Well, here’s ANOTHER Cheap Eats review of a healthier product… you’d think we’d changed our focus or something. Not so… I promise I have reviews of unhealthy cheap eats coming up soon…

Anyhow, I recently received samples of Knorr® - Lipton® Sides Made With Whole Grains to review in the mail. What we have here is their Sesame Chicken Rice Sides.

First, an aside: One of my earliest memories of going camping with my family is eating out of styrofoam cups filled with Lipton Cream of Chicken Soup. The soup was a dried powder that you added boiling water to. It was a bit gluey, and probably extremely bad for you. But because we only had it during camping trips, it was a sort of treat for us. We also had the bigger packs of Lipton Chicken Noodle Soup that had these unbelievably skinny noodles… almost like broken angel hair pasta. And don’t forget that slightly metallic tasting Lipton Instant Brew Ice Tea powder which came in a tall glass jar which was a staple on trips to hot environments.

So, when you say Lipton I get a good shot of childhood nostalgia. But this is Knorr - Lipton … they’ve apparently joined forces (well, they are both owned by Unilever) to make this Rice Side. Ok, on to the review.

Packaging:

The Rice Side packaging is a five ounce foil bag, with the rice and flavoring placed together directly inside and not in an additional bag as is sometimes the case with these instant rice products. The designs is fairly nice and notably features both logos prominently. The package says “Whole Grain Rice & Pasta Blend in a Sesame & Chicken Flavored Sauce” which is pretty accurate. This is a SIDE dish… you’re not supposed to consider it as stand-alone food. As such, calling it “chicken flavored sauce” is fine I guess… I suspect it’s mostly just the same thing that’s in Knorr Bouillon Cubes…

The directions on the back are pretty easy to follow. Just put everything in a pot with 2 cups water and optional tablespoon of margarine. Cook it for 12 minutes, let it sit for 3. Stir up and serve. Not rocket science.

Appearance and Texture:

I cooked this for the recommeded time plus two minutes in a clear glass soup pot… so I could see how it was doing even though covered. I added the 2 minutes of cooking time because it didn’t seem done yet.

The rice side seems a bit wet though I think that’s the intention. It’s definitely not a fluffy rice dish, but more of a sticky pilaf. I didn’t mind the wet consistency at all. The challenge for them of course is going to be selling the public on the virtues of brown rice. But after all, this IS their whole selling point… the “first mainstream side dish made with whole grains”. Note, that “mainstream” addition… I’d guess that’s pretty important because there are untold number of healthy choice rice sides that have been on the shelves for years.

Hey, everyone knows it’s healthy. But those who aren’t used to the extremely firm and rougher texture of brown rice may need some time to adjust. I grew up eating home-cooked brown rice (or a mixture of brown and white rice) around 2-3 times a week so I’m used to it. You really need to chew brown rice. In this respect, I think it was a wise decision to mix this rice side with little bits of whole grain pasta in order to make the dish easier to eat. The pasta shapes are tiny tubes of durum semolina and contrast nicely in texture with the harder rice.

I thought the colors of the rice dish was a bit boring, though it did jive with what you expect healthier food to look like. It’s a mostly dull beige in color - but hey it’s a rice side dish after all so what do you expect?

Taste:

The actual flavoring of this rice side is supposed to be “Sesame Chicken” but it’s more like soy sauce, sugar and sesame oil to me. The sesame flavoring is decent, but overall the dish is slightly too sweet for my tastes. In fact, sugar is the third ingredient on the bag. But I think my taste buds aren’t the typical American’s… I usually think everything is too sweet.

The brown rice is good and nutty and the pasta neither detracts from the overall taste or helps it significantly. It’s nice to see that they actually had real sesame seeds as an ingredient. I found quite few of them in the mix. The same can’t be said for the “red bell pepper” and “parsley” which are of the dried variety and quite miniscule. I suspect they’re there just for color. If you want, you can probably just add your own chopped up veggies. I bet some finely chopped fresh parsley on top would make it look nicer and taste fresher. One note… if you do make sure to adjust the amount of water because the veggies can throw off the recipe if you don’t.

A bit of a sticky point for me is that the package shouts “No Artificial Colors or Flavors”. And that is caramel color not being an artificial color? I’ll let that slide. No mention of the disodium guanylate either (what is that?). But I guess that MSG isn’t considered an artificial flavor but rather an artificial flavor ENHANCER. Which to me, is worse than an artificial flavor. But you can’t really blame them, because everything seems to have MSG nowadays.

By the way… since this is officially a “Side Dish” I also cooked up something quick to go up with it, namely grilled sesame fish and some boiled spinach as seen above. Looks pretty good, if I do say so myself. Tasted even better.

Price:

As far as convenience goes, Knorr - Lipton Rice Sides are a winner. But what instant rice package isn’t? Anyhow, convenience is secondary here at Cheap Eats. The price point mentioned for retail is $1.39 per bag and each bag contains enough side dish material for two people. That’s not TOO bad, but if you’re hurting for cash and you happen to want a brown rice side dish you could easily just buy bulk brown rice and cook it up in stock flavored with Knorr Bouillon Cubes. I think that would be much, much cheaper.

Conclusions:

Knorr - Lipton Sesame Chicken Rice Sides are pretty decent for these all in one rice products. The addition of whole grain pasta balances out the harder brown rice grains. Overall, it actually tasted much better than I expected, though it was a bit sweet on its own. I think it would benefit from adding “fixins” to it yourself (veggies to make it more of an actual dish). But true cheap eaters will want to consider making their own rice.

I’m gonna review the Knorr - Lipton Alfredo Pasta next week…

Price: $1.39 retail per bag
Purchased at: Company Samples
Cheap Eats Score: 6/10