PF Chang’s Home Menu: Sweet & Sour Chicken

Sun, January 22 2012

Sweet and sour chicken

I had such a craving for sweet and sour chicken the other day because someone in the building was cooking with peppers. My favorite has lots of peppers, pineapple and cherries. However, none of our local restaurants make it that way so I was hoping that I could find something in the frozen section to sate the hunger. I ran across PF Change’s skill version of sweet and sour chicken and, while it lacks cherries, it had lots of peppers and pineapple, too. I love skillet meals because they’re so quick and easy to make so here’s my experience.

Ease: Just toss it in a pan for 12 minutes, stirring occasionally. It’s a little longer than some other meals but it’s perfect for lazy cook like me. The peppers and sauce were easy to smell during cooking.

Texture: I liked the chicken, which was bite-sized battered pieces, soft and without fat. The pineapples were sometimes a little tough and also quite large. In fact, they were large enough to make stabbing them with a fork a little difficult. I would have loved to see them smaller. Sadly, the peppers were a total flop — literally. They were mushy and lifeless, lacking that awesome peppery crispness. The onions were of a fine texture but I avoided them.

Taste: The major downfall of this meal is its complete inability to taste like sweet and sour chicken. The sauce was nearly tasteless and the pineapple was so overly sweet that it overpowered the other elements. I couldn’t taste the peppers at all. The chicken was okay.

Servings: Two moderately sized servings. Maybe three if you stretch it but a hungry person could easily finish off the entire bag. It’s probably more reasonable when you consider that Americans tend to eat their portions too large but it’s definitely a lot smaller than any portion you’d get from a restaurant.. and it was more expensive than many of the skillet meals I do like.

Nutrition: A Single servings is 380 calories — not too bad. It offers more than a third of your daily sodium intake and a fifth of your daily carbs, which may not be problematic, depending on your diet. Read more here.

Verdict: Slightly cheaper than going out to eat but the reason I bought it — fruits and veggies — were disappointing. The serving size is a little small, too.