Sometimes it’s just easier to throw your meal in the microwave and go. Even the quickest 30 minute meals can’t beat a 3 minute microwave meal, that is, unless the flavor of the microwave meal is slacking, which often times they are. Aldi’s Earth Grown vegan line has microwaveable vegan bowls in various flavors. Today we’re reviewing its steak free – steak bowl.
What is it?
Earth Grown’s Vegan Meat Free Pepper Steak bowl is exactly what it sounds like, it’s a steak bowl, but hold the steak. It reminds me of the pepper steak meal you get from a Chinese restaurant; rice topped with steak bits and green pepper. This dish is a bit more colorful as it also has red and yellow peppers. The “steak” in this case is a soy based meat substitute.
Does it taste like steak?
We have to really break down the dish and what I like and dislike about it. But like always, lets get to the point. Overall, is this good? No. I don’t like it. The steak doesn’t taste like steak. Now lets break it down a bit between three categories, rice, “meat”, and overall thoughts
Rice
The rice in this case is just a basic white rice with lots of spices and soy sauce. It’s pretty much a while seasoned, a bit spicy, white rice. This is my favorite part of the dish as it has the most flavor. There is also a ton of rice compared to steak which in some ways over powers the point of the steak bowl.
“Meat”
Since there is so much rice compared to meat there isn’t much to taste. However, the steak that is in the bowl comes in bigger chunks than I liked. I think they should be in smaller bite sized pieces. The meat doesn’t taste like steak. The meat is really chewy and very soft. Not a good soft melt in your mouth soft it’s almost slimy. The meat has bits of seasoning it it. The “steak” tastes so much like a soy product that I forgot it was steak and had to check the package again just to make sure that I grabbed the right bowl of out of the freezer.
Overall
The rice is very well seasoned but it doesn’t match the quantity of steak or the flavor that the steak should have. It does have a bit of a spice to it. I would love the rice itself with real meat.
Is it healthy?
This microwavable bowl has the least amount of calories than the other three I saw. Coming in at 389 calories. However, the list of ingredients I can’t pronounce is pretty long, so I’m sure it’s highly processed. It’s high carb and has added sugar if you care about that but has 16 grams of protein.
How much is it?
Each plant based bowl is going to cost you $3.49. I don’t know about you but the amount that I get in the bowl and the flavor just isn’t worth it in this case. The purpose of tv dinners is supposed to be a meal replacement. If I was a college student looking for good plant based food this just wouldn’t be worth my money and the flavor of the steak is just not cutting it. It’s not worth almost $4.
What’s in the bowl?
The bowl is just a black plastic microwavable bowl covered in a film. I followed the instructions, removed the bowl from the cardboard box, and slightly opened the film, and placed it in the microwave. When you look at the bowl the frozen bits are sticking out of the film, you see the peppers scattered throughout the bowl . When you open the package you get a very strong whiff of soy sauce. Although it says to microwave for 2 minutes covered then uncovered, my bowl was still a bit frozen so I put it in again for about a minute. I put the steak bowl in my panda rice bowl for picture purposes only, admit it, it looks nicer in the bowl.
Overall, this meatless munchie gets 2 stars out of 5. The second star comes from the nice flavor of the rice. Other than that, I wouldn’t buy it again, it’s not worth it nor is it good enough for this meat lover to switch out other microwavable meals.
Meatless Munchies 