Price: $2.00 on sale
Serving: 1 sandwich, 4oz.
Calories: 210 per serving
Fat: 9%, 6g
Cholesterol: 8%, 25mg
Sodium: 29%, 700mg
Protein: 14g
Carbohydrates: 9%, 27g
Fiber: 8%, 2g
Sugar: 2g
Weight Watchers Points: 4 Points

Canadian Bacon Style English Muffin Sandwich with Egg Whites & Cheese

Liza says: The possible appeal of this product stands or falls on whether you actually like Egg McMuffins or think they’re hideous. Personally, I like them. I like pretty much any kind of fast-food breakfast sandwich from time to time: biscuit sandwiches, McGriddles, bagel sandwiches, Sonic Toaster sandwiches…I could happily chow down on any of them–and I do, once every few months.

So let’s assume you aren’t adverse to Egg McMuffins. In that case, this is actually a pretty good deal at a dollar a sandwich. I don’t know what the regular price is, because my boyfriend bought these and I wasn’t paying attention. The instructions say to wrap the item in a paper towel and microwave it for 1 minute 10 seconds, followed by a 30 second rest, after which you flip it over and cook it for another 25 seconds. Oh, please. The purpose of microwaving your breakfast in the first place is so that you can punch in some numbers, go do something else like feed the cats or check your email, and then grab your hot little breakfast muffin and head out the door. The last thing you need to be doing when you’re in a hurry is hovering around the microwave, nervously supervising your food.

With that in mind, I rebelliously ignored the cooking suggestion and simply nuked the thing for a continual 1 minute 35 seconds, wrapped in the recommended paper towel. Despite this bold example of flaunting Smart Ones’ advice, it came out fine. Make sure to center the frozen disc of egg before cooking–you don’t need to have half the muffin empty, with egg and cheese goo hanging off the other side.

Speaking of cheese goo, that’s probably the one thing I disliked most abut this product. I don’t mind real American cheese in a traditional grilled cheese sandwich once in a great while, but I have never really warmed up to the flappy slices of fat-free glossy orange “cheese” my boyfriend buys for himself. We all have to choose our weight-loss battles, and I for one do not want to live in a world where cheese has no fat. From the ingredients list, it isn’t specified that Smart Ones uses fat-free “cheese” but it certainly did have that very special chemical/salt flavor combination. I can handle it in small doses, though–and in certain contexts like a breakfast sandwich.

The English muffin itself came out soft and only slightly chewy. My boyfriend disagreed, and felt his was quite rubbery. (Don’t bother giving me a “That’s What She Said”, please; it’s too early in the day and I haven’t had enough coffee to not glare at you for doing so.) I didn’t think there was anything wrong with the texture, overall. These types of breakfast sandwiches are supposed to be sort of steamy and soft, and the circle of egg is meant to be a little spongy, and the only thing of any discernible solidity is the Canadian “style” bacon. I mean, that’s what you sign up for with a fast-food breakfast sandwich, isn’t it? Taking that into consideration, I thought this was a perfectly acceptable option for a quick, pleasantly trashy-tasting 210-calorie breakfast.

Price: $3.49
Serving: 1 meal (306 g. or 10.8 oz.)
Calories: 310 per meal
Fat: 5%, 3.5g
Cholesterol: 10%, 30mg
Sodium: 21%, 500mg
Protein: 36%, 18g
Carbohydrates: 17%, 50g
Fiber: 20%, 5g
Sugar: 10g
Weight Watchers Points: 6 Points

Healthy Choice says: Chicken Breast With Rice & Vegetables In Spicy Brown Sauce. Now you can enjoy restaurant inspired meals steamed fresh in your microwave. Our unique STEAM COOKER™ lets you enjoy the naturally fresh flavor of each high quality ingredient.

Corey says: First of all, let’s get one thing out of the way. I don’t eat meals like this. I don’t consciously head to the frozen food section of my local green grocer and grab a handful of chemically enhanced frozen diet food. It’s not part of my typical routine, just as casually watching her step isn’t part of my daughter’s repertoire, or urinating in the yard without barking at every moving tree branch isn’t part of our dog’s.

I don’t do this because I’m uppity. I do this because I’m cheap. Not cheap in the “I’m buying powdered milk instead of the real stuff” way, but in the “why buy General Tso’s Spicy Chicken when you can make your own” way.

Which is why this entire ordeal was quite a shock – even to me. It was as if this Asian Inspired treat jumped into my cart. There I was, wandering down the frozen food aisle and – BLAMMER! – I was checking out, a frozen green and orange box in one hand, a warped check card in the other, overtaken by the need for a fresh steamed lunch that I could make in my microwave.

That’s where the honeymoon ends, my friends. My maiden voyage to the Far East Frozen Food Section ended when I peeled back the sheets, exposing a bed of frozen food, mounded into a mountain of rice, created by a machine, already handled by unloving hands.

First of all, Healthy Choice dupes us into thinking you can legitimately steam vegetables and rice in a microwave using a revolutionary two bowl steaming system. Ha!

Unfortunately, the steaming basket doesn’t steam the vegetables. It boils them. Raised only a centimeter from the bottom of the plastic bowl, the steaming basket is too close to allow for proper steam to escape. Instead, the vegetables are attacked from below with the General Tso’s sauce, battered by heat as if General Tso himself was leading the charge.

It didn’t go well from there. My chicken (only three small pieces) was moist but flavorless and included a touch of gristle, which led me to question whether or not chickens had gristle in the first place. And if so, where is the gristle typically located? The vegetables tasted like frozen vegetables, which is to be expected, and included the typical supply of peas and carrots and what I can only describe as “Red Pepper Skin.” There were green onions, too, and they were surprisingly tasty. As in, I could taste them.

The sauce was the selling point and, ultimately, the downfall of the dish. Put a classy sauce over awful chicken and you can possibly get away with a saved meal. But this sauce, while proper in consistency, was lacking in taste. It was like homemade sweet and sour sauce that was made with an unequal amount of ingredients – as if the sugar was running low, so they used silica gel instead.

Wait. What was I expecting? I will admit – not much. My expectations were low, though as an avid reader of Heat Eat Review, I often see reviews of really good food that I can never seem to find. In addition, I wonder if I would have been happier with a turkey sandwich, a cup of yogurt and a Kashi TLC Cereal Bar, my typical 6-point lunch.

It turns out, I wouldn’t have. The adventure was worth it, even if the food wasn’t.

Price: $2.75 (note if not US dollars)
Serving: 9.5 oz.
Calories: 260 per serving
Fat: 6%, 4g
Cholesterol: 12%, 35mg
Sodium: 24%, 580mg
Protein: 17g
Carbohydrates: 12%, 36g
Fiber: 24%, 6g
Sugar: 10g
Weight Watchers Points: 5 Points

Healthy Choice says: Now you can enjoy restaurant inspired meals steamed fresh in your microwave. Our unique STEAM COOKER (TM) lets you enjoy the naturally fresh flavor of each high quality ingredient.

Daria says: When I bought this meal, I didn’t really think about the implications. (I had a coupon…) Steamed steak? Well, somehow Healthy Choice managed to pull it off. I wouldn’t call the meat “steak” per se, despite the fact that it is well seasoned (i.e. quite salty) and has grill marks. The meat is very tender and has a mouth feel a bit more reminiscent of pot roast than steak. Also, in my world, steak is never brown all the way through; I like red in the middle. I always have to floss my teeth after I eat a steak; this meat, not so much. While one can’t rightly call this beef “steak”, it is still a pleasant surprise in a steamed meal.

The tomato-based sauce is flavorful and tangy with a (liquid) smoky aftertaste, and, while not redolent of a 25-year single-malt, might remind someone who is not a Scotch connoisseur of a whiskey-like beverage. Perhaps Mr. James Bean imparted his leftovers to Conagra, in the form of an ingredient making up less than 2% of total ingredients, listed as “whiskey with salt”. All in all, it is not a bad barbeque sauce. It definitely leaves a zippy little burn in your mouth, possibly from the salt and salt-containing ingredients, including Worcestershire sauce and soy sauce.

The potatoes were a highlight of this meal. Apparently the Café Steamer is an excellent vessel for cooked potato production. They were a tiny bit mealy, but I have had far worse potatoes in a frozen meal. They are on par with the potato texture in Smart Ones Broccoli & Cheddar Roasted Potatoes. There were several other vegetables in the dish, and all cooked up nicely. Green beans were fairly crisp, corn was not mushy, and little tomato bits gave a bit of zing. The onions were very tasty, and seemed almost caramelized in the sauce (was that the point of the caramel color, listed in the ingredients 3 times?).

The package contained a pretty good amount of food for 5 points. I did have some baby carrots with it, and ate around 1:00 pm. At 3:00 pm I was definitely ready for a snack, but that always happens when I eat a freezer lunch, or pretty much any 5-point lunch.

The meal looked pretty much like the photo on the box, except the food was about one-third the size of the picture, and the sauce was pretty much evenly distributed over all items after I followed the directions of stirring the steamed food into the sauce bowl. Still, it was an adequate representation – I have definitely seen worse.

I do have two “beefs” with the Healthy Choice Café Steamer: first, the steamer tray insert itself. Invariably, some of the sauce gets caught in the holes, and this Weight Watcher really doesn’t like to waste sauce, especially when it is as surprisingly tasty as this one. I’m just glad I have a private office in which to eat my lunch and, er, clean my plate. Second, the steaming method and self-venting package. Twice I’ve gone to pull this kind of meal from the microwave, managed to grab a steam vent and received a mildly unpleasant burn. Not third-degree or anything, but enough to put me off eating one of these meals again for a while. I’m sure I’ll forget for the next time I visit the Healthy Choice Café.

Heat Eat Review has over 75 reviews of Lean Cuisine meals. Amongst those meals we’ve uncovered utter nightmares like Lean Cuisine Honey Dijon Grilled Chicken and Lean Cuisine Hunan Beef with Broccoli. We’ve also found the best Lean Cuisine meals and listed them here.

1. Lean Cuisine Butternut Squash Ravioli is a must-have on this list. I didn’t like it, but there are so many rabid fans out there that if I left it off people would probably hunt me down and force-feed me.
2. Lean Cuisine Tortilla Crusted Fish was a complete suprise. I invented the zero stars category because of a fish dish. Specifically, because of Healthy Choice Creamy Dill Salmon. And yet here I am telling you to go out and get this a-maize-ing fish with a side of creamy, deceptively delicious rice. Right now.
3. Lean Cuisine Swedish Meatballs are one of those miracle foods that are meant to be frozen. Between the cream sauce and the meat and the fun of noodles dishes like this will make you think ‘Ah, so that’s why they call it Lean Cuisine.’
4. Lean Cuisine Steak Tips Dijon confuses me. I have to admit that I don’t believe this is actually one of the best Lean Cuisines out there. But that’s because I deplore most beef containing microwave meals. However, if you’re a person who like gravy and wants a meaty meal for 6 points or less, then Lean Cuisine’s Steak Tips Dijon will make you a happy, happy microwaver.
5. Lean Cuisine’s Herb Roasted Chicken is only 3 Points. And it got FOUR STARS. Is that even legal?
6. Lean Cuisine Thai-Style Chicken contains a sauce so delicious that I wish I knew how to make it myself. As I said in the review “the chicken swims in a hearty, tray-licking-good red pepper sauce”. Dang, now I’m hungry.
7. Lean Cuisine Chicken Pecan is utterly reliable. And tough to find. Imagine if Old Faithful were put in a box and actually tasted like caramelized orange sauce.
8. The first time I saw Lean Cuisine’s Chicken Philly Flatbread Melt I thought “Is Lean Cuisine allowed to put that much cheese on something and still call it Lean Cuisine?”
9. Lean Cuisine Sesame Chicken combines sauce, breade meat and noodles in a manner that makes people say “I think I’m craving a Lean Cuisine.”
10. Lean Cuisine Fiesta Grilled Chicken is amongst the most elusive Lean Cuisine dishes in history. Why is it so hard to find? WHY>!?!?!

Did we leave your favorite Lean Cuisine off of the list? Leave a comment below and let us know your favorite.