Price: $3.19 (Free to me)
Serving: 1
Calories: 320 per serving
Fat: 12%, 8g
Cholesterol: 7%, 20mg
Sodium: 28%, 680mg
Protein: 14g
Carbohydrates: 16%, 48g
Fiber: 8%, 2g
Sugar: 12g
Weight Watchers Points: 7 Points

Smart Ones says: Smart Ones Fruit Inspirations meals are delicious new recipes inspired by the natural goodness of fruit. Now you can make every bite count with wonderful dishes that combine the intense flavor of real fruit into your everyday meals of juicy meat or poultry and crisp vegetables. Smart Ones. Taste so good, you want to be good.

Jess says: I recently opted to attend a sales and marketing training held by my company. I was actually glad I went as it was pretty interesting and there were thankfully no Glengarry Glen Ross references. Now, with my new sales maverick skills I can see right through Smart Ones thinly veiled marketing ploy with this line of meals. These are not new frozen meals using fruit in innovative ways but rather they are established fruit-using items. It is not inspirational to add cranberries to turkey and stuffing, nor is it revolutionary to use a citrus sauce for a chicken and rice dish. These items are merely being rebranded so as to now appear new, interesting and different and cause the jaded microwave meal eater to choose this meal from among the large freezer case aisle of sameness.

Does the marketing ploy taint the deliciousness? Not for this meal. The sauce was quite good if you appreciate a good sweet and sour syrupyness to your lunch. This, incidentally, is not Abi, which she will tell you with passion if you mention such food items. I do love sweet and sour flavor blends and so I made sure to get fork fulls of that corn starchy goop with each bite of rice and chicken. The orange essence is definitely palpable here, in a good way. I think that is because they use orange juice concentrate. So if you are not an orange person a) why did you even think about this meal? And b) it does taste like orange, so don’t eat it. However, back to marketing ploys, you will see on the box large orange chunks of what look like juicy mandarin oranges. Not so in real life my friend, at least not in my box. I did sometimes see orange hued strings that could have once belonged to an intact orange but this was just my best guess because of the context clues. The pepper bits were also much much smaller in real life. The chicken pieces were ample. The breading got a little too soggy for my liking, but they tasted just fine.

Overall, Orange Sesame Chicken was pretty filling for a Smart Ones meal. It is pretty much on the same level as Lean Cuisine’s Sweet and Sour Chicken, which I will purchase whenever it is on sale. This meal was entirely worth the nothing I paid for this. Oh that’s right. I’m a deal maker now! Always be closing, readers, always be closing.

[This meal from free from the folks at Smart Ones’ Public Relations company -Ed.]

Price: Free/$2.56 (on sale)
Serving: 9 oz.
Calories: 240 per serving
Fat: 5%, 3.5g
Cholesterol: 11%, 30mg
Sodium: 21%, 490mg
Protein: 9g
Carbohydrates: 11%, 34g
Fiber: 0%, 0g
Sugar: 14g
Weight Watchers Points: 5 Points

Smart Ones says: White meat chicken with diced mangoes in a honey barbeque sauce and orzo pasta

Chaviva says: Oh Smart Ones, you’ve finally done it! A Smart One I will look forward to purchasing in the future. My only two beefs on this chicken meal are that

1. It lacks any fiber. At all. Note zeros above.
2. The barbeque flavor is completely missing.

Luckily, I chose this dish because I was stoked about the idea of a mango sauce. I cooked the package in the microwave according to the instructions and after it’s few minutes of sitting idle, I dove in. I was trying to decide whether the bbq flavor was meant to be in the sauce, which essentially just looked like a mango chutney, or if it was some type of flavor cooked into the chicken. Either way, the flavor was not apparent, though there definitely was a zing and bite to the chicken and mango sauce. The orzo pasta was delicious, though I have no gauge as I’ve never had orzo pasta before. It has a slightly cheesy flavor to it, which I didn’t mind. I’m pretty sure the mix-ins were spinach and red pepper, and I dumped the orzo pasta over into the
leftover mango sauce.

I think the pro to this dish was that it wasn’t all watery like a bulk of the Smart Ones I’ve purchased. That extra watery goo just rains on my eating healthy parade, and it often turns me off from an entire brand. But this one was spot on. The mango sauce was not watery and didn’t require any mixing in with spare moisture left by the chicken. The orzo also lacked any overly liquidy content, making it just darn near perfect.

I’ll admit that I ate this dish super fast – it was that good. I could probably go for a whole additional one, but at 5 points it pretty much rings in as a good dining choice for Weight Watchers folks. I imagine that the point value would drop dramatically if there were some fiber enjoined in this fruity concoction. So I implore you, pick up this fruit creation and enjoy. And avoid those other Smart Ones (especially the Chicken Santa Fe, oy, that gets a 1 star on my radar, if even that).

Now to go find some more fruits to fill the void left by the consumed mango sauce … oh, and sorry for the poor photo quality – my small, convenient digicam is broken, so the blackberry is serving as my on-the-go camera for work photos. I can guarantee that the colors of the mango sauce and the chicken and orzo are much more appetizing and bright than this photo portrays!

[The folks at Smart Ones’ PR company sent coupons for free meals to reviewers as part of their ‘Fruit Inspirations’ promotion. Yes, we got this meal for free. Actually, Chaviva got one for free. I paid for one and until I saw this review, I was trying to figure out how I could trick George into eating it. -Ed.]

SRP: $3.33 (free from Smart Ones)
Serving: 1 meal, 9oz.
Calories: 280
Fat: 9%, 6g
Cholesterol: 4%, 10mg
Sodium: 29%, 700mg
Protein: 12g
Carbs: 15%, 44g
Fiber: 22%, 6g
Sugar: 7g
Weight Watchers Points: 5 Points

Smart Ones says: Tender bow tie pasta with broccoli florets and julienne-cut carrots in a creamy parmesan sauce

Abi says: Smart Ones sent us some coupons for free meals. I should have known better than to use one of them. Sure, brief look back at my dalliances with Smart Ones meals reveals that there are few items that I enjoyed: Smart Ones Thai Style Chicken and Rice Noodles and Smart Ones Chocolate Chip Muffins. But hey, I like almost all Thai food and muffins. Well, except Thai food with too much basil or muffins with blueberries. Or bananas. Or almond extract, which seems picky but still leaves a lot of muffins.

Uh, yeah. So about that frozen food that I don’t like as much as Thai food or muffins. Smart Ones, do you expect dieters to eat this and be satisfied? The pasta sauce is a big bunch of bland. For as long as I eat diet frozen food (which could easily be the rest of my life because they keep coming out with New! things) I will never understand why companies choose to ship bland items.

If I were on a diet, I’d want every single, little thing I ate to be a party in my mouth. This means flavors. This means spices. This does not mean ‘parmesan’ sauce without a detectable hint of cheese. A soon-to-be dietician friend and I were talking the other day and she was just flabbergasted at the way people try to diet and lose weight without flavors. Eating bland food won’t make you want less food, folks; it will just make you want tasty food. And those spices that make a difference in satiety? They don’t have calories. Its a miracle!

Resting in that bed of ‘parmesan’ sauce (which cooked up quite simply and beautifully, getting my hopes way to high) is the pasta. Bow tie pasta is a nice pasta to eat because it is easy to stab with a fork and the folds of the bow ties hold sauce well. If the sauce had been good I’d probably be raving about the pasta, but the sauce was not good, so all I can do now is wonder why they don’t just make the pasta out of whole wheat.

And the vegetables. Oh, vegetables. For me, ‘Primavera’ means one of two things: lots of vegetables or a bunch of naked women (okay, women draped in diaphanous silks) parading about in the forest and/or being kidnapped by Zephyr and then turning into some plants. This meal lacks vegetables, nudity, Federal offenses and metamorphoses, earning it an enormous FAIL.

Okay, so if it actually had nudity I’d be a bit freaked out., but still where are the vegetables? All I could find were the stalk parts of broccoli. Yes, the lame parts of the broccoli. If the front of the box says that your meal contains broccoli florets, then it is in your best interest to include the actual flower-like part of the broccoli. I felt like the frozen food world was playing a joke on me. And maybe it was playing a joke on me. When I went to read the back of the box to record the information for this review I found not one, but two typos:

How this meal escaped into the wild I’ll never know, but if Smart Ones took it back to the lab and added real broccoli florets and seasoning (cheese and garlic) then it could be four star material. Until then I will just be content in the fact that I don’t have any more coupons for free Smart Ones meals on hand.

Price: $3.00
Serving: 9 oz.
Calories: 190
Fat: 12%, 8g
Cholesterol: 17%, 50mg
Sodium: 28%, 680mg
Protein: 19g
Carbohydrates: 4%, 11g
Fiber: 13%, 3g
Sugar: 3g
Weight Watchers Points: 4 Points

Smart Ones says: It’s a sophisticated dish with tender cuts of roast beef and portobello mushrooms, smothered in a tangy vermouth sauce, and a mix of crisp broccoli and cauliflower on the side. So delicious, so satisfying… and another little way you can be good today.

Sarah says: This meal sat in my freezer for quite a while. For some reason, there was always something else that seemed more palatable. But in my recent quest to get a hot body for the summer, I’ve been more careful with my caloric intake. Since I’m going out for dinner tonight, at only 190 calories this meal was the clear winner for lunch.

When I removed it from the microwave, I wasn’t overjoyed at the smell. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t a bad smell per se, but it wasn’t amazing, either. I have to tell you though, I was pleasantly surprised at the taste! Ok, so the veggies needed a tiny bit of salt and pepper, but after that, this meal was none too shady.

The things I enjoyed, in list form:

1. The meat. The box didn’t lie, the roast beef was tender indeed. And delicious! And plentiful, and filling, and the list goes on and on. I have nothing but good things to say about the roast beef, which is good, since that is the name of this meal. Seriously Smart Ones, “Roast Beef?” Not, “Roast Beef and Vegetables?” Or even “Delicious Roast Beef?” You should talk to the people in your creative department. Or maybe hire me.
2. The vegetables tasted like real vegetables. I don’t really like the green stuff in general, so I’m extra picky when it comes to the frozen ones. But while I wouldn’t agree with the official description of “crisp,” I did think they were pretty good.

…And I guess that’s it. I liked the meat, I liked the veggies, and that’s pretty much all there was to this meal. The sauce wasn’t so bad either, though I wouldn’t call it “tangy.” All in all, for 190 calories, I feel full and decently satisfied. That’s what I look for in a microwavable lunch.

Oh, one final note - I don’t know if you can tell from the picture, but they definitely show little red things (Peppers? Tomatoes?) in the veggies. It was clear to me when I opened it up that that was a dirty lie. Sort of. I did find ONE of those little buggers (Conclusion: definitely a pepper) buried under a piece of broccoli. Frankly, this didn’t affect my judgment of the meal because I freaking hate peppers. AND tomatoes. But as a good reviewer, I thought I should alert you to this little fact. You’ve been warned, pepper-loving freaks.