When I read on the internet somewhere that this was one of the most popular items at Trader Joe’s, I knew I had to pick it up. Unfortunately, or fortunately as it turned out, I didn’t read the cooking directions first. This requires real cooking. And there’s no microwave easy way out! Well that turned out not to be the end of the world. What I got in return was some pretty good takeout quality sweet-sour chicken. And there was a lot of it, just like takeout.
I chose to cook the prebreaded chicken pieces in oil rather than cooking them in the oven. That also gave me the opportunity to use my wok-like pot that I only use about once in a decade. The flat bottom on the pot works well on our electric stove. The chicken came out nice and crispy.
The sauce came in two packets which gives you the option of only cooking half the chicken at a time, reserving the other half of the chicken and second sauce packet for another day. Unfortunately there’s only enough sauce to give the chicken a good coating. If you’re having rice as a side with this, there won’t be enough sauce to mix with the rice – if that’s your style.
There are five suggested servings per package. Two people were able to finish off the whole package between them, which is much more realistic. The only problem with that would be the 800 calories that comes with eating half the chicken. It might be more prudent to add sides of rice and vegetables and have a smaller portion of chicken. That leaves the rest of the cooked chicken for leftovers the next day. That’s also just like takeout.
In the end this was some crispy chicken in a Mandarin Orange sweet-sour sauce which is very comparable to what you’ll get from your local takeout joint.
Calories 320 per serving, 5 servings per frozen bag
Price $4.99 per 22 ounce frozen bag (624g) (6 ounces of that are the two sauce packets)
Tags: calories, food, mandarin orange chicken, nutrition, price, review, tj, tj's, trader joe's
Ain't Found A Good Title Blog 
03/09/2021 at 12:20 |
is chicken breast or ?
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03/10/2021 at 00:56 |
The ingredients on the picture of the box says, chicken dark meat chunks. So not chicken breast according to that.
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06/14/2018 at 21:24 |
This is one of my favorite items from Trader Joe’s (typically eat it once a month or so). Hard to beat the combo of value and taste!
The tiny amount of leftovers also reheat really nicely, (a rarity for most reheated food).
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06/14/2018 at 22:58 |
Surprisingly good. And I didn’t screw up the cooking part.
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06/15/2018 at 11:11
Nice! I’ve found getting the oil nice and hot is key for crispy chicken (took a few times lol).
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