4/4/05 | Banquet Salisbury Steak Meal
[ Currently Eating: pasta ]
Part 2 : Banquet Salisbury Steak Meal
After that pretty much excellent experience with Banquet’s Chicken Nugget Meal I was all ready to be wowed by another dollar offering of theirs. The Salisbury Steak, to my disappointment is neither satisfying nor cheap. In general, I think most people could make something similar with one hand tied behind their back, and for just as cheap. What’s so hard about Salisbury Steak? Get some frozen ground beef, throw in some spices, shape it, fry it, deglaze pan, make gravy. Probably for about 50 cents.
I took the time to make this in the oven, though in retrospect a meal like this shouldn’t matter as much as something like chicken nuggets. So this “Steak” was rubbery and tough and tasted very artificial. The gravy, if it can be called that was watery and devoid of spices, although extremely salty. Any hope for redemption in the mashed potatoes was blown by the bland globs of starch that masqueraded as potatoes. I know that they can do better than this for potatoes, even if its instant. The corn, was as before, edible but no showstopper.
I guess you can’t expect much for an entire meal on a buck. If a meal doesn’t win on taste, then I at least expect it to make some sort of attempt to fill me up. No dice. I looked around for other things to eat, while i contemplated my squandered one hundred cents… Let’s hope the next Banquet meal turns out better.
Cheap Eats Score: 4/10
(You might also want to read Part I: Banquet Chicken Nugget Meal and Part III: Banquet Fried Chicken Meal)
December 23rd, 2005 at 2:59 pm
wow you are crazy if you liked those pressed mystery chicken nuggets and didnt like the salisbury steak! the salisbury steak is the most rockin of all the banquet meals. maybe you just like processed random stuff mixed with flour. in any case……… banquet rules and the salisbury steak is the bomb diggity …….. and where im from they are all a dollar…… no price difference. expensive? maybe you should switch to rice……….
December 23rd, 2005 at 3:01 pm
ps. try salt and pepper. add a roll……….. use your head.
December 28th, 2005 at 11:23 am
Try their rice meals–sweet and sour chicken and fried rice with egg roll- I love those. The enchilada combo made me sick–tasted so gross and I nearly threw up. I threw out all the combo boxes I’d bought.
December 28th, 2005 at 12:47 pm
lalahh - sorry, but that Salisbury steak really sucked. =(
Karen - rice meals? are they some special kind of combo bowl or are they the standard frozen $1 dinners…
December 29th, 2005 at 10:46 am
They are the standard frozen ones, but very filling and pretty good…the sweet and sour chicken is more like chicken nuggets with the sweet and sour sauce and rice, but it’s still really good for a dollar. The fried rice is great too–eating it right now, in fact! It has small chunks of chicken, carrots, celery, egg and peppers in a slightly wet (some kinda sauce, not water) rice and the egg roll is on the side. They even have pasta with meatballs and I liked that. I’m usually pretty fussy but I buy these three meals over and over. For a dollar they are totally worth it…hey I’m a newly graduated college student–nothing beats a dollar meal! Most of the time I can’t finish the rice meals. Ofcourse, guys would probably disagree.
December 29th, 2005 at 11:31 pm
karen - yeah, I think I would agree with the rice meal probably not being enough to eat. I’m a small guy and still i could probably eat two of any of these dinners. I’ve never tried the rice ones before so maybe I’ll give it a shot. Trader Joe’s used to have these Chicken Teriyaki Rice Bowls that were pretty good… but they weren’t too cheap. I also bought something similar at CostCo, once again not too cheap though.
June 22nd, 2007 at 11:03 am
I AM TRYING TO FIND YOUR SALISBURY STEAK ALONE IN THE BAG THAT YOU CAN BOIL OR MICRO. DO YOU STILL MAKE THEM? IF SO PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHERE IN MY AREA I CAN GET THEM. I LIVE IN LYNBROOK, NY ON LONG ISLAND IN NASSAU COUNTY. THANK YOU.
August 16th, 2007 at 1:26 pm
I WAS WONDERING ABOUT THE MEATLOAF FAMILY PACK I DON SEE IT ANYMORE WHY? I LOVE IT.
August 26th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
There was a rather big piece of gristle of about 1/4″ square, or maybe slightly less than that, in my Banquet Sailsbury Steak Meal made following a long day’s work because it was easy to do. I called their 800-257-5191 phone number and made a mild complaint about the product. The YL was very polite and helpful and told me she would send coupons to replace the product. Experience has shown that if you are not completely satisfied with a particular product, make the call or complaint on the Interweb. Be careful though, if you are a chronic complainer they will eventually find this out and the word will get around to other companies. They have their own network. Used for legitimate reasons, it can be to the consumer’s benefit to take a few minutes for this.
October 7th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
why don’t they make Banquet Boiling Bag’s anymore,they were inexpensive & delicious
Thank you
October 16th, 2008 at 11:03 am
Yes, they do make boiling bags. I still get the turkey and gravy, salisbury steak, chipped beef, etc. at my local grocery store.
November 7th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
Beth -
Where do you live? Haven’t been able to find these for a LONG time.
Have been making my own by using a Banquet family size meal & then breaking them up using my Food Saver.
February 22nd, 2009 at 8:54 pm
get the salsbury steak meal and chop up the steak into little pieces and make some instant mashed potatoes. mix it in a bowl with the corn and mmmmmm u got a delicious fast easy and filling meal. i made this up last week and was thrilled its my new favorite. sometimes you have to improvise when your trying to enjoy a $1 meal.
April 8th, 2009 at 5:57 am
I wanted to see if banquet still made the turkey boil a bags or the chiken ala king..these quick fixes over rice were very low fat and healthy..i think banquet should make a come back with this product…
September 7th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
This is gross. I could tolerate it though, because every once in a while I get a craving for crappy frozen meals. It was rubbery and artificial, yeah. This has given me some of the most excruciating bowel movements I’ve ever had. It went right through me in like 5 hours. I’m firing corn chunks and yellow liquid. Don’t eat it unless you’ve got no other options.