Dr. Gourmet's Food Reviews

Pictsweet Steam’ables Fiesta Chicken and Rice

Fiesta Chicken and Rice and Oriental Style Chicken and Rice

Pictsweet is a large supplier of frozen veggies and I have used their products often in developing recipes because they are generally of good quality. Their frozen peas came in as a winner in a blind taste testing here at Dr. Gourmet.

Certainly their Steam’ables Complete Meals look intriguing in the freezer. They are bags that contain veggies, beans, meat and rice all preseasoned and ready to go. At $2.50 the price is certainly right. Simply pop the bag in the microwave for 5 - 7 minutes, let cool and you’ve got a healthy dinner.

Sort of.

The first problem comes with a good lesson in food labeling. The package says that it serves two and the package is quite large. So you think, OK, this looks healthy at only around 200 calories and 500 mg of sodium. The problem is that the bag doesn’t really serve two, it is only enough for one. Not too bad on the calories, but it then comes in at 1000 mg of sodium.

And you can taste it. These are really salty. The Fiesta Chicken and Rice is almost inedible because of how salty it is. It has rice (that’s not so great), chicken, veggies and black beans in a too spicy (lots of cumin) sauce. A big disappointment. This might have been a really good product if the seasonings were right. The chicken, rice, veggies and beans turn out OK.

The seasoning in the Oriental Style Chicken and Rice is a little better—but still too salty to eat.

All in all a very disappointing showing from a company that sells good frozen veggies. It’s clear from sampling these products that they do vegetables well, but they need to leave the seasoning to someone else.

Reviews: August 29, 2008