Trader Joe's Bibimbap Bowl

Trader Joe's is so good about expanding the culinary horizon beyond what you find in the traditional supermarket. If you've ever been in a Trader Joe's, keeping most items stocked is a challenge even for the best run store. Some days you can find an item, some days you can't. In the freezer section, next to the Indian entrees was something I hadn't seen before: Bibimbap. If you have no idea what this is, it's a Korean dish with beef, rice, and veggies. I've never had it elsewhere so I have nothing to compare it to. So here is what I had while enjoying Trader Joe's Bibimbap Bowl:

The box in the freezer section looks like:

The nutritional information if you are wondering about calories. Yes, this is noticeably higher than most of the Indian entrees, but you are getting much more food in the bowl:

The ingredients in case you are wondering:

How to prepare it:

Out of the box:

You also get an optional sauce packet. It gives it a nice Asian flavor, but also adds bit of spice. Use this sparingly until you figure out how much heat you really want to consume. This warms up at room temperature:

After 3 minutes in the microwave the dish looked like this:

My thoughts were that Trader Joe's Bibimbap Bowl was definitely a good dish. I tried it plain before adding the sauce. It reminded me of a stir fry but needed some flavor. The rice was more of a sticky rice rather than a long grain rice. I added a few drops of the sauce and realized there was a good amount of heat. I only ended up using about ¼ of the packet because I didn't want the heat to overwhelm the dish. The flavor of the sauce hits your first, then the heat kicks in, so plan accordingly. So overall, I would buy this again. If you've never had Korean food, this maybe a good introduction for you as it was me.

Want to see more items I've reviewed from Trader Joe's? Click on Thoughts & Reviews of Trader Joe's for a searchable list.