Chicken & Vegetables with Spaghettini in an Herb Sauce

As usual, Lean Cuisine publishes the Weight Watcher’s points value on the package. The chicken & vegetables with spaghettini in an herb sauce, at 270 Calories (just a little under a Calorie per gram) apparently clocks in at 5 points. I haven’t been through the Weight Watcher’s program, so the points are a mystery to me. If you’ve done WW (or are in it now) you likely know what they mean and if you’re not, then it’s meaningless anyhow, so let’s move along.

What makes the Lean Cuisine meals effective as a means of weight control (or weight loss) is they’re kind of like the Subway diet touted by Jared Fogle; low cal portion control, so in theory you’re not eating as much as you were when you were getting fat. Just remember to avoid “rewarding” yourself with something else that adds back the calories.

The Chicken and Vegetables with Spaghattini in an herb sauce is part of lean Cuisine’s “Sélections” line, touted as “low fat”. Stouffer’s Lean Cuisine has two other menus, Spa (“almost all the meals are preservative free”, says LeanCuisine.ca) and Panini (a collection of toasted sandwiches with meat and cheese in them).

I’ve tried a few Lean Cuisine dishes so far and overall, I like them. This particular one was fairly middle of the road.

Like most of these sorts of dishes it was simple to make. I took it out of the freezer; opened the cardboard package; poked a few holes in the clear top plastic; stuck it in the microwave on high power for 6 and half minutes; then let it sit to cool down a bit.

That last step is what caused the problem. I peeled back the plastic top as soon as I took the dish out of the microwave and stirred the meat and veggies in amongst the noodles to evenly distribute the flavour, and the noodles felt fine against my fork. However, when everything had cooled enough for me to start eating, the noodles had gone soggy.

I admit I prefer my pasta ‘al dente’ but I’m far from a snob. I was in the army for 8 years where good food is the stuff that’s hot, plentiful, and hasn’t been on a shelf for a decade. But these mushy noodles brought down my opinion of this dish. The chicken was fine, with a nice if a bit hard texture, and the veggies were as good as can be expected from prepackaged food.

Overall I’d say the this dish is OK. Just OK. There are far worse frozen meals out there, but Lean Cuisine has some better ones. Don’t skip it but don’t go out of your way to get it either.

If you’ve tried this product, what do you think? Agree or disagree? Let me know below.

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