Trader Joe’s has a Cuban Style Citrus Garlic Bowl frozen meal for sale. I have really been loving all of the frozen Indian meals Trader Joe’s has and was curious if their Cuban food was just as delicious.
This meal promises to have juicy chicken with seasoned rice, black beans and plantains in a zesty citrus and garlic sauce.
Let’s take a closer look at this bowl!
Nutrition and Ingredients
Here is what you get in this frozen meal.
Nutrition Facts
This bowl has 11 ounces of food and is a single serving.
The nutritional facts for the bowl are:
- Calories: 400
- Fat: 18g (23% DV)
- Cholesterol: 45mg (15% DV)
- Sodium: 540mg (23% DV)
- Carbohydrates: 44g (16% DV)
- Protein: 16g
The citrus bowl has quite a few calories and fat but not as much sodium as I expected.
Ingredient List
The meal has the following ingredients:
- Turmeric seasoned rice
- Chicken thigh meat
- Black beans
- Plantains
- Red bell pepper
- Orange juice
- Lime juice
- Yellow onion
- Olive oil
- Red onion
- Garlic
- Ginger
- Cilantro
- Salt
- Lemon peel
- Garlic powder
- Onion powder
Between the orange juice, lime juice and lemon peel, the ingredients do indicate that the meal will defiantly have a citrus kick.
Heating and Serving
Here is how I heated the meal before I ate it for lunch.
Heating Instructions
- Remove the bowl from the box.
- Puncture the film multiple times to vent.
- Microwave on High for five minutes.
- Stir and let site for one minute.
- Serve.
Taste
From the Trader Joe’s website:
“On its own, this would be a super hearty, profoundly delicious treat, but the addition of the mojo (a catchall in Latin American and Caribbean cuisine to describe sauces made from peppers, olive oil, and citrus juice) sauce totally kicks it into another gear, with pronounced notes of garlic, ginger, and orange zest.”
So, how did they do?
Well, it is not the prettiest meal that I have ever eaten. This Cuban bowl looks a little like a train wreck! I was hesitant to dig in to the meal given its appearance but went ahead and gave it a try.
At first I thought the meal was pretty bland with the only real flavor coming from the roasted red bell peppers. However, after a couple of bites, the citrus flavors started to build and was quite delicious. The citrus tasted bright and was deeply integrated with the rice.
The black beans were okay, nothing special, and I enjoyed the few pieces of plantains that were present.
The huge disappointment was the chicken.
The chicken thigh meat was tough, chewy and almost flavorless. I didn’t think it was even possible to make thigh meat that tough. Seriously, to get thigh meat that overcooked and chewy someone had to have that as an end goal.
Overall I loved the citrus and turmeric seasoned rice but between the nearly inedible chicken and unattractive presentation this is not a meal that I will be buying again.
This bowl is the most delicious premade meal I’ve ever had.
When Trader Joe’s first introduced this, it was one of their greatest accomplishments. The flavor, texture, and everything else were amazing, especially for frozen food. Then something changed a few months later. I’ll never know what, but the quality went seriously downhill. My suspicion is that this item was very successful, so TJ’s switched to a higher-volume, less expensive and inferior manufacturer. Sure, the ingredients are probably the same, but it never tasted the same. The last few times I tried this it was fairly mediocre. My thanks to TJ’s for ruining another good product.