Lean Cuisine Baked Chicken Meal: Small, but Tasty

Lean Cuisine meals always offer quality food at a good price. So when I saw a new-to-me Lean Cuisine baked chicken platter in my local grocer's frozen section, I knew I had to give it a try. The Lean Cuisine baked chicken meal offers two wholesome pieces of white, lean chicken, cornbread stuffing, and whipped potatoes topped with what tastes like paprika.

This baked chicken meal from Lean Cuisine, which costs under $3, may not be the largest or most-filling frozen dinner, but I think it offers great value for the money.

Preparation

Making Lean cuisine baked chicken is simple. With easy directions for cooking the baked chicken in either your microwave or conventional oven, this meal will be ready to eat with little effort and in no time.

Microwave Oven Cooking Directions

After cutting the film cover over the meal tray, place the dinner into your microwave and cook the meal on HIGH power for 5 minutes. After the meal has cooked for 5 minutes, let your Lean Cuisine baked chicken dinner stand in the microwave for about 2 minutes. You are now ready to eat your meal.

Conventional Oven Cooking Directions

While allowing your conventional oven to preheat to 350 degrees, cut a slit in the film cover over your meal and place the tray onto a cookie sheet. Once your oven has reached 350 degrees, place the meal (on the cookie sheet) onto the center rack of your oven and let the meal cook for 40 minutes. Once your meal has finished cooking, take the cookie sheet out of the oven and let your Lean Cuisine baked chicken meal stand on the cookie sheet for about 2 minutes. After, your meal will be ready to eat.

Flavor

This baked chicken meal is standard fare for Lean Cuisine. You can expect decent to above-average flavor with tender portions of meat. I'd rank this meal as one of the better Lean Cuisine offerings, especially if you're looking for something wholesomely bland and not loaded with lots of spices.

Again, while at 8-5/8 ounces this is not a large meal, I find it quite satisfying and certainly a tasty offering. The gravy in the meal helps to tie in the chicken to the potatoes and the corn meal dressing, which I feel help to round out the meal. In fact, the cornbread dressing is a nice change of pace from the chicken-and-potatoes-only meals, which I have always found as lacking something.

With the chicken lean and tasty, the potatoes not tasting processed, and the cornbread dressing rather perky (and not mushy or overly wet), I find this meal a great buy for the more-discriminating frozen dinner buyers.

Nutrition

The Lean Cuisine baked chicken dinner offers a full dinner for only 240 calories, which I find incredible. Even more interesting is that this meal somehow delivers just 5 grams of fat. Check out the rest of the story below:

Calories 240
Calories from Fat 45
Total Fat 5 grams
Saturated Fat 1 gram
Trans Fat 0 grams
Polyunsaturated Fat 2 grams
Monounsaturated Fat 1 gram
Cholesterol 30 milligrams
Sodium 670 milligrams
Potassium 760 milligrams
Total Carbohydrates 32 grams
Dietary Fiber 3 grams
Sugars 5 grams
Protein 17 grams
Vitamin A 6%
Vitamin C 2%
Calcium 8%
Iron 8%

Resources

Personal and first-hand knowledge and experience
Lean Cuisine Baked Chicken carton