A very reasonable ready meal, but that's all it can ever be.... (Tesco Healthy Living Chicken & Broccoli Pie)

Member Name: marymoose

Product:	Tesco Healthy Living Chicken & Broccoli Pie
Date:	04/08/09 (175 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good price, ok taste, reasonably healthy

Disadvantages: It's a ready meal, so can't ever live up to proper food!

---Intro---
It's rare that I eat ready meals. As we all know they are not the healthy choice, usually being full of salt and often containing weird ingredients which we wouldn't consider putting in our home cooking.

However, hubby is away again, and lately when cooking we don't seem to have made extra portions to freeze, so when shopping in Tesco the other day I succumbed, and chucked a couple of ready meals in the trolley - I find it such an effort to cook for one after a day at work.

This is the Tesco Light Choices Chicken and Broccoli pie (a potato based pie rather than a pastry pie). It can be found in the chilled section of ready meals. It has a shelf life of about 5 or 6 days, or can be frozen for a month. I froze it just in case I didn't get round to eating it in time.


---I should mention---
While I asked dooyoo to add this I thought it was called Tesco Healthy Living Chicken and Broccoli pie, mainly because I was at work and didn't have the pack with me. The only information I could find on the Internet and pictures of the pie referred to the Healthy Living one. All I can assume is that the brand "Healthy Living" has now been replaced with "Light Choices" (perhaps they got in trouble for suggesting that these things full of salt are healthy?), as the picture on the packet is near identical. The only difference I can see is that my pie has 320 calories in it, and the one in the picture has 340 in it.


---The packet---
The pie itself is in a black plastic container with plastic film (to take off before cooking), and with a card cover on top with an appealing looking picture of the pie, and all the information about it.


---What's in it---
Mashed potato (45%) - various ingredients, nothing too offensive, Marinated Chicken (19%) - again various ingredients, Milk, Broccoli (8%), Cream (5%). Onion, White Wine, Chicken Stock, Vegetable Juices from Concentrate, Cornflour, Water, salt, Parsley, Thyme and Pepper.

Obviously not suitable for vegetarians, or those with dairy allergies/intolerances.

The pack contains just 320 calories which is excellent for those watching their calorie intake. It contacts 3.2g sugar (4% daily recommended), and 8.7g fat (12%). It sounds bad to me that 5g are saturates (25%), and the pack contains 2.4g salt (40% of your recommended daily intake). Mind you I suppose that's not so bad if this is your main meal. Apparently there is 30% less fat, and low saturates compared to Tesco's standard roast chicken pie.


---Cooking---
Full cooking instructions can be found on the packet - I cooked mine from frozen in the microwave which took 13 minutes including standing time.


---Eating---
The chicken and broccoli pie is overwhelmingly mashed potato. Initially I wasn't very impressed - the mash wasn't a golden brown like it is on the packet, just potato coloured - but on reflection that'll be because I microwaved it rather than oven cooked it. Plus the sides were stuck to the container, and these pieces of potato on the edge were quite chewy really. However, on the whole the potato taste was reasonable - but I get the impression that this is where most of the salt went. Saying that though it wasn't as salty as I'd expected it to be, since it contains 40% of your recommended salt intake. Not that that makes it any better though!

Not wanting to create washing up for myself I ate it straight from the container, like a slob....

One end of the pie seemed to contain most of the broccoli, and the other end the chicken. Initially I was worried as I thought it was all going to be broccoli. The broccoli did have a nice flavour though.

The pieces of chicken were a fair size, however I found that they had very little flavour whatsoever. This was really the biggest disappointment.

The picture on the packet gives the impression of a lot of white sauce but in reality there isn't a great deal. However, the pie isn't too dry, it's ok really.

I think I should have left it a bit longer before eating as it was really too hot, but I was hungry and couldn't wait. I think that because of the heat I ate it slower than I otherwise would have. Although the pie is fairly small it did seem to last a while, and was more substantial than I had initially expected.


---Concluding remarks---
I doubt I'd get this again, but that's really because I don't get a lot of ready meals. However, as far as these things go it's reasonable, and if you're on a low calorie diet then it's probably ideal. Mind you, nothing can beat proper homecooked food - perhaps this has inspired me to cook a chicken and broccoli pie and freeze some portions!

This cost me £1.69 which I think was reasonable for what it was.

Summary: Give it a go if you want a ready meal!