Weight Watchers Smart Ones Honey Mango Barbeque Chicken
Written: Apr 05 '08
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Bland flavor, could use more to off-set the sweetness
Cons: Too sweet, gets old really quickly, a lot of extra "sugar" items added
The Bottom Line: Not an extremely enjoyable dish, was overly sweet, too many added sugars (molasses, corn syrup, etc).
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| Magick1's Full Review: Smart Ones Honey Mango Barbeque Chicken |
Recently, my local store started carrying this meal. I was excited as it was something new and sounded very delicious! Chicken, mango, and orzo pasta, sounded like a very intriguing meal! This is a new addition to the Fruit Inspirations ™ line that Weight Watchers has been bringing out lately. The company had competitions for recipes from people and these, I believe, were some of the winning entries. You can still submit your recipes and try for a chance at $5,000 in cash, a trip for 2 to Los Angeles for a cooking lesson with Chef Devin Alexander!
Now, let me get into the meal. This meal is a fantastic combination of white meat chicken with diced mangos with a honey barbeque sauce and orzo pasta. The point value for the Weight Watchers® for this meal is 5. This meal has very quick preparation time, like all of the others. It only takes 3 – 4 minutes. If you do need to use the conventional oven, it will take 35 minutes on 350 degrees.
The Product
As mentioned, they use white meat chicken pieces in this dish. The chicken pieces were decent sized, not a mere sliver of chicken. They are roughly 1 inch by 1 inch by 1 inch thick pieces. You get roughly 7 or so in the meal. There are mangos in this as well. The photo on the box makes them look really large, but the mango pieces were very tiny, but had an excellent flavor!
The barbeque flavor they mention on the box is a honey barbeque sauce. I could have done with a more barbeque flavor and a little less sweetness from the honey (and then the mango on top of that). I would have loved to have K.C. Masterpiece or another barbeque sauce mixed in this dish, ever so slightly, to give this meal a bit of a punch. The sweetness is ok, but it does wear on your taste buds quickly. I enjoy sweet things, don’t get me wrong, but this sweetness lingered too long. Having a bit of a barbeque punch might have made this a better dish.
The orzo pasta with the spinach and peppers mixed in was nice. It had a decent flavor and the spinach was not overpowering. I usually hate spinach when it is cooked. I like it fresh, but cooked I have issues with spinach. But, this was not too bad. The orzo pasta was very nice. It was not mushy and it was not too firm.
The Ingredients
Roasted chicken tenderloins (chicken tenderloins, water, seasoning [corn syrup solids, flavor, powdered chicken broth, cooked chicken powder, autolyzed yeast extract, salt, fermented molasses, silicon dioxide, paprika, turmeric], modified food starch (from potato), corn oil, salt, soy protein isolate, potassium phosphates, carrageenan, glazed with water, caramel coloring), cooked orzo (water, enriched macaroni product [semolina (wheat), niacin, ferrous sulfate (iron), thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid], water), water, mango, sautéed onions (onions, soybean oil), spinach, red bell peppers, contains 2% or less of: honey, sugar, pineapple juice concentrate, cornstarch, asiago medium cheese (milk, cheese cultures, salt, enzymes, natamycin), canola oil, cider vinegar (apple cider vinegar, water), salt, ginger concentrate (ginger, maltodextrin [corn], sugar, salt, canola oil, cornstarch, flavoring), flavors, chipotle puree (water, chipotle peppers, salt, citric acid), spices, garlic flavor (garlic extractives, maltodextrin and dextrins [corn and tapioca]), xanthan gum, carrageenen
Contains milk, soybeans, wheat
Nutritional Facts
This information, as the ingredients listed above, is taken directly from the box. This information is based upon a 2,000 calorie diet and is based upon a single serving (1 box).
Calories 240 Calories from Fat 30
Total Fat 3.5g or 5%
Saturated Fat 1g or 4%
Trans Fat 0g
Polyunsaturated Fat 1g
Monounsaturated Fat 1.5g
Cholesterol 30mg or 11%
Sodium 490 mg or 21%
Total Carbohydrate 34g or 11%
Dietary Fiber 0g or 0%
Sugars 14g
Protein 9g
Vitamin A 20%
Vitamin C 20%
Calcium 6%
Iron 8%
Overall Impressions
This dish was ok. I enjoyed the first few bites, but the sweetness got to me quickly. I have tried it a couple of times. I wanted to ensure that my first impression was not misguided. The dish could have used a bit more barbeque flavor. It had the appearance or “char” lines across the chicken pieces to make it appear like the white meat was put over the barbeque and cooked. But, that flavor did not punch through the sweetness of the honey barbeque, mangos or the pineapple juice concentrate that they have used to sweeten this dish up.
Look at the ingredient list above, they use corn syrup, juice concentrates, fruit, molasses and sugar to give you plenty of sweetness! I don’t know that I will purchase this dish again. It was not that I disliked it tremendously, but rather, I did not like enough to enjoy it the entire way through. Some others with a sweet tooth might enjoy this dish a lot.
~Thank you for spending time with me today!~
Recommended:
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