Dr. Gourmet's Food Reviews

Amy’s Black Bean and Vegetable Enchiladas

Mexican Casserole Bowl, Tortilla Casserole & Black Beans Bowl, and Black Bean & Vegetable Enchilada

Overall we have found Amy's products to be hit or miss. This is a brand that's widely available now, and more and more of the freezer case is given over to their products. This speaks not only to the success of Amy's at creating food that often tastes pretty good, but also to the consumer demand for a healthier alternative. This week we review three new Amy's products. All of them have a Mexican theme and all of them are gluten free.

There are a lot of Amy's "Bowls" in the freezer case and two new ones are the Mexican Casserole and the Tortilla Casserole. The Mexican Casserole has a base of white corn masa topped with an enchilada sauce, black beans, yellow corn and Monterey jack cheese. The package says that they were looking for the flavor of a tamale and this works fairly well.

The predominant flavor is the subtle enchilada sauce which is just a bit bland. This is partly due to the lower sodium content (half of a "regular" Amy's bowl) but overall this is still satisfying with a slight spicy flavor. Taken together this works well and at 370 calories and 7 grams of fiber the meal is a winner.

The Tortilla Casserole is even better with a richer tasting sauce over corn tortillas topped with cheese. This is served alongside black beans. Altogether the meal works well and is quite satisfying. It may be that this is because of the higher sodium content at 780 mg gives the sauce much more flavor. Even still, there's only 390 calories and a big 7 grams of fiber.

The Black Bean and Vegetable Enchiladas are also low sodium but have more flavor than the Mexican Casserole bowl. There are two corn tortillas wrapped around black beans, corn, peppers and tofu. This is topped with a nicely spicy enchilada sauce that has good flavor. The two enchiladas are 320 calories and 380 mg of sodium but only 3 grams of fiber. Even with the lower sodium there's a good Mexican flavor that the Casserole bowl lacks.

A triple play for Amy's in this week's review. Good flavor and texture, natural ingredients and two of them low sodium. Solid frozen meals for your freezer for that emergency meal.

Reviewed: March 28, 2008