Trader Joe’s Chicken Gorgonzola

(I have heard from several sources that this product has been discontinued from Trader Joe’s. It was fairly popular although I didn’t like it that much. R.I.P)

I like chicken! I like cheese! Blue cheese is a perennial favorite at my house. Becky and I both love and eat it regularly. I’m always looking to add more cheese into my diet because I really don’t eat enough of it! (yah right Steve…).

I envy college kids and/or young single people these days. When I was in college we weren’t so lucky to have all these ready to eat choices. It was Top Ramen and Mac and Cheese about 5 nights a week. I would’ve killed to have these great, pop-in-the-microwave meals. Especially that Kung Pao chicken I just reviewed. Things change and you get married and have kids and it doesn’t make much sense to live out of the microwave to prepare healthy meals.

Trader Joe’s has a variety of these more adult version of pop in the microwave meals in the frozen section (and some over in the fridge section too). It has been a long time since I last had this and I think Becky and I really liked it the last time I had it so I thought I’d give it another go around and see if it was as good as I remembered.

I looked at the back label and get a load of this description! “Fire grilled boneless, skinless chicken breast topped with sliced Portabello mushrooms, vine-ripened tomatoes, toasted walnuts and Gorgonzola cheese, finished with our exclusive coco-caribe pesto sauce….” then they go on in the next paragraph: “We developed this entree for two with a world renowned chef (really? could you tell us who that is?) Our request was that Trader Joe’s Chicken Gorgonzola be a dish you prepare in minutes that you’d be proud to serve even the most discerning guests”


Well, jeez! This better be pretty darn good if you are going to blow that much smoke! The ingredients list is typical Trader Joe’s in the fact that there are no funky sounding ingredients. You know what everything is. It looks like the ingredient list for a recipe, not some mass produced food, which is a good thing! Also, it says there are two servings in this box, but each serving is 380 calories. I would hardly call that a meal and I can a whole box on my own. I guess you could supplement with some veggies and pasta. I didn’t and ate the whole thing!

I followed the microwave directions to the letter and several minutes later I had a steaming hot Chicken Gorgonzola. OK, first off I expected a little more cheese. I don’t want it smothered in cheese, but it says Chicken GORGONZOLA on the label and basically I see nothing resembling cheese. I scooped out the chicken and put it on a plate to eat and the thing that struck me was how watery the sauce was. It was really runny. Again, something that says Gorgonzola on it I expect to have a relatively cheesy sauce.

I cut up some chicken and it seem relatively tender but when I took a bit it was rubbery and tasted like cardboard a little. You can see some  mushrooms and tomatoes on the chicken but I don’t see any walnuts or taste any. The sauce was thin and really didn’t have much flavor, especially no gorgonzola flavors. Based on that description on the back, I was expecting to be wowed, but I really couldn’t recommend that anyone buy this based on what I had.

I hate to knock Trader Joe’s products, but this one has been around for a long time and I’m kind of surprised it’s still on the shelf. Maybe I got a bad one (anyone out there really like this stuff? or have a different experience than me?)

Based on my tasting of this Trader Joe’s Chicken Gorgonzola, I’m going to give it 5 bells