Product descriptions:
Stouffer’s Swedish Meatballs with fettuccine in parsley-sour cream sauce using beef stock. The dish contains eight meatballs, which are made with beef and pork. A single-serving delivers 500 calories and 1,100 mg of salt.
Lean Cuisine Swedish Meatballs in “savory gravy.” Beef and pork comprise the five meatballs, which mingle with corkscrew pasta set in a pond of light-brown gravy. The dish contains 300 calories and 630 mg of salt.
Preparation summaries:
For the Stouffer’s, microwave on high for 3 ½ minutes, and then 5 ½ minutes at 50 percent power.
For the Lean Cuisine, cook for 4 ½ minutes on high in the microwave.
Stouffer’s High Points and Low Points: The eight meatballs carried more flavor and density compared to those in the Lean Cuisine meal. But they were oddly porous, as though each ball had been needle-pricked like a voodoo doll by some disgruntled worker on the factory line.
The sour cream sauce carried reasonable flavor despite the parsley missing in action. The fettuccine noodles were abundant in their gummy form. Overall, the dish rose to the level of cafeteria food on neither a good or bad day.
Lean Cuisine High Points and Low Points: It’s somewhat guilt-free compared to the Stouffer’s version because it’s technically geared for dieters. Otherwise, the dish failed on many levels. (Pictured in the lead photo)
The five meatballs, which would adequately satisfy a toddler, were loosely formed and mealy. They’re further insulted by a gelatinous brown gravy, which somewhere along the way lost all of its flavor except for the salt. The “meal” basically falls countless points below cafeteria food in terms of quality and quantity.
Average retail prices: $3.39 for Stouffer’s; $2.79 for Lean Cuisine
Availability: Major grocery stores
They both look nasty. The 1,100 sodium count in the Stouffer’s would cause the box to drop right out of my hand. It would never even make it into the cart.
The measly 5 meatball count in the Lean Cuisine would be the game finisher for that one.
I”m not big on prepared foods.
If you really want the worst of the worst Bottom of the Barrel Swedish meatballs try the Budget Gourmet ones!!😂😖😬
I’ve never heard of Budget Gourmet. The name alone is kind of scary.
My mother tells me Ralphs (or maybe it’s Trader Joe’s, but I think she said Ralphs) sells a good frozen Swedish meatball, in a bag with the meatballs only, no sauce. That’s about all I know on that subject. Very amusing: “oddly porous, as though each ball had been needle-pricked like a voodoo doll by some disgruntled worker on the factory line.”
Hmm… I can tell you no frozen Swedish meatball would qualify as what the Swedes consider it to be. An old Swedish friend used to make them for us and they were divine back in my meat eating days. Try IKEAs cafeteria before the frozen version!!
1100 mg of salt is beyond comprehension !!
I so agree!
I have tried them. I figured they were “diet food” so I expected no real food quality. How sad. I wish I had noticed the airy quality of the meatballs like you did. Can I transfer that quality to my meatballs? Does that make them lighter? Can this be applied to all food?
Good article, as usual with an educative and humorous quality.