Sukhi’s offers their Chicken Tikka Masala in two packaging options with both featuring large chunks of white meat chicken, simmered in a creamy tomato sauce.
- One option is a frozen meal sold in retail stores that comes with basmati rice and naan bread for an authentic and filling lunch.
- The other option is a refrigerated three pound package of just the chicken tikka masala and it is sold exclusively at Costco.
Let’s look at the frozen meal first and follow that up with the Costco version.
Frozen Chicken Tikka Masala Nutrition, Ingredients and Labelling
Let’s take a closer look at what you get with the frozen meal.
Nutrition Facts
You get one 9 ounces of tikka masala with rice and 2 ounces of naan bread per package.
The nutrition facts for a single serving are given below. The nutritional value for the naan bread is given in brackets [ ].
- Calories: 340, [190]
- Fat: 10g (14% DV), [6g, 9%DV]
- Cholesterol: 95mg (32% DV), [0mg, 0% DV]
- Sodium: 610mg (25% DV), [300mg, 13%]
- Carbohydrates: 34g (11% DV), [29g, 10%]
- Protein: 28g, [5g]
From a nutrition standpoint the dish is pushed into the questionable category simply by the inclusion of the naan bread. Eating the entire meal gives you 530 calories and over 60 grams of carbs.
Even if you ignore the naan bread, Sukhi’s chicken tikka masala with rice comes in with 340 calories compared to 290 calories Trader Joe’s Chicken Tikka Masala.
Ingredient List
The Chicken Tikka Masala has the following ingredients:
- White Meat Chicken
- Tika Sauce
- Water
- Cane Sugar
- Ginger
- Vinegar
- Garlic
- Caramelized Onions
- Chickpea Flour
- “Spices”
- Rice Flour
- Salt
- Canola Oil
- Jalapeno
- Curry Paste
- Paprika
- Turmeric
- Cilantro
- Xanthan Gum
- Basmati Rice
- Naan Bread
There are a lot of flavors in this dish but, with the exception of some jalapeno peppers, nothing that makes it look very spicy. The front of the packaging indicates a spiciness level of “Medium”.
Heating
Here is how I heated the dish before it became my lunch 🙂
Heating Instructions
The heating instructions for this product are:
- Remove the tray from the box.
- Puncture both sides (Masala and Rice) of the film with multiple holes for venting.
- Microwave on High for three minutes.
- Let the meal stand for 1-2 minutes.
- Remove the film.
- Remove the naan bread from its plastic pouch and microwave for 15 seconds.
- Serve
Taste
The chicken tikka masala was delicious. The sauce was rich and earthy with just a touch of heat and the rice was perfectly cooked.
The pieces of chicken were just large enough and extremely tender.
The basmati rice was tender and perfectly cooked but, given the premium price point of this meal, could have been improved by seasoning with cumin or turmeric.
The naan bread was “meh” at best. The bread was rather tough and pretty uninspiring as a whole. I tore off a small piece to sop up some sauce but split the rest of the bread between my pups.
I appreciate what Sukhi’s is trying to do by including the naan bread but, for me, it essentially ended up being unnecessary calories that and carbs. Also, the inclusion of the naan is one of the factors that makes this meal cost $7.49 which is crazy expensive for a frozen lunch.
I probably will not be buying this meal again. There is nothing bad about the chicken tikka masala, but there are other brands that are just as good or better which are less expensive and I hate the idea of throwing the bread away.
Chicken Tikka Masala at Costco
The three things that I did not like about the frozen meal were:
- Expensive
- “Meh” naan bread
- Plain rice
Fortunately you can eliminate all of those negatives when you buy the three pound package of just the chicken and curry sauce at Costco.
This is the exact same tikka masala that comes in the frozen meal but does not include the rice or naan bread.
The tikka masala comes in two pouches with each pouch holding 1.5 pounds of food. Between the two pouches there are approximately 7 servings.
Preparation is simple and requires emptying the contents of a pouch into a microwave safe bowl and heating on High for 5 minutes. This is the same preparation required for the other Indian dish from Sukhi’s at Costco, the Chicken Coconut Curry with Mango.
When it comes to value Costco delivers once again.
While Sukhi’s single frozen meal costs $7.49 at a regular grocery store, at Costco you can get seven servings of chicken and sauce for $14.99. You can cook your own rice for less than $1.00 and feed a whole lot more people for a lot less money if you but this product at Costco instead of at retail.
