Dr. Gourmet's Food Reviews

Sukhi’s Gourmet Indian Chicken Coconut Curry

Chicken Coconut Curry and Chicken Tikka Masala

When we last reviewed products from Sukhi's, it was 2017 and we reviewed their Chicken Coconut Curry and the Chicken Tikka Masala. In 2021 the meals are rather different: the 2017 versions appeared in the prepared foods section at the time, not the frozen foods section, and both were labeled as containing 2 servings for a dish that clearly was intended to be consumed by a single person.

Today they are clearly labeled 1 serving each and are frozen, but there's an additional difference: both of the meals are now served with a piece of naan bread along with the basmati rice the dish already included.

Why include two starches? It makes no sense to me, and Sukhi's labeling choices suggests that on some level they know it: the naan is listed in the Nutrition Facts as if it were a separate item and not part of the meal as a whole.

With no indication on the package as to which meal might be spicier than the other, we took a chance and tasted the Chicken Coconut Curry first.

This dish (without the naan) has 350 calories, 500mg sodium, and 3g fiber. The microwave instructions for this dish are identified as being for a 1200-watt microwave; ours is 1100 watts. We cooked the meal according to the directions and allowed the dish to rest for one minute in the microwave after cooking.

On the one hand, the meal is plenty hot enough and the basmati rice is tender (and just oh-so-slightly overcooked, as you might expect with microwaved rice). Yet the "white chicken" (presumably this means "white meat" chicken, a/k/a chicken breast) is still a little dry despite the substantial size of the chunks of chicken. It does have good chicken flavor, however.

The sauce has a sweet coconut flavor touched with curry and it is not spicy in the least - it's well balanced with the salt. The sauce does, however, look a bit curdled, which could be off-putting. We'll give this a thumbs-up with a couple of caveats that we'll address below.

I'll say right at the outset that we expected the Chicken Tikka Masala (340 calories, 610mg sodium, 2g fiber) to be far spicier than this version is.

Like the Chicken Coconut Curry, the basmati rice is just about perfectly cooked. As well, the "white chicken" is a little dry, although there's certainly plenty of it, and the sauce has practically no heat.

Yet once again the issue is the sauce, which when tasted by itself is too salty. Mixed with the basmati rice and the chicken, it might be acceptable, but this particular version is also a bit more greasy than I'd like.

Neither of these dishes are as good as what we had last week from Saffron Road.

A further drawback is the naan, which by now I'm sure you've noticed that I haven't mentioned.

Each piece of naan, alone, contains 190 calories, 300 milligrams of sodium, and 1 gram of fiber. Quite simply, we threw the naan away and didn't even taste it.

Granted, if I did not have Celiac disease I might have kept the naan and made it into an open-faced sandwich or something. Yet by being included in the package, the naan is clearly intended to be consumed with the rest of the dish.

Including the nutrition facts for the naan along with the packaged meal puts both of these meals firmly in the "don't even consider bringing this home" category, with sodium totals of 800mg for the Chicken Coconut Curry and 910 for the Chicken Tikka Masala.

At $7.49 each for a meal - part of which I'm going to throw away or at the very least choose to save for later - these aren't worth it even if they are labeled single servings.

Posted: February 11, 2021