When one thinks of frozen dinners, negative thoughts of shrink wrapped, unhealthy, sectioned off meals come to mind. When you need to eat one, there’s sometimes a sense of guilt that you’re doing you and your family a disservice.

Thankfully, times are changing and füdi is a company that offers frozen meals using quality ingredients (free range, hormone and antibiotic free chickens from Beretta Farms) and prepared sous-vide (essentially slowly cooked in a hot water bath) to limit the amount of fat. Indeed, it’s not as fast as throwing the package into the microwave for 7 minutes, but the extra time is worth it. Preparing the meals are pretty fool proof – bring water up to a boil, throw in the two pouches into the water and cook for about 15 minutes.

Upon cutting open the pouch, you’ll instantly be greeted by an intoxicating smell of spices. The chicken is well marinated so the flavours permeat throughout. Having been reheated in water, the meat remains moist and the barley soaks up the juices and spices from the cooking liquid.

The only downfall is the accompany kale… really is kale meant to be heated? I understand it’s popular and healty, but steamed kale becomes an odd mushy and chewy combination and tastes bitter. Luckily, they arrive in their own pouch so it’s not hard to discard (such a shame to waste); in my meals, I switched out the kale for broccoli or peas instead.

füdi doesn’t skimp on the spices, with the Pollo Jerk, Pollo Cajun, Pollo Santa Fe and Pollo Tandoori all having a kick to it. Being a person who loves spice, it was perfect for me, but thinking of children or the chili intolerant, having more options that aren’t spicy would be nice as well.

Although the barley was well flavoured and resisted getting soggy, ideally füdi could change up the starches in the future. Indeed, having a standard ingredient is much easier for manufacturing, but if a diner’s going to eat these on a consistent basis, having variety would help. For example, the barley works well with the Cajun and Tandoori, but a wild rice with the Jerk and Santa Fe and a pasta with the Cacciatora would be better paired.

In full disclosure, I received the five flavours for free to try. But, rest assured I will also give my honest opinion. Additionally, Gastro World has been chosen as a finalist in their picture contest. If you like my work, I'd appreciate you taking a minute to head to their website to vote for me!

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Overall, I was impressed with the quality of the succulent chicken and flavours within the meal. The fact that all it took was boiling some water and spooning things out of a pouch? That’ll be our little secret.