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.
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.
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.
Where’s the beef? The amount of beef I received in a whole bag of this fit in the palm of my hand. They say a serving of meat should be about the size of a deck of cards. This was a half deck for the whole bag. Flavors were good after adding a little tamari, but it needs more substance. Thanks for the review!
Agree with Shane. I had to really spruce it up and the lack of beef – shame.
Delicious, but, doesn’t look at all like the package image. I was expecting beef and vegetables with a little rice, but it was 99.9% rice with only a few flecks of beef or vegetables. I will still buy it, but as a side dish.
I havent had any issues with the quality. I heat it on a non stick pan with no oil for about ten minutes, split a bag with my husband, and add an over easy egg and nice helping of kimchi to each bowl.
I really enjoyed it when I made it but I definitely doctored it up some soy, sesame oil, rice vinegar, sesame seeds, chives, fried eggs, and sriracha! It’s such a good base to go off of and for the price great!!! Enough for two meals!
Ingredients inside were far from picture on the package. It was 90% rice, very few green beans and almost no beef. One piece of beef was the size of a quarter. The remaining 7 or 8 pieces were small pea sized. Meat was seasoned well, but highly disappointed overall. Considering I’m not a big meat eater, I did expect a little more meat. Needless to say, I have a lot of rice and a few beans for leftovers
i love this!! drizzle some spicy sesame oil- best!
I made this with miso ginger broth, added in more kimchi, and a little tamari sauce and it is fantastic! It makes for a great soup in colder months!