Price: $2.00 on sale
Serving: 1 meal, 12 oz.
Calories: 260
Fat: 12%, 8g
Cholesterol: 15%, 45mg
Sodium: 32%, 770mg
Protein: 27g
Carbs: 18%, 53g
Fiber: 16%, 4g
Diet Exchanges: 2 Lean Meat, 2 Starch, 1 Vegetable, 1/2 Fruit, 1/2 Skim Milk
WW Points: 8 Points

Lean Cuisine says: Roasted chicken tenderloins, freshly made fettuccini and hand-picked broccoli tossed in a creamy Alfredo sauce with parmesan and romano cheeses, served with apples in caramel sauce.

Nicole says: Twelve ounces of food. That’s pretty exciting. Of course, I have a couple Hungry-Man meals at home that could bench press ten Lean Cuisine meals anytime (or sit on them and squash them to death,) but it’s nice to stay on the reasonable portions side of things and still have some expectation of satiety.

This meal require some babysitting - partway through cooking, you must pull back the plastic film, stir main meal section, re-cover, and continue heating. While I appreciate fully cooked food, I think that the spinning motion of the microwave plate should suffice for stirring.

The alfredo sauce was not bad - sure, it had the texture and appearance of a sauce that separates and doesn’t re-mix so well upon reheating, but it tasted A-OK. The noodles were just a touch on the soft side, but served in a hearty quantity. The chicken portion included three large (staple remover) chicken peices and four smaller ones (the hole in the center of a roll of Scotch tape). The flavor of the chicken was chicken-y and texture is appropriately meat-like. The broccoli is bright green, firm, and scrumptious.

And there’s dessert! Apples in caramel sauce! I really think we need to advocate for a law requiring frozen meals to include a meal-appropriate dessert. This one is quick and delightful with a nice mix of pie-quality spiced apples and sweet thin caramel sauce. And I’m spent. It is the size that matters, and this one is a happy medium.

Price: $2.00
Serving: 1 meal, 10.8 oz.
Calories: 410
Fat: 14%, 9g
Sodium: 25%, 600mg
Protein: 17g
Carbs: 21%, 64g
Fiber: 20%, 5g
WW Points: 8 Points
Diet Exchange: 1 Very Lean meat, 4 starch, 1 vegetable, 1 Fat

Healthy Choice says: Tempura battered chicken breast chunks, covered with a spicy brown sauce and served with a rice medley that includes peas, carrots, and tangy red peppers.

Abi says: Tempura is Japanese for ‘The only fattening item in our entire cuisine arsenal’. This explains why tempura is so popular in the United States. I have long been fascinated with tempura, not that I ate any as a kid. Instead, for the entirety of my childhood, there was a little blue box of ‘Tempura’ on the shelf in our kitchen. The cover of the box showed a battered shrimp being dipped into cocktail sauce. While visiting my mom this summer I noticed that the box is still in the pantry. I’m sure that the tempura batter has lost some of its nutritive value over the years.

Fortunately for me, Healthy Choice has created a tempura-battered item that I can eat without any feelings of guilt or ponderings of product expiration dates. Granted, I’m not especially keen on the meal. While I probably won’t buy it again, I wasn’t mad at myself for purchasing this meal.

I didn’t grow up eating Chinese food, so the term ‘brown sauce’ has positively no meaning. Also, it contains no positive meaning. In fact, to me it implies that a tasteless sauce has been foisted upon protein or vegetables in order to better lubricate them during the eating process. I have studiously avoided any and all meals that are topped with ‘brown sauce’. Considering that I enjoyed Healthy Choice’s version of brown sauce, I would probably like it in restaurant meals too.

The chicken portion of this meal is larger than expected (this is also a 410 calorie, 8 Point meal), the sauce is full of mysterious flavors, and the rice exhibited a lovely fluffiness. If you’re on a diet and looking for some semi-healthful Chinese food, give this meal a try.

Tanya at IateApie.net noted that “this meal was Asian “inspired” and it’s more like a less spicy version of regular General Tso chicken.” [Read her review]

Price: $4.19
Serving: 1 tray, 10 oz.
Calories: 390
Fat: 20%, 13g
Sodium: 20%, 490mg
Carbs: 14%, 43g
Fiber: 9%, 2g
Protein: 24g
Weight Watchers Points: 8 Points

Michael Angelo says: This delicious sauce combines a generous amount of high quality Asiago and Reggiano Parmesan cheeses, fresh garlic and onions and a touch of basil. We add beautifully seasoned and roasted chicken breast cut into hearty sized strips, toss it with our ‘al dente’ linguini pasta and top it all with red and green bell peppers.

Abi says: While Michael Angelo continues to deliver satisfyingly cheesy sauces, you can’t help but wonder who is sourcing the chicken. In every meal I am confronted by dry, mealy ‘hearty sized strips’ of chicken breast. Sure, there was plenty of chicken to go around in this meal, but I couldn’t help wishing that the chef had reduced the cook time considerably. Remember, these are meals that have already been cooked. We’re just reheating, Mr. Angelo.

The red and green bell peppers were more of a garnish than an ingredient. Yes, I was warned, but while stirring the meal I couldn’t help but think to myself ‘Well, it looks like there’s a shard of green pepper in there.’ Shard+Food=Bad. If you’re looking for a balanced meal of pasta, sauce, protein, and veggies, you’ve come to the wrong place. The sauce shows off Michael’s deft hand with a cheese grater and leaves you wondering just how fat you’d get if you ate these every day. Probably very fat. But it would be a happy fat because the sauce it so great.

Chicken aside, Michael Angelo’s Asiago sauce was indulgent and is probably habit-forming. At $4.19 per box, I’ll probably limit these meals to once a month.

UPDATE: I’ve since had another one of these and the chicken was much, much better. If you see it, try it!

Price: $2.00 (good sale at Safeway)
Serving: 1 pizza, 6 oz.
Calories: 370
Fat: 14%, 9g
Sodium: 25%, 590mg
Protein: 17g
Carbs: 18%, 55g
Fiber: 12%, 3g
WW Points: 8 Points
Diet Exchanges: 1 1/2 Medium Fat Meat, 3 Starch, 1 Vegetable

Lean Cuisine says: Pizzeria-style pizza with a crispy crust from the microwave, topped with a four cheese blend and spicy pepperoni,sausage,roasted bell peppers,onions,and mushrooms

Andrew says: The Lean Cuisine pizza is flavorful and healthy, a lunchtime delight. It will become a staple of my snack and lunch diet.

The top positive characteristic of the pizza is its crisp crust. The silver crisper (part of the packaging) has transformed what would be a cardboard-invoking texture of microwaveable pizza dough into something resembling freshly baked bread! The flavor of the pizza is also enhanced by the fresh and moist pepperoni.

And unlike other microwaveable pizzas, the cheese on this pizza maintains a consistency similar to that of freshly-made pizza. I’m impressed with a microwaveable pizza that can avoid the pitfalls of bad cheese.

Overall- a definite best bet for lunch. One note of caution: this pizza probably won’t provide enough sustenance for a dinner. It’s the portion equivalent of a slice and a half of real pizza (if that).