Review: Trader Joes Chickenless Mandarin Orange Morsels

Soooo I love Trader Joes, I’ve mentioned that before and basically pretty much all the new vegan products I’ve been trying lately are mostly from Trader Joes or Whole Foods. Trader Joes actually has a pretty decent and reasonably priced vegan entree selection so I’m going to review one of those today. These are basically Chinese orange chicken nuggets 😉 But vegan style!

Now clean diet wise, these ARE NOT! This is a cheat meal really due to that long ass list of ingredients, but when you come home late at night and need food these do fit the bill nicely! Calorie wise I’d like to have seen the breakdown without the sauce as I really didn’t care for the orange sauce, but then I’m not a fan of sweet stuff (unless it’s cake, or ice-cream, sweet stuff does NOT belong on my dinner, its dessert!). For a 1/2 bag at 320 calories (with sauce) that’s pretty substantial. 16g of protein and high fat content too. Like I said though… certainly not an every week item on the menu for me! Plus really you could get away with less pieces and get 4 servings out of the bag really, still 8g of protein and 5.5g fat. The sodium content for me was pretty high but again it’s a processed item and not something you should be relying on everyday!

Like I said though I didn’t really care for the sauce, so Bob had double sauce. I like my nuggets plain and these are nice ‘meaty’ nuggets. They do seem to  stick together in the bag but cook nicely in the oven on a tray. They definitely LOOK like chicken nuggets…

Up close inside they look like chicken too… and they taste like… well honestly I don’t remember. It’s been 21 years since I ate chicken so how would I know if they taste like chicken anymore! Sheesh that’s 1/2 my life as a vegetarian!!! Go me! These were nice as a quick cook meal though. Just place the nuggets and potatoes in the oven, go for a shower and voila! Done! Heat up some veggies and Bobs you’re uncle.. or in my case, husband 😉

As I remember these were around $3.99 for a bag and contain 2 servings so $2 a serving which is comparable to meat I think? But again I think in future I’d do less nuggets and see if I can get 3 servings from the bag.

Happy cruelty-free eating!