The pros: Trader Joe's Shiitake Mushroom Chicken is tasty and ready fairly quickly. As an added bonus, the calorie count is reasonable if you are dieting.
The cons: Sadly, white meat chicken fans will be disappointed because this is all dark meat. In addition, you need to like edamame to appreciate this product. I wishing more more Shiitake too.
The verdict: For $4.99 you are getting a back that is full of chicken and veggies. You may want to serve this might itself or with a side of rice. The package says it has four servings in it, however, each serving is only 180 calories so you could easily eat half the bag and not feel guilty about it. If you are serving this with rice, you can comfortably get three lunch or dinner sized portions out of this package. So if you are dieting, this would make for a sensible choice just based on calories alone.
Preparing this product was a breeze. My dinner was ready in under 15 minutes from start to finish. Microwaving to defrost the product was the first step and a wok really wasn't necessary. I made everything in a 12" skillet and it turned out well. The chicken is dark meat with a coating of cornstarch. While cornstarch normally makes something crisp, this had no crispness to it. Unfortunately, the microwave does destroy any hope for an item to be crispy. However, the lack of crisp chicken did not matter. The soy based sauce was flavorful and was just enough to nicely coat the meal.
There were a lot of green beans and edamame packaged here so be warned. The veggies were all tender without being mush. If I could change just one thing on this product it would be the quantity of mushrooms. There were only about 10 shiitake mushrooms packaged in my bag and I was left longing for more of them. They added a much welcomed depth of flavor. I'd be willing to buy a whole bag of them.
Overall, I liked this. I found this to be more filling when served with rice. Otherwise, I'd buy this product again.
The bag of Trader Joe's Shiitake Mushroom Chicken in the freezer aisle:
The nutritional information, ingredients and allergy information:
How to prepare Trader Joe's Shiitake Mushroom Chicken:
Out of the package you get:
After being cooked you get:
Would I buy this again? Yes, I would buy this again. Honestly, I would love to see a more vegetarian variety of this offered. Perhaps Trader Joe's could skip the chicken and sell me a whole bag of the mushrooms.
Want to see more items I've reviewed from Trader Joe's? Click on Thoughts & Reviews of Trader Joe’s for a searchable list.
I really enjoyed this. So easy to make and i agree about the amount of mushrooms. My bag had only 6! Thanks, Betty!
Added a large onion and sautéed in olive oil to bulk up the dish. Also sautéed a package of sliced mushrooms. Then added entire bag of chicken and veggies and stir fried until hot ... at end just added less than half a packet of the sauce. Cuts the sodium content. Very tasty.
Hey Leesa! Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts on this!