I don't usually buy ready meals but my sister in law recommended this Weight Watchers from Heinz Steam and Serve Chicken Chop Suey and I thought it would be handy to have in the freezer for emergencies (basically for when I am too lazy to cook). Now I am a fan of Slimming World rather than Weight Watchers but some Weight Watchers food is low in syns which is the measurement that Slimming World use. This particular meal is 3 syns on Extra Easy and Green plans and 5.5 syns on Original. It's 210 calories for the whole bag and it cost me £2 from Tesco (usually priced at £2.79 when full price).
It is described as tender chicken pieces in a chop suey sauce with long grain rice and vegetables. Steam and Serve apparently uses technology to provide a gentle swirling heat which is supposed to cook the meal to perfection whilst keeping natural flavours.
It goes in the microwave for 8-9 minutes depending on the category and you just shove the whole bag in, no need to pierce it or anything. It appears that the special "technology" is this little grid of holes in the top corner.
When I tipped the chop suey into a bowl it did look nice. The vegetables still looked crunchy and it was lovely bright and colourful dish and a pretty decent serving.
The chicken was cooked really nicely and was indeed tender. I was surprised as normally in ready meals chicken can be tough so I tend to avoid it. The vegetables were excellent and were still crunchy as promised. My only issue really was that it was just a bit bland. I couldn't really taste and chop suey flavor and I ended up putting a load of soy sauce on it to liven it up a bit.
Verdict For a frozen ready meal I am quite impressed with the texture of everything, I just prefer my food with a bit more flavor. Perhaps chop suey was the wrong choice, there is also a Sweet Mango Chicken dish from the same range so I might give that a go whilst these are still on offer. I don't think that £2 for a ready meal is too bad either.
