Price: $4.19
Serving: 1 meal, 4.9 oz.
Calories: 330
Fat: 20%, 13g
Cholesterol: 18%, 55mg
Sodium: 30%, 720mg
Protein: 23g
Carbs: 10%, 31g
Fiber: 4%, 1g
WW Points: 7 Points

conditional*

Oscar Mayer says: Experience a sandwich that has all the warmth, flavor and fresh baked taste you look forward to, without having to go out. In no time at all, you can create a lunch for one, served with soft warm flatbread, premium cuts of meat, specialty sauces and natural cheeses, all individually wrapped for freshness. It is the hot and melty moment you deserve.

Ingredients listed on front of package: Flatbread; grilled chicken breast strips with ribbed meat – cured; shredded Italian-style three cheese blend of 2% milk reduced fat natural mozzarella cheese, 2% milk reduced fat provolone cheese, Parmesan Cheese; sun-dried tomato sauce.

Adina says: In a move towards full disclosure, I’d like to state that I received this meal free from Oscar Mayer. It is a good thing too, because there is a zero percent chance I would buy this on my own. The reason is three fold: (1) because it is essentially a sandwich in a box, which I do not consider a big whoop de doo; (2) because there are no noodles in said sandwich; and (3) because it is Oscar Mayer and unless this sandwich features a giant hot dog that sings that wiener song on command, I am just not that interested.

I have to say, this review is causing me a lot of grief. On one hand, I really enjoyed this sandwich. The chicken was very tender, which I think is directly related to the fact that this meal is refrigerated and not frozen. It tasted like I had lightly grilled a chicken breast and then cut it up and put it in a sandwich. This makes me chuckle because I would never lightly grill anything. Deep fry? yes. Bake in a pound of butter? Uh yes. But lightly grill? That is just not a phrase I have ever heard myself say out loud. Without shaking my head and laughing.

The flatbread was chewy and warm and better than most bread I have encountered on sandwiches. It might have been my favorite part of the meal. No way, I take that back. The cheese was my favorite part. Apart from the fact that it is cheese (and who doesn’t worship cheese in a slightly idolatrous way?), it just had this really natural, smooth feel to it. It was subtle, the kind of cheese that you notice from across the room – drinking a martini with olives, wearing a sleek black dress, looking effortlessly lovely and approachable, but in an unapproachable way. I want to date this cheese. I want to take this cheese home to my mother, marry this cheese, make this cheese the happiest cheese in the world.

The least desirable part of the actual meal was the dressing. It tasted like what I would imagine salad dressing to taste like if you decided to microwave salad dressing. Salad dressing tends to be over the top taste wise, as if Paul Newman knows that the only thing separating your salad from a field of grass is his magic sauce. And this sauce felt that way, as if it was acknowledging the fact that you were about to eat a fairly plain meal that can only be saved by being punched in the face with a fistful of sun-dried tomatoes. If you decide to eat this meal, you might to consider just putting a tad of the sauce on the sandwich and then toss the rest of the sauce with some lettuce. Or else use it to buff the exterior of your car.

Overall, this meal was definitely 4 stars taste-wise. One of the things keeping me from giving it 4 stars is what this meal weighs in at: 4.9 ounces and 330 calories. Most of the microwave meals I eat range from 8 ounces to 11 ounces. So, this makes this meal possibly the smallest lunch I have ever eaten for Heat Eat Review. And it packs quite a bit of caloric intake considering how small it is. I imagine I could have eaten a candy bar that had similar stats but was, you know, chocolate.

The other thing is that it is $4.19 on non-sale. That means you are almost paying a dollar an ounce. It seems reasonable to ask for that or even more when you are selling smack or baby food, but not when you’re selling some chicken and cheese and hot salad dressing.

*So I am giving this a conditional rating: 3 stars if you buy it full price and it is the only thing you eat for lunch, and 4 stars if you buy it on sale and pair it with a salad that you brought from home. And then you get 4 stars too for eating salad, more power to you.

Serving size: 1 Tray, 10 oz
Calories: 280
Total Fat: 6%, 4g
Saturated Fat: 5%, 1g
Trans Fat: 0%, 0g
Cholesterol: 13%, 40mg
Sodium: 23%, 550mg
Carbohydrates: 14%, 41g
Dietary Fiber: 16%, 4g
Sugars: 6g
Protein: 36%, 20g
Weight Watchers Points: 5 Points

Hormel says: Santa Fe Style Chicken with Rice, Black Beans & Fire Roasted Corn.

Nicole says:

I know that reviews are supposed to be objective, but they are also supposed to be honest. The idea of shelf-stable meats outside of a can (soup, tuna) scares me. I have tried it before, and it was . . . okay . . . but definitely not “good”.

And that was not chicken.

There was initial comfort: when I tried to poke “several slits” in the heavy plastic seal on this meal with my fork, it proved impossible. This is a good seal. I had to use the knife we keep in the office for ice cream cakes.

Note about cooking: the alternative to microwave coking this meal is to simmer it while sealed in a pot of boiling water. I suggest you campers keep this in mind.

The aroma of the cooked meal (90 seconds is a REALLY quick cooking time) was heavy with tomato sauce. And the flavor is very heavy on tomato - it even overpowers the beans, which I expected to taste as the primary but they just peek through the sauce, though they are nicely cooked - firm enough to have texture but not hard - no “mush” there.

The corn has completely taken on tomato flavor, but it has retained it’s crunch. And I know you’re going to ask - yes, it it blackened in spots since it’s “fire roasted”.

The chicken is the thing I really don’t want to think about. In reality, the texture is better than the chalky texture that results from some microwaved frozen meals or the hard edges from others. This is moist, and it tastes like tomato sauce.

The rice is just saucy rice. All ingredients (there are actually two types of beans) are fairly represented throughout the meal, including a couple chunks of stewed tomato.

There is nothing wrong with this meal - the one major complaint would be that all the ingredients have the same flavor, though they distinguish themselves texturally. It’d be nice to taste corn and chicken as well.

But it is more than that. Hormel is going to have to work hard for the average person to conceive realistically of grabbing a plastic tray of chicken and rice off the shelf, heating it for less than two minutes, and consuming it. Maybe it’s not actually different than a can of soup, but we’ve been eating out of cans since people were speaking Aramaic, or nearly that long. I am sure there were cowboys eating out of cans before the Hollywood cowboys did so. We are in a plastic age, but have we advanced mentally far enough for it to preserve all our foods? Kudos to the technology, but I can’t get into it yet. It’ll take several more experiments and a couple more years before it feels “right”.

Or, please just put it in a can. Doubly beneficial, as I know I can recycle a can - this plastic tray is polypropylene, and I’m not sure if my building accepts it. And my stomach will be far more welcoming. Sure, I’ll need to pour it into a dish to cook it, which means there will be dishes to do, but I’d rather dirty dishes than slight nausea throughout lunch.

This isn’t a bad meal. It’s not bland, though it is one-note. It’s reasonably filling for it’s size and caloric content, likely because it has rice and beans and chicken (though also because my stomach shrinks when it’s afraid - sorry.) If you can mentally put aside the packaging and you like simple canned soups, you would most likely enjoy this meal. And it’s sooo healthy compared to even many of your Lean Cuisine meals. I just can’t handle it.

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: $2.25
Serving: 10.5 oz.
Calories: 300
Fat: 18%, 12g
Cholesterol: 17%, 50mg
Sodium: 32%, 760mg
Protein: 25g
Carbohydrates: 9%, 27g
Fiber: 32%, 8g
Sugar: 6g
Weight Watchers Points: 6 Points

Smart Ones says: Breast strips with rib meat and penne in a creamy red pepper sauce with broccoli.

Sarah says: In comparison to my review of Smart Ones Roast Beef, where I was pleasantly surprised by a meal that I expected not to love, this meal was a sharp turn for the worse. I think that my expectations were simply way too high - this is yet another case of a horribly misleading and delicious-looking cover gone wrong. Everything about this little frozen meal called out to me. Whole grain wheat pasta? Check! Broccoli, my favorite frozen vegetable? Check! Some sort of sauce that’s sorta-creamy-and-sorta-spicy? CHECK! In addition to all of that, South Beach is apparently not eco-friendly, as their meal comes in a box that takes up approximately double the space that my Smart Ones takes, even though the meal is just 1.5 ounces heavier. This was yet another factor in my high expectations, as I extremely hungry when I selected the gargantuan parcel out of my freezer at lunchtime. Big box = big taste, right?

Not so much. The first let-down of the meal was the broccoli. I always eat the veggies first, because I’m a slightly OCD weirdo who likes to separate their foods and eat them in order from “least favorite” to “favorite.” It’s pretty hard to mess up broccoli, but somehow South Beach has managed it. I can’t even tell you what it was, either. The broccoli just tasted slightly off. Like maybe it had been frozen and thawed and re-frozen one too many times.

Then there was the pasta, which I had hoped would redeem my rather pathetic vegetable experience. I think the biggest disappointment was with the “Red Pepper Sauce,” which I had expected to taste . . . oh, I don’t know . . . peppery? Instead, it just tasted like sauce. Just generic sauce, that you might find in a big plastic container located in an underground hatch on a mysterious island in the South Pacific. The pasta has a strange texture, but that’s par for the course when you’re dealing with whole wheat pasta, and I really felt like it might have been enjoyable (the chicken was just fine, too) if there had been non-Dharma sauce on top of it.

Oh well, I guess that’s what you get for buying any meal with the word “diet” on the front of the package. Too bad I have two other South Beach items left in the freezer to try.

[The South Beach Diet is now known as South Beach Living. Also, if you’re into Lost but you’re never sure if this week’s episode will be new or a rerun, I recommend you check out Is Lost a Repeat?, a highly accurate, superbly informational website. -Ed.]