Schwan's Italian Style Lasagna: A Product Review

With the busy lives we lead, we're always looking for delicious, table-ready, or nearly-table-ready foods. Personally, I don't even like making the trip to the grocery store; the aisles are crowded with undecided shoppers, and there are always lines at the checkout.

Schwan's is a company that delivers frozen foods to your door. The products are high quality in most cases and a little pricier than the supermarket, but I find it worth it to be able to shop on line or by catalogue, and have my order delivered to my home for a $1.00 delivery fee. The Schwan's man will stop by every two weeks with his freezer truck full of goodies. If you haven't placed an order ahead of time by phone at 1-888-SCHWANS or on line at schwans.com, you can order items on the spot, but the possibility exists that the driver may be sold out of an item you want that day.

Schwan's Italian Style Lasagna consists of thick layers of rich, red tomato sauce, REAL ricotta, Parmesan, Romano and Mozzarella cheeses, and seasoned ground beef. It comes frozen in a 3 pound tray for $12.99 which yields 6 servings at $2.17 per serving. However, these are not large servings, so if you in fact want to feed six people, I would recommend that you serve this meal with a salad, garlic bread, and a bottle of wine.

The lasagna can be prepared in a conventional oven preheated at 350 degrees, baked for a total of an hour and 40 minutes, or if you want to shorten the prep time, you can start the meal in a microwave on high for 7 to 10 minutes, and then bake for 30 to 35 minutes in the preheated 350 degree oven. In either case, you need to set the serving dish it comes in on a baking sheet before putting it in the conventional oven. You'll want to let it sit for 5 minutes after baking, in order to make serving easier.

Even though it does take quite a bit of baking time, it's quite good for a premade dish. It certainly doesn't live up to homemade lasagna, but using the combination of microwave and conventional oven preparation, it is much less work and very easy on the taste buds.

Nutritional Information Per Serving: Serving size one sixth of the tray or 1 cup

Calories: 380 Total Fat 15 g Sodium 890 mg Carbohydrates 38 g
Dietary Fiber 3 g Sugars 3 g Protein 21 g

Vitamin A 10% RDA Vitamin C 10% RDA Calcium 20% RDA Iron 15% RDA