Chicken Hotpot - to buy, or not buy (again), that is the question? (Heinz Weight Watchers Chicken Hotpot)

Member Name: abercrombie92

Product:	Heinz Weight Watchers Chicken Hotpot
Date:	22/04/09 (132 review reads)
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What's better than a lovely home cooked meal? Something that tastes just as great as a home cooked meal, but only takes 8 minutes to cook and isn't going to make you gain 10lbs.

For the past month or so, I've been eating the Weight Watchers ready meals nearly everyday, not just because of their low calorie content, but because they genuinely taste wonderful!

So what's on the menu today? Chicken Hotpot.

According to the front of the box, "Tender chicken breast slices in a delicate creamy sauce, with carrots, peas and mushrooms, topped with crispy parmentier potatoes."

The meal comes in a black plastic tray, inside a medium sized purple box (just like the one shown above), with a picture of the meal wrapped around one side. From what I can see on the front of the box, it looks absolutely delicious! On the front of the box, just underneath the Weight Watchers logo and food description, there is an at a glance nutritional information section. This is handy to see the main nutritional information before even removing it from the freezer in store! On the back of the box, you are told that the meal has no artificial colours and no hydrogenated fats. The ingredients, company information and nutritional information is also on the back of the box, with the heating instructions on the side.

You can cook this in two ways - in the microwave or in the oven. I opted for the microwave option as the oven option would take 40-45 minutes - the same length of time that I could prepare and cook my own meal. I was told to remove the film lid before cooking and then to pop it in the microwave on full power for 8 minutes, then leave to stand for one minute. The cooking time changes depending on the wattage of your microwave.

After around 5 minutes of the meal being in the microwave, a strong chicken-y aroma started wafting round my kitchen, it smelled just like homemade chicken soup!

After the full 8 minutes (and an additional extra minute to let it stand), I had a perfectly cooked, delicious smelling chicken hotpot sitting on my plate. I could see that the chicken and potatoes were both cut into bite size chunks - perfect, because I only have one working hand it the minute (hint; be extremely careful when using scissors, they can leave your left hand immobile for a while). The potatoes were a lovely golden colour, and the chicken looked moist and tasty. I could also see plenty of carrots and peas, plus other mystery chunks (after checking the back of the box, I found out that the mystery chunks were parsnips), there were only two or three mushrooms, but I was glad about that because mushrooms and I don't react well with each other.
The sauce was thick, creamy, and dusky yellow in colour. Kind of. It was like a dull honey mustard colour. To taste, it was very chicken-y, just like the scent.
The vegetables didn't have much of a taste, which was disappointing, and they were quite mushy, but the potatoes and chicken were both perfect, you'd never know they were microwaved in a ready meal.

By the time I'd chomped up half of it, I was already feeling pretty full, so I decided to stop there, but let me tell you this, if I had a bottomless appetite, I would have continued until it was all gone! It was delicious.

In this 320g meal there is
- 274 calories
- 15.2g of protein
- 33.4g of carbohydrates (6.8g of which sugars)
- 8.8g of fat (3.3g of which saturates)
- 1.8g of fibre
- 0.8g of sodium
- 2.0g of salt equivalent

Compared to the guideline daily amounts for average adults, this is wonderful - these are also included on the box, but I won't bore you with those because you can find them absolutely anywhere!

I bought this meal (and 4 others) for £1.50 each from Asda, but then found out that they are only £1 in Iceland, so I may have to start heading there to buy them.

Overall, this meal is yummy, cheap, filling and quick to make, but whether I'll buy it again or not is another question. I've found that the other Weight Watchers meals are tastier.

Thanks for reading!

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