Product Review: Cedarlane's Gluten Free Three Layer Enchilada Pie Frozen Meal

I'm a big fan of the Cedarlane brand vegetarian frozen meals; they are healthy, tasty, and relatively inexpensive. I tend to prefer this brand for work day lunches because they always offer a variety of choices in their veggie-heavy meals. I've also come to realize that when looking for work day lunch food, lighter is better; the last thing you want half way through the day is to feel heavy and tired just because you ate lunch.

While I frequently go for the Cedarlane Cheese Quesadilla meal, this time I tried the Gluten Free Three Layer Enchilada Pie. This meal is a winner all the way around. All ingredients contained in the Cedarlane Gluten Free Three Layer Enchilada Pie are organic and include an array of the required daily veggie servings: organic corn tortillas, organic black beans, cheddar cheese, organic tomatoes, cilantro, and black olives. Yum!

The entire calorie count for the meal's total 2 servings is 430 (at 215 calories per serving). That comes out to 3 grams saturated fat, 0 grams trans fat, 7 grams total fat, 595 mg sodium, 15 mg cholesterol, 13 grams protein, 27 grams total carbohydrate, 3 grams dietary fiber, and 0 grams sugar. Along with that, you're getting a good bit of your daily value of vitamin A and C, iron, and calcium.

Although I eat just about every kind of food under the sun and tend to prefer healthy foods to non-healthy; I won't compromise taste for a percentage of daily vitamins or veggie requirements; the bonus of this meal is that it actually tastes good!

The entire package only takes about 6 minutes to nuke in the microwave and once you bite into this hot meal, you'll taste the crunchy tortilla, melted cheddar cheese, mild salsa, and bits of olive. If you're a Mexican food lover, this is the frozen meal for you.

I purchase my Cedarlane frozen meals for around $3.50 at My Organic Market (MOMs) or Common Market, but most brands like this are available in the vegetarian or organic frozen section of your local grocery store. If you compare prices you'll find that Cedarlane's organic/vegetarian frozen meals are actually comparable, if not cheaper, than many of the top brands (Lean Cuisine, Marie Callanders, etc). In some cases though, you'll see a mark-up if you purchase an organic item like this at a local chain grocery store as opposed to an organic market; so if you can find a MOMs or Common Market, you might save a few dollars.

Overall, I would give Cedarlane's Gluten Free Three Layer Enchilada Pie 4 stars and one big smile.