Trader Joe’s Bulgogi Beef Fried Rice With Kimchi Review

Trader Joe’s Bulgogi Beef Fried Rice

Trader Joe’s Bulgogi Beef Fried Rice With Kimchi Review – As I have mentioned many times on this blog, I love most Asian food and Trader Joe’s has a lot to choose from. I am very happy to see a new fried rice product.

These are cheap and easy meals that I can make in a few minutes that have a lot of flavors. They can also serve as a side dish for a bigger family meal. I mostly have a ready supply of several different frozen fried rice products from Trader Joe’s in the freezer that I mostly make for a quick lunch.

I have reviewed just about all of them but my favorites are the Chicken Fried Rice and the Thai Shrimp Fried Rice and especially the vegan Japanese Fried Rice.

All are really good and not much needs to be done to them to finish them off, except the Chicken Fried Rice which always seems to need something a little extra like some Siracha or spicy sesame oil.

The new Bulgogi Fried Rice is the same way. It seems to be a good starter to be built on. Trader Joe’s themselves even say that in their announcement for the product on their website.

Trader Joe’s Bulgogi Beef Fried Rice back

Let’s back up and talk about what this is. It looks like a take on a fairly popular dish in Korea, beef and kimchi fried rice. I’ve had it several times at Korean restaurants and always loved it. It can get quite spicy.

Just like all the other fried rice dishes that Trader Joe’s has it’s a frozen bag of fried rice and you can microwave or stir fry it. I always prefer the latter. It just seems to give it a little more flavor plus I can add other things like eggs or hot peppers or onions or whatever I want.

That brings up another point, this dish seems a bit hollow. Like they got about 90% of the way through but didn’t add the interesting bits at the end. First, it’s barely spicy. If you ever had Korean food before, it can blow your head off.

I could barely see the kimchi in there and expected bigger chunks of cabbage. The beef looks like it was stew meat and not a whole lot of it, but that’s okay. I know beef is expensive.

Trader Joe’s Bulgogi Beef Fried Rice cooked

I stir-fried it in a bit of sunflower oil from Trader Joe’s (love that stuff) and it only took about 5 minutes to cook all the way through. Typically I don’t add anything to these dishes when I make them for review.

I want to see what Trader Joe’s gives us before I start doctoring things up, but this is one dish that really needs some more stuff. There is quite a large amount, 650 calories for a bag so you might not make it through a whole bag at a sitting or get two bags if you want to make a meal of it with your significant other because one isn’t enough for two people unless it’s a side dish.

The only downside, other than the lack of flavors, was there were hard bits of rice that were quite chewy. It wasn’t from the way I cooked it, but seemed to be an artifact from the manufacturing process.

I’ll cut Trader’s some slack because I know this stuff can happen. We’ve all had some weird bits in other dishes. If I keep seeing it, I’ll raise an issue.

Final Verdict

All in all, it wasn’t all that bad but needs some help to push it across the finish line. More spice, or scrambled eggs or green onions or maybe more kimchi. But I am going to rate it 7 Bells because where else can you find frozen Bulgogi Kimchi Fried Rice in your freezer section?

Ingredients and Nutrition Facts

INGREDIENTS:

SEASONED COOKED RICE (COOKED RICE [WATER, RICE], SAUCE [SOY SAUCE {WATER, SOYBEANS, WHEAT, SALT}, SUGAR, SESAME OIL, SEA SALT, CANOLA OIL, WATER, GRANULATED GARLIC, DEHYDRATED ONION, SEASONING {NATURAL FLAVORING, MALTODEXTRIN}, MOLASSES, RED PEPPER POWDER {RED PEPPER, SALT}, SEASONING {SUNFLOWER OIL, NATURAL FLAVOR}, BLACK PEPPER, XANTHAN GUM], CANOLA OIL), STIR-FRIED VEGETABLES (GREEN CABBAGE, KIMCHI [NAPA CABBAGE, CHILI PEPPER, CAYENNE PEPPER, CARROT, GARLIC, GREEN ONION, CANE SUGAR, ONION, SEA SALT, GINGER], ONION, CANOLA OIL, GARLIC), BEEF, WATER AND POTATO STARCH PRODUCT (BEEF, SUGAR, WATER, GARLIC PUREE, SOY SAUCE [WATER, SOYBEANS, WHEAT, SALT], TOASTED SESAME OIL, LESS THAN 2% OF POTATO STARCH, ONION JUICE CONCENTRATE, LEMON JUICE CONCENTRATE, VINEGAR, SEA SALT, GRILL FLAVOR [TAPIOCA DEXTRIN, SALT, GRILL FLAVOR {FROM SUNFLOWER OIL}, SMOKE FLAVOR, SILICON DIOXIDE], FLAVORING, BLACK PEPPER), GREEN ONION, GREEN BEANS.
CONTAINS SOY, WHEAT.

NUTRITION FACTS:
1 serving per container | Serving size 1 container (454g) | Amount per 1 cup: Calories 400
Total Fat 10g (13% DV), Saturated Fat 1.5g (8% DV), Trans Fat 0g, Cholesterol 20mg (7% DV), Sodium 1150mg (50% DV), Total Carbohydrate 60g (22% DV), Dietary Fiber 3g (11% DV), Total Sugars 7g—Includes 5g Added Sugars (10% DV), Protein 11g, Vitamin D (0% DV), Calcium (4% DV), Iron (8% DV), Potassium (6% DV).
The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a serving of food contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice.