Sometimes it's tough to prepare meals for the work week when your schedule doesn't allow it; even on the weekends. It's nice to be able to grab frozen meals like Healthy Choice, Lean Cuisine, and SmartOnes from time to time to enjoy a day off from cooking. However, a lot of these choices are more appealing for non-vegetarians and we feel that there aren't a lot of variety for vegetarians. That's why we were delighted to find that Tandoor Chef had a variety of meals for us that were healthy and tasty. YAY!!
Among the box of goodies we received from Deep Foods (such as frozen samosas and vegetarian patties), there were also four frozen entrees by
Tandoor Chef (one of their brands).
At first when we read through the list of the nutrition facts, we noticed that sodium count seemed a bit on the higher side. However, when we tasted the meals, we didn't feel that it was salty. On a positive note, these meals have a good amount of protein (10g), fiber (8-9g) low fat, made with olive oil, and they are a well balanced meal for a vegetarian diet as compared to the original recipes (made with lots of ghee or oil).
I felt that the above two meals were more satisfying in terms of nutrition (Paneer - Indian cheese). They have almost twice as much protein with 17g each and they are packed with 8g of fiber (same as the first two). The only drawback is that these two meals have a bit more sodium in them and I think it's because of the paneer. It's hard to flavor the dense cheese without adding more spices. They were all pretty flavorful except the kofta curry which was a bit spicy.
Overall, we enjoyed trying out these meals for our lunches and found that they were a good replacement for a meal here and there. I liked the fact that the pictures on the box aren't misleading. A lot of times, I find that the other frozen meals' pictures show ample portions of vegetables/meat, but when I open up the box, it's quite disappointing. However, with the Indian entrees, what you see is what you get. You do not feel cheated about anything. An important fact to point out is that although these are Indian meals, they were produced in the USA from fresh ingredients (as per label on the box).
Now whenever you want to take a breather from cooking during the work week, try one of these meals. You can feel happy you're eating the REAL DEAL!!
