As with my last review of a Michelina's product, I know that I can almost surely expect a smaller than average portion and slightly off textures. I'm hoping that this time around the meal will be both more satisfying and less fat, especially seeing as there's no sausage or meat to be seen in it, but as I just heard the microwave timer 'ding', it's time to dig in and write up.
First Impressions: I don't know if it's because I'm super hungry or not, but this meal (and the sauce in particular) smell AMAZING. To me, the smell was just like Campbell's Tomato Soup. Make of that what you want. Again the portion is kind of small, but for something like lasagna I feel it's a good size chunk.
Taste: The sauce is so yummy! It's got sweet, tangy, and an herby feel all at once that really makes my mouth water. It is the tiniest bit spicy, which I also appreciate. I also must concede that considering this is cheap, low fat/calorie frozen lasagna it's pretty damn good. There are 4 layers total of noodles with some ricotta and herb looking filling, but the layer of cheese mixture is pretty thin, which I'm ok with. The sparse sprinkling of mozzarella on top doesn't taste too bizarre, but you can tell it's not full fat.
Texture: The sauce is a good thickness, and not runny or watery as I've seen in other meals from this category. It has some small chunks of onion and stewed tomato in it and lots of herbs flecked through out. I tried splitting the thin layers of the lasagna apart to do a more thorough review, but as they were kinda too thin and meant to be eaten together, I'll say that the noodles are past 'al dente' and the ricotta mixture is pretty smooth and not very bound together, as you would find with some lasagnas that have more than one or two eggs that tend to hold more stiffly.
General Thoughts: For a low budget-fat-calorie take on the Italian classic, Michelina's did better than expected! I'm generally skeptical of anything Italian not made from a nice restaurant or home made and you lose a lot in translation when the frozen and low-cal/fat comes into play but if you can accept that this won't be like what your Momma makes then it's a nice pick from Michelina's. My other suggestion for this meal is to definitely have some bread and salad with it, as it is small but not ridiculously tiny when considering what sort of portion of lasagna you should be eating.
I would buy this again!
Rating: 3.5 stars
Calories: 290
Fat: 5 grams
Michelina's Website with Complete Nutrition Info
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