Tesco Healthy Eating Chicken Paella

Tesco Healthy Living Chicken Paella.

I saw two of these paella's in the reduced area at Tesco's last week and thought what a great idea for a quick and easy meal for the night we were going to our nearby Town Hall, to see a production of 'South Pacific' by the local Amateur Dramatics club. (Was really good, by the way!)

They were reduced from £2.28 to just £1.75 for a 400g packet which I thought was very reasonable.

Remembering the lovely paella's we had on holiday in Spain back in May, I decided these were a 'bargain' and quickly put them in the trolley!!

These are chilled and fresh food varieties in the Healthy Living range and surprisingly for this huge 400g dish full is only 420 calories! It also states on the pack that it has No artificial preservatives, flavours or colours.

The packaging is a black plastic bowl, covered in a clear film and then a cardboard sleeve with all the information contained on it. There is a very tempting picture of big juicy pieces of chargrilled chicken breast with courgettes and rice in a tomato sauce and to be honest, that's what it actually looked like after I cooked it!!

Talking of cooking, there are two ways to cook this paella: -

In the Oven for 14-16 minutes in a gas mark 5 or 190c/375f.
You remove the outer cardboard sleeve and pierce the film lid (This is where the crazed knife stabber comes into effect, cos I love doing this bit - stab, stab, stab!! While Mike looks on worriedly from a distance, he he!!) When back to normality, you then place on a baking tray in the centre of the heated oven for said time.

Or, you can do the said stabbing, then heat on full power in a 650 watt microwave oven for just 6 and half minutes then stand for 1 minute and it's done!
On a 750 watt oven it takes a total of 5 and a half mins
On an 850 watt, like mine it takes just 4 and half mins in total!!
The only drawback here is when you have two to do it makes keeping the other one hot a bit tricky, but I just zapped it for another 30 seconds to bring it back to temperature.

The ingredients listed are as follows:

Paella seasoned Rice (63%)
Chicken Breast (20%)
Courgette (10%)
Tomato (6%)
Water, Tomato Juice, Onion, Tomato Puree, Cornflower, Olive Oil,
Basil, salt, Garlic Puree, Black Pepper.

The paella Rice contains:-
Rice, red pepper, onion, tomato, garlic puttee, chicken stock, water, olive oil, smoked paprika, chicken fat, salt, dried garlic, turmeric, chicken extract, sugar, dried onion, paprika, onion concentrate, chilli powder, saffron, black pepper.

There were about 6 nice big pieces of chicken which were tasty and moist. It was quite filling with it being a rice dish but the mixture of spices gave a lovely, not too hot and spicy flavour. We thoroughly enjoyed it and both of us thought it a well ample serving each.

Because this is part of Tesco's healthy living range it is good for those watching their weight (like me)! So I've included the nutritional information as follows for each 400g pack:-

Energy 420 calories
Protein 28.0g
Carbohydrate 65.2g
Of which sugars 5.2g
Fat 5.2g
Of which saturates 0.9g
mono-unsaturates 3.2g
Polyunsaturates 0.9g
Fibre 7.6g
Sodium 0.4g

Now I don't profess to know all about the above figures, suffice to say I understand the calories and how much salt is in it, but otherwise I don't personally worry too much about it all except what it tastes like - and it tasted good to me!!

It wasn't swimming in tomato sauce but had a moistness to it. The rice was lovely and fluffy not clumped together at all, the courgette, red pepper and tomato pieces were not too mushy but was soft not crunchy. The chicken was very tasty and each piece was large enough for it to be cut in half to place in your mouth. It wasn't dry but moist and slightly spicy. Hubby doesn't like very spicy foods but he found this to his liking. (He doesn't like garlic either, but I didn't tell him it was in there and he didn't notice - he he!!)

Considering I don't often get ready meals but prefer to cook from fresh this was a great and quick alternative when in a hurry - and was really tasty too!

x Sal x