Review: Weight Watchers Smart Ones Chicken Enchiladas Suiza

I used to eat a ton of these microwave meals, but once I taught myself how to cook, I stopped eating them all that much.  Every now and then though, I'll feel completely lazy and not even feel the desire to make something as simple as a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, so I always keep a few of these in my freezer for those moments.  I had one of those moments recently and that led me to try out this Chicken Enchilada Suiza meal from Weight Watchers Smart Ones.  I've had up and down experiences with the Smart Ones products in prior reviews, so going into this, I knew that it could go either way.  Prior to its residence in my freezer, I picked up this meal on sale at Meijer for $2.00 and it's 9.0 ounces and 290 calories and scores a seven on the Weight Watchers Points Plus scale.

When I opened this up prior to heating it in the microwave, I was amused by how neatly partitioned everything was in the tray, despite the lack of plastic dividers/sections.  The enchiladas kept to themselves, the Spanish rice kept to itself and the Suiza sauce (a mix of sour cream and green chiles) kept to itself as well.  I realize it was frozen, but you still usually see some sort of general overlap.  There was none here.  Anyway, I popped this in the microwave and the strong scent of Mexican chile spice permeated my kitchen and it was delightful.  After I pulled this out and stirred it up a bit, the Suiza sauce was remarkably thick and creamy in texture, so that was encouraging.  The enchiladas, on the other hand, were kind of odd.  The exterior of them was almost bark like instead of a soft, pillowy tortilla shell like you'd seemingly get in a Mexican restaurant.  I know that's a result of cooking a frozen product in a microwave, but that doesn't mean that it has to be appetizing, right?

With my first bites, I tried to taste everything individually so that I could see how each component worked on its own.  I'll start with the rice, because it's the most brief:  it was typical microwaved Spanish rice with a slight kick.  Peppers, corn, etc.  Nothing too special.  Next was the Suiza sauce and I was curious about this one since it was almost cheesy in its texture.  As I took a bit, I could clearly taste the sour cream, but it was not completely overwhelming with its tang, which is good since I'm not a sour cream guy.  Also playing a key factor in the sauce were the green chiles and actually the heat they brought to the somewhat cooling sour cream was downright delicious.  I hadn't yet made it to the enchiladas, but based on the taste of the sauce alone, I was almost ready to give this one a buy it rating.  After the high that the sauce taste provided me, I was immediately brought back to earth with the enchiladas.  It's not that they were bad, but they weren't good either.  They were just there.  You could tell there was chicken in them and there were some chile spices that gave them a kick, but what made it weird was that the interior texture of these enchiladas was more like a chicken "paste" as opposed to shredded chicken mixed with vegetables and spices.  Just another instance of fun with processed food!  The tortillas were weird too in that they were crisp and brittle.  After addressing each individually, I then started mixing the sauce with everything and I'm glad I did, because the sauce made the rice and enchiladas into winners.

Buy It or Fly By It?  Had it not been for the MVP performance of the sauce, I wouldn't be able to say this, but I will give this a BUY IT rating.  Individually, two of the three components in this dish do not work.  When you add in the MVP sauce, this entree works and provides a nice little lunch time meal or a small dinner.  Like most microwave meals, it's not going to re-invent the wheel, but it is solid and worth a purchase.

BUY IT!!