Price: 34¢
Serving: 1 package, 2.25oz. + water
Calories per serving: 290
Fat: 18%, 12g
Cholesterol: 1%, <5mg
Sodium: 49%, 1,180mg
Protein: 7g
Carbohydrates: 13%, 38g
Fiber: 8%, 2g
Sugar: 1g
Weight Watchers Points: 6 Points

Maruchan says: Ramen noodles with vegetables. Fast and tasty as a hot snack or a delicious meal - anytime.

Abi says: You know you’re making a bad food choice when other people in Wal-Mart give you a look that says “Oh my God, you’re buying that?”

The negatives of Instant Lunch are vast: powdered chicken flavor that doesn’t fully dissolve in water (clumps, mmm), styrofoam packaging that mocks recycling efforts and microwave instructions that really read “Don’t put styrofoam in the microwave, you idiot. Heat water separately.”

On the plus side, this thing cost all of 34¢

And it didn’t taste like an old sock.

Between the excessive salt and uh, the excessive salt, there isn’t much good I can say about this lunch but “35¢! Woo!”

Price: $2.00 (sale price, Safeway)
Serving: 1 package, 10.5 oz.
Calories: 230 per serving
Fat: 9%, 6g
Cholesterol: 9%, 30mg
Sodium: 21%, 500mg
Protein: 17g
Carbohydrates: 10%, 30g
Fiber: 20%, 5g
Sugar: 4g
Weight Watchers Points: 4 Points

Eating Right says: Tender white meat chicken, tomatoes, yellow bell peppers and zucchini with whole-wheat linguini in a flavorful sauce.

Nicole says: I grabbed this meal on sale for one of those days when I wanted a light meal. It’s tiny and super-low-cal. The whole wheat pasta adds an interesting dimension, though it happens to taste less like whole wheat than any other whole-wheat product I’ve had - the give-away is the texture, which is a bit soft, grainy and disturbing.

The veggie selection is a nice break from the norm - most of the non-sauce veggies are small zucchini cubes, with some 1-inch yellow pepper sections included. They are not highly seasoned, so you get a light actual veggie taste on all, but peppers did not stand up well to the nuking. The zucchini is the tiniest bit soggy, but the pepper is bordering gelatinous.

The chicken has little flavor and sits right on the fine line between real chicken pieces and the chalky, mis-textured masses that must be some sort of compounded meat. So not bad, and the serving is good for the meal size - four medium pieces (about the same as a McD’s chicken nugget) and three smaller pieces. They are indeed both tender and white-meat.

The sauce is the closest thing we have to a winner here. It’s far more flavorful and complex than your average LC tomato sauce, though tomatoes are the main ingredient. The vegetable variety lends nice vegetable flavors and there are some nice herbs added. However, the sauce still manages to be watery in texture.

The meal is filling for it’s size, probably due to the large pasta portion. I am still awfully glad I have some yogurt and pudding in the fridge for an afternoon snack, but most could get through to dinner with this for lunch.

I wouldn’t recommend against this meal, but I don’t think I’ll be purchasing it again.

Price: $5.00
Serving: 1 package, 9.5oz.
Calories per serving: 320
Fat: 28%, 18g
Cholesterol: 7%, 20mg
Sodium: 23%, 550mg
Protein: 8g
Carbohydrates: 12%, 36g
Fiber: 20%, 5g
Sugar: 6g
Weight Watchers Points: 7 Points

Amy’s Kitchen says: An Authentic blend of spices in a base of organic crushed tomatoes and coconut milk, with soft, creamy cubes of paneer (Indian Cheese). Alongside the Paneer Tikka are Aloo Palak (delicately spiced organic chopped spinach and tender potatoes), and organic basmati rice flavored with cumin and carrots.

Abi says: Microwavable meals require too much attention: flipping, mid-cycle stirring, gravy-defrosting, and post-heating assembly are all negatives when it comes to frozen food. This entrée from Amy’s Kitchen required only a slightly opened cellophane wrapping and 5 no-worry minutes in the microwave, making a fantastic first impression.

“This is too easy.” I thought, expecting a disaster. Ah, there are caveats. Removing the meal from the plastic wrapper is fraught with danger, but what makes a meal more savored that preliminary steam burns? (Seriously though, if you’re thinking about keeping a few of these in the freezer for your kids or significant other, warn them about the invisible danger: steam) Another hazard: the environmentally-friendly, biodegradable paper tray wobbles under the gelatinous weight of the paneer-tikka-palak-rice combo. Sturdy dinnerware solves that problem, but for those offices (or homes) that stock few plates this could be an issue.

When it comes to the actual food, Amy’s Paneer Tikka isn’t take-out. Banish those thoughts of buttery, soupy palak and sweat-inducing masala. This meal is healthy, introductory Indian. Indian food for Iowans, if you will.

Anyone who’s ever made the mistake of buying a block of plastic-wrapped paneer (me, for example) will instantly realize that the cheese in this meal is fresh, fresh, fresh. I couldn’t believe that I’d pulled it out of the freezer just 10 minutes earlier. My five cubes of paneer (29% less cheese than shown on the box) were resiliently fluffy and provided a mild, buttery contrast to the rich, tomato-based masala.

The palak aloo (aka ‘cooked spinach and potatoes’, not ‘region of Iraq‘) isn’t completely macerated or strongly spiced, which means that the flavor of cooked spinach shines through. This is a positive or a negative depending on your relationship with cooked spinach. Guessing, I’d say that this meal contains 800% less butter than most Indian meals I consume.

And the rice. It is ricey. Each grain is fluffy and delicate and hey! there’s some stuff in the rice! (carrots and cumin seeds) You won’t notice either of those things while you’re eating the rice, but they make for a nice visual. My preferred eating method is to simply mix everything together and enjoy a subcontinental ghoulash. The rice holds in the masala (which is a danger to light-colored clothing) and the intensity of the cooked spinach is tempered by the cheese. I know, this meal seems really expensive right now, but after eating it you really will have another reason to feel good about yourself today.*

*Yeah, that’s the Smart Ones tagline and I totally stole it, but I unlike EVERY SINGLE EXPERIENCE, EVER that I’ve had with a Smart Ones meal, I really did feel good after I had this frozen meal.

Price: $?.??
If you know, let us know!
Serving: 2 Samosas, 2.93 oz.
Servings per box: 3, 8 oz. total
Calories: 170 per serving
Fat: 10%, 6g
Cholesterol: 0%, 0mg
Sodium: 15%, 350mg
Protein: 5g
Carbohydrates: 7%, 22g
Fiber: 12%, 3g
Sugar: 2g
Weight Watchers Points: 3 per serving

Trader Joe says: There might have been something on the box, but it wasn’t included with the review and Trader Joe’s doesn’t put any product information on their website.

Katie Hall says: I had never eaten Indian food before I met my husband. When introduced to the goodness that is the food of India, my husband (boyfriend at the time) and I developed a weekend ritual, that proved a sure-fire way to pack on the pounds:

1. Gorge on the delicious meats bathed in exotic sauces and wafting with far-away spices, piles upon piles of naan bread and sweet-smelling jasmine rice, and top it all off with some galub jumun at the local Indian food all-you-can-eat buffet for the ridiculously low price of $7.99.
2. Stop by 7-11 on the way home to by the biggest tub of coffee you can, so as to stem off the coming sleep-inducing carb-overload your body is about to endure. Be sure to take full advantage of all the “free” extras 7-11 offers: dump heaps of mini marshmallows in your hot chocolate, splash as many pumps of flavored syrup into your coffee as you can, stuff some extra chocolate flavored creams in your pocket for later!
3. Proceed to spend the rest of the day leveling up your night elf druid with said boyfriend in an appalling attempt to prove to him that, “Yes, we have TONS in common! Look! I LOVE to play pointless video games that have no end. EVER.”

But I digress…

Trader Joe’s Vegetable samosas are tasty triangles of tangible heaven. Though they are a little spicy for my taste (hence the 4 stars), but really, its nothing that a gulp of milk can’t tame. The outsides are crispy, though a bit greasy. Although the box says to bake at 350 for ten minutes (turning halfway through), mine came out of the oven a little cool inside so I put them in for a few minutes longer.

The box comes with some handy space-age metal coating on the inside top and bottom. This means you can cook the samosas in their carton, in the microwave. I have done this before and they have come out pretty good; I only decided to bake them this time because I thought they might come out crispier. They did come out marginally crispier, but I’d save time (and electricity) and nuke ‘em next time.

All in all, I like that I can understand all (OK, most, there are some wacky bacterial culture names that I have no idea how to go about pronouncing) of the ingredients on the back of the box. The calorie density isn’t that horrible — in fact, I almost always eat the whole box and never feel guilty/fat/horrible/gluttonous/stingy about it afterward.