Sainsbury's Chicken Hotpot

Sainsbury's Chicken Hotpot
Frozen ready meal
400g

Frozen food is still not very appealing for most of us; we always prefer to buy fresh food, even though we cannot store it for a long time, thinking that it must be healthier. The truth is that there are two advantages in frozen ready meals: they are not only cheaper than fresh meals; they also taste as good at times. Sainsbury's Chicken Hotpot is one of the tasty frozen meals that I tried twice recently. This meal can be bought for £1.00 only from Sainsbury's, and it's on offer: buy 4 for £3.00 at the moment. It comes in a microwavable pot covered by film inside a cardboard box.

To prepare this meal, you can heat it in the microwave for 9½ minutes, or in the oven 190ºC for 45 minutes (yeah, right!) The first time I tried this meal, the taste of the sauce was very familiar, and I immediately remembered "Chicken Tonight". For those of you who are not familiar with it, Chicken Tonight is a kind of sauce for cooking chicken obviously, and they have this honey and mustard kind, which tastes fantastic. The creaminess and the carrot pieces in the sauce were reminiscent of Chicken Tonight the first time I tried the meal, but the second time I ate it I realized that this one is hot.

Still, don't worry, this meal is not very hot; I guess it can be considered mild still. It smells and looks very appealing with the lovely potato on top, but let me describe it more for you. The meal consists of chicken breast pieces, carrot and swede in a creamy white sauce with sauté potatoes. You will find several chicken pieces for they are 29% of the meal; they are cut like a thick straight-cut potato and they are tender.. both the taste and quantity are great. What I liked about the carrot pieces is that they are not cooked to the degree in which they lose their taste completely, yet they are not hard or annoying. The sauce is very creamy and delicious, yet the best thing about this meal has to be the sauté potato slices which look nice on top of the meal and also taste great.

The good news is all this goodness gives you no more than 302 calories, and it's still filling for one person. If you check the nutritional info circle which you can find on all Sainsbury's products, you will notice that the only thing that exceeds the "good" limit in this meal is the amount of salt in it (2.31g). However, the fat, total sugars, and calories are within the limit, so this meal is both healthy and yummy.

Summary: Frozen ready meals can be better than what you expect.