Lean Cuisine Flatbread Melts Chophouse Steak - I'm Not Impressed
Written: Jan 08 '09 (Updated Jan 08 '09)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: filling tastes pretty good
Cons: flatbread chewy & undercooked, not enough filling
The Bottom Line: This looks better than it tastes. If the flatbread was crispier, this would be so much better.
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| AliventiAsylum's Full Review: Lean Cuisine Flatbread Melts Chophouse Steak |
It used to be that people who were watching their weight had few dining choices. There was a smattering of “healthy” frozen meals, but most of them had the same bland tastes and lack of substance. In recent years, it’s improved quite a bit, largely thanks to the line of frozen meals from Lean Cuisine. Recently, they added paninis and flatbreads to their product line.
The Lean Cuisine Chophouse Steak Flatbread Melt looks quite appetizing. The flatbread resembles a pita folded over surrounding a filling of meat, cheese, vegetables, and sauce based on the picture. There’s just one of the flatbread sandwiches in the box, and I wondered if it would be filling enough all by itself.
The box the Lean Cuisine Chophouse Steak Flatbread Melt comes in is designed to help in the reheating process. Flipping over the cover helps create a platform and elevate the flatbread wrap in the microwave. There’s no browning element to the process, however. Once the flatbread is in the box in the center of the microwave, it gets heated for two minutes, thirty seconds. Once it’s done cooking, the directions state to allow the flatbread melt to sit for a minute in the microwave.
When the Lean Cuisine Chophouse Steak Flatbread Melt was still frozen, it looked like there was a substantial amount of the filling compared to the bread. Once everything had cooked, it didn't look quite as good. Everything had settles and the blue cheese had melted quite a bit, even going off the bread onto the box. Once it was folded in half for eating, it did look better, although it was far from the picture that was on the box.
The picture on the box also depicted the flatbread itself as being browned on the edges. There was no browning or crispness to the flatbread at all. The flatbread was a bit on the chewy side to eat. It also seemed a bit undercooked and spongy.
The filling was good, but a bit bland other than the blue cheese flavor. There was just a lot more bread than filling. If there had been a bit more filling, I think my experience in general would have been better.
Adding more to this is something that would be difficult. Nutritionally, Lean Cuisine Chophouse Steak Flatbread Melt already has 330 calories, 80 of which are from fat. That comes out to be 9 g of fat, including 4 g of saturated fat. There’s 570 mg of sodium which is pretty good compared to other frozen foods.
With all the cheese in it, I was surprised that the Lean Cuisine Chophouse Steak Flatbread Melt wasn't too messy to eat. Overall, I did think it was substantial and filling, mainly due to the bread itself. I would prefer to eat something like this with a small salad. I don’t think I would actually choose this again. It was my first experience with the frozen flatbread melts, and so far I’m not all that impressed. I much prefer the panini sandwiches with the browning tray that come out crisp from the microwave. This didn’t taste horrible, but was disappointing.
INGREDIENTS: Flatbread (enriched flour (wheat flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), water, soybean oil, isolated oat product, less than 2% of: yeast, glycerine, dough conditioner (guar gum, calcium carbonate, datem, wheat flour, ascorbic acid, enzymes), salt, calcium propionate, sugar, dough conditioner (monoglycerides, calcium sulfate, guar gum, sodium metabisulfite, ascorbic acid), dough conditioner (wheat starch, calcium carbonate, l- cysteine hcl), whole wheat flour), seasoned cooked beef (beef, beef broth, potassium chloride, sodium phosphates, maltodextrin, yeast extract, salt, garlic juice, onion juice, natural flavors), reduced fat mozzarella cheese (cultured milk & nonfat milk, modified cornstarch*, salt, vitamin a palmitate, enzymes (*an ingredient not in regular mozzarella cheese)), water, seasoning (buttermilk, vinegar powder (maltodextrin, modified food starch, vinegar), vermont cheddar cheese ({cultured milk, salt, enzymes}, cheddar cheese {cultured milk, salt, enzymes}, whey, buttermilk, salt), nonfat milk, modified food starch, flavor (yeast extract, beef stock, maltodextrin, sodium phosphate, rendered beef fat & canola oil, caramel color, lactic acid, calcium lactate, grill flavor {contains sunflower oil}, lecithin), lactic acid, spices, onion & garlic, flavor (maltodextrin, vegetable extract, cultured whey, natural flavor, soy oil), xanthan gum, grill flavor (maltodextrin, salt, defatted wheat germ, natural flavor, corn syrup solids, modified food starch), canola oil&flavor, maltodextrin, salt, flavor (water, natural flavors, xanthan gum, citric acid, sodium benzoate), flavor (enzyme modified blue cheese flavor, blue cheese {cultured milk, salt, enzymes}, water, salt), natural flavors, potassium chloride, lemon juice powder (corn syrup solids, natural flavors {lemon juice solids, natural flavors}), flavor (soybean oil, natural flavor, turmeric & annatto color)), red peppers, sauteed onions (onions, soybean oil), blue cheese ((cultured milk, salt, enzymes), natamycin (preservative)), spice.
Contains: MILK, SOY, WHEAT INGREDIENTS
© 2008 Patti Aliventi
Recommended:
No
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