Microwave Meal Matchup #1 - Beef Pot Roast
Microwave Meal Matchup #1 | Beef Pot Roast
WeightWatchers | Home Style Beef Pot Roast
VS
Healthy Choice | Beef Merlot
WeightWatchers | Smart Ones
Home Style Beef Pot Roast
While taking this out of the package, the first thing that crossed my mind was that there was no way I wouldn't be hitting the vending machine 45 minutes after eating it. Rather unimpressive...
The preparation with the WeightWatchers meal is a bit aggravating as you have to cook it for 4 minutes, peel back the plastic, stir it, then cook it for another minute. This is what you get for that preperation:
With pot roast, the sauce really can make or break it. In this case, the sauce was rather bland, except for the overpowering flavor of onions. There are large chunks of onions in this meal and you definitely want to make sure you have gum or mints handy after eating this (if you care at all about the well-being of your co-workers).
The meat really ruined this meal for me. It has a very artificial taste to it, even for a microwave meal. The texture is a bit too soft and unnatural. I actually ended up eating mostly the vegetables, which aren't bad. But let's be honest here, it's hard to screw up vegetables.
Everything is cut into small pieces, so it's definitely easy to eat at the office without making a mess.
GRADES
Presentation: C-
Flavor/Taste: C
Overall: C-
Healthy Choice | Cafe Steamers
Beef Merlot
This meal is packaged quite well and looked more appealing from the start, with larger chunks of potatoes, carrots, and beef.
The preparation with this meal is a breeze...4 minutes...take it out...pour the tray in the sauce..done.
The sauce in this meal is ridiculously good..I mean..shamelessly-licking-the-bowl-after-you-are-done-good. No onions in this one, so your co-workers will definitely be thanking you (or...not avoiding you at least).
The meat tasted much more natural - sometimes a bit on the tough side but not bad. It was also nice that the pieces of meat were not all the same size as in the Healthy Choice meal.
All of the vegetables were on-point and probably tasted better than the WeightWatchers due to the fact that they were soaked in the magical gravy.
GRADES
Presentation: B+
Flavor/Taste: B+
Overall: B+
SUMMARY
The Healthy Choice Beef Merlot wins easily here. It tasted surprisingly good all while maintining mininmal artifical flavor and texture. I wouldn't think twice about having this in my rotation.
