Dr. Gourmet's Food Reviews

Udi’s Gluten Free Broccoli & Kale Lasagna

Italian Sausage Lasagna and Broccoli & Kale Lasagna

Lasagna seems like it would be a good choice if you were a company making frozen foods. It is a single, self contained meal that is easy to package. The pasta can be a little underdone before it is put in the microwave, and the filling only needs to be sufficiently creamy with a bit of texture. One of the easier dishes to freeze.

Udi's new lasagnas looked promising. The numbers on the Italian Sausage Lasagna are pretty good at 340 calories, 400 milligrams of sodium and 3 grams fiber. Not sure that it could live up to the expectation but coming out of the microwave the aroma was sweet and tomatoey.

The tomato flavor holds up well: not too sweet and not too tart. There is also a good Italian herb seasoning but not much taste or texture of sausage. The filling is, however, cheesy, and even though the dish only contains 400 mg of sodium the meal tastes salty enough. The pasta is cooked right. All in all this is pretty ordinary. A good but not great dish.

The Broccoli & Kale Lasagna is, fortunately, much better. The pasta is cooked just right and the filling is very cheesy, with a filling laced with kale and bits of sweet carrots. There could and should be more kale and carrots to help offset the abundance of creamy sauce.

That would have added to the 3 grams of fiber. It might have added to the 370 calories, but a little larger meal with more fiber and more substance would be perfect, especially since the 290 milligrams of sodium make this just salty enough.

Choose the kale version of their lasagna - tastier, less salt, more veggies.

Reviewed: April 4, 2014