Trader Joe’s Shiitake Mushroom Chicken Review

Trader Joe’s (Trader Ming’s) Shiitake Mushroom Chicken Review – I love Chinese food. It’s been that way since I was a little kid. My parents were adventurous cooks when I was growing up.

They probably watched too many PBS cooking shows Yan Can Cook and others. They were always buying cookbooks and trying new things on us kids. I was a happy participant as were my brother and sister.

We gobbled most of it down. There were some ups and downs with the food, but it mostly turned out OK. Both of my parents loved to cook from scratch but with three growing kids, it was a lot of work. I bet they would’ve loved to have something like this when there was a busy night.

Trader Joe’s has had ready-to-cook meals for a really long time. Fried rice and in several varieties, most of all the infamous Orange Chicken and my favorite (until now), Kung Pao Chicken. The Shiitake Mushroom Chicken showed up in the summer of 2019 and I am very happy it did and I hope Trader Joe’s builds on this for more interesting stir fry in a bag food.

I have to say that the one thing I don’t like about the Kung Pao Chicken is that it’s too sweet. The sauce is too much and it ends up like a sticky mess. It comes with two bags of sauce and I usually just use one and then add some soy sauce to thin it out.

The Orange Chicken is just nothing but deep-fried chicken in a very sweet, spicy sauce. It’s purely catering to people that like that type of food overly sweet and fried food. I get it. It’s just not that good.

While Trader Joe’s Shiitake Mushroom Chicken won’t win any awards for creativity, it is a damn good value and it tastes great and it’s easy to make. The directions tell you to pull the vegetable bag and all the chicken and zap it in the microwave for a minute or two until things are a little more thawed out.

Heat a tablespoon of oil in a saute pan or wok and then dump everything in there and cook it for a while until done. I changed one thing. I sauteed the veggies and chicken until I knew they were cooked through and then added the sauce and cook for a minute or two more.

I was afraid that it would be too sweet, but I was wrong. Sure there is some sweetness in the sauce, but it was nicely balanced. It had a decent gingery flavor that I really liked. Not too sweet and lots of umami from the mushrooms. This makes a lot of food and served on rice, it should be more than enough for two. There was also a lot of chicken and was nicely balanced with green beans and edamame. The real interesting part is the whole thing is the nice Shiitake mushroom caps that make up a good portion of the food. It makes for an interesting component to the whole dish.

I really liked this and liked it so much, I am probably going to buy a couple of bags and make it ahead of time and package up some for lunches to take to work. You can’t beat that anywhere for $2.50 lunch with this much flavor!

$4.99 for 22oz of food!?!?! How can you pass this up?

INGREDIENTS: DARK MEAT CHICKEN CHUNKS: DARK MEAT CHICKEN CHUNKS, WATER, WHOLE EGGS, SOY BEAN OIL, CORNSTARCH, SALT, WHITE PEPPER, GARLIC, GINGER, GREEN ONION. VEGETABLE PACKET: SHIITAKE MUSHROOMS, GREEN BEANS, EDAMAME SOYBEANS. SAUCE PACKET: WATER, VEGETARIAN STIR-FRY SAUCE [WATER, SUGAR, SALT, MODIFIED CORN STARCH, CONTAINS LESS THAN 2% OF YEAST EXTRACT, CARAMEL COLOR, NATURAL MUSHROOM FLAVOR], SOY SAUCE [WATER, WHEAT FLOUR, SOYBEANS, SALT, SUGAR, STRAW MUSHROOM EXTRACTIVES], MODIFIED CORN STARCH, GARLIC, SUGAR, WHITE PEPPER, GINGER AND GREEN ONION.

CONTAINS EGGS, SOY, WHEAT.

NUTRITION FACTS:
Servings per container about 4 | Serving size 1 cup (150g) | Amount per serving: Calories 180, Total Fat 8g (12% DV), Saturated Fat 2g (9% DV), Trans Fat 0g, Cholesterol 60mg (20% DV), Sodium 480mg (20% DV), Total Carbohydrate 9g (3% DV), Dietary Fiber 2g (7% DV), Sugars 3g, Protein 20g, Vitamin A (4% DV), Vitamin C (10% DV), Calcium (6% DV), Iron (10% DV).