sauce. While I admittedly liked the sauce, it was more citrus-based than peanut based. If I could identify the exact difference between regular pad Thai sauce and this pad Thai sauce, I would probably be reviewing real restaurants, not frozen food. Thus, you are going to have to take my word that the sauce might not be what you are expecting but it isn’t necessarily bad.

[Nicole also reviewed this meal, giving the Simply Enjoy Pad Thai only 1 star. I recommend that you check out past reviews by both Nicole and Jenn to figure out who you should trust on this one. - Ed.]

Price: $2.50 (on sale)
Serving: 1 package, 10.58 oz.
Calories: 300
Fat: 11%, 7g
Sodium: 41%, 980mg
Protein: 13g
Carbs: 16%, 49g
Fiber: 8%, 2g
Sugar: 12g

Simply Enjoy says: Our Chicken Pad Thai is made with deliciously seasoned white chicken tenderloins that are simmered in authentic Thai-style peanut sauce. Served on a bed of traditional rice noodles this tangy-sweet Thai-style dish is destined to become a favorite with your friends and family

Nicole says: A great frozen Pad Thai is kind of like angels or wood nymphs. You maintain a secret, romantic hope that it/they is/are out there, but you know it’s a longer shot than Moses parting the Red Sea. So why was I excited about this meal?

Simply Enjoy has a pretty good track record here at HER headquarters. Their Indian entrees are pretty freaking amazing - nicely spiced sauces, good meat, and generous starch portions.

The Pad Thai with Chicken has a generous starch portion and I was excited that they actually used rice noodles rather than throwing peanuts and fish sauce over fettuccine. But the noodles didn’t come out great, instead they could only be described as rubbery. I suspect they were slightly overcooked, a likelihood since rice noodles do cook more quickly than wheat-based noodles. And speaking of overcooking, one section of sauce heavy noodles hardened in a slightly burned mass. I tried to eat it, but you try choking down burnt peanuts and hard noodles. It isn’t pretty.

This is a standard Simply Enjoy chicken portion - four medium large pieces of chicken (each slightly smaller than a stapler remover) and a couple of tiny pieces. The chicken’s got a decent texture and maintains some juiciness but little flavor - we depend on the sauce for that.

The sauce here is the real disappointment, though. Pad Thai? I should have known that “sweet-tangy” in the description wasn’t just a misprint. This meal tastes like sweet and sour sauce with peanuts thrown in. We have a few decent Thai restaurants in DC, so I fancy myself a decent judge of pad thai sauce. I’ve even made it once myself (surprisingly easy!). This is simply not Pad Thai sauce. There is the slightest hint of fish sauce, a heavy sweetness, and a tang (vinegar?). There are peanuts, but they are overcooked, robbing them of any crunch and most flavor.

I simply did not enjoy this meal, will not purchase again, and would not recommend to anyone. Unless you want mediocre, mislabeled sweet and sour chicken. Even then, I’m certain there are better mediocre sweet and sour chicken meals. And I suggest that those Canadians stick to Indian cuisine.

[For better mediocre sweet and sour chicken meals, check out Jess’s reviews of Lean Cuisine’s Sweet and Sour Chicken and Kashi’s Sweet and Sour Chicken. It appears that Jess is the Queen of all things Sweet and Sour at HeatEatReview.com -Ed.]

Price: $2.50
Serving: 1 tray, 10.58 oz.
Calories: 390
Fat: 9%, 6g
Sodium: 25%, 590mg
Protein: 14g
Carbs: 21%, 62g
Fiber: 12%, 3g

Simply Enjoy says: Exotic spices flavor white chicken tenderloins to bring you a Chicken Tikka Masala. Served with a mildly spiced sauce on a bed of fragrant Basmati rice, this is a meal you can delight your friends and family with any day of the week.

Jenn says: The cost of a trip to India - $2,500. The cost of Simply Enjoy's Chicken Tikka Massala - $2.50 (on sale at Giant.) While I know that the two don't actually compare, if you don't have an extra couple of thousand dollars but still want good Indian food, I wholeheartedly recommend this meal.

The sauce is bright and aromatic without being overly spicy. The chicken is moist and tender, though the rice is a bit dry. Personally, I like my rice a little more moist, but I don't think moist rice is commonly found at Indian restaurants.

You could go to an Indian restaurant and get food just as good but it would probably cost you more and you would receive and inevitably eat a much larger portion size than is actually necessary.

I just had a colleague walk by and ask why I hadn't asked them if they wanted to go get take out at the Indian buffet today. Simply Enjoy's Chicken Tikka Massala can really fool you into believing that you went out to eat. Yum.