Trader Joe’s (Ming’s) Chicken and Vegetable Wonton Soup

My mother has been begging me to review this Trader Ming’s Chicken and Vegetable Wonton Soup, but I hadn’t seen it in my local store until this week and I picked one up! As you probably know already, I really like Asian food and I am a sucker for anything remotely Asian that Trader Joe’s introduces and mostly they are duds, but there are a few that shine through the clutter of crappy Asian food wannabes. This is one of those gems!

Now I wouldn’t say that this even comes close to anything you might get at a Chinese restaurant, but for homemade, this ain’t half bad! First, let me say that this is in the frozen section which is probably why it’s better than most of those instant soups that Trader’s carries in their dried foods section. To prepare you pull a corner of the plastic off the top of the bowl and put about 2/3 of a cup of water in the bowl up to the line marked on the inside of the bowl. Cover up the top and stick in the microwave for a few minutes until it’s piping hot! The interesting thing is that there are vegetables you can recognize and several big wontons at the bottom with what looks like some kind of concentrated soup base frozen to the bottom of the bowl.

I followed the directions and after a few minutes it came out and I could tell already that I was going to really like this based on the smells emanating from the microwave. When I pulled back the plastic from the bowl (Which, by the way, is great for taking for lunch to work! Just supply your own spoon!) and stirred it up a bit to see what was  what at the bottom. It doesn’t quite look like the picture on the box mainly because the vegetables all sank to the bottom, but that doesn’t mean they don’t taste bad! In my picture I had to lift some up with my spoon so you can see how nice and big the vegetable chunks are.  Unlike the Thai Vegetable Kao Soi that I reviewed a couple of months ago, the veggies in this dish are crisp and almost fresh. There are also green onions and some other leafy greens floating about, all really good.

In the bowl there are about 4 rather large chicken filled wontons and I really like the fact that Trader Joe’s didn’t skimp on those wontons. I thought they were filling and had a good authentic flavor, only ding I can give them was that during preparation the wontons must’ve been poking out of the broth and some parts did not cook fully and were a little chewy, but not too bad.

All in all, this is the kind of thing we all go to Trader Joe’s for. Something you can’t find anywhere else and is really good and good for you!

I’m going to rate this 8 Bells and I’m going to stock up so I have a pile of these to eat at lunch (when I’m not reviewing other Trader Joe’s products!)