Ariana Losch
Whether you’ve ever bought InnovAsian products or not, you’ve probably still seen them in the grocery store frozen aisle. They’re everywhere, promising take-out-style comfort food at an even lower price than your local hole-in-the-wall.
We’ve tried our fair share of microwavable Asian meals over the years, and all I’m going to say is this: Unless I’m buying a Bibigo product, my expectations are low. The nail in the coffin for me was our fried rice taste test—we only ended up recommending four products—because really, if we can’t get fried rice right in the U.S., how does it get any better from there? (I will say, our orange chicken taste test wasn’t so bad, but still.)
Basically, I’m not going into this ranking of the best InnovAsian meals hoping for complete and total satisfaction. Take-out will always be better, so I’ve set the bar firmly at “mall food court” level.
What we looked for in the best InnovAsian meals:
- Meat that tastes like meat: I said what I said. Many frozen InnovAsian meals are standalone, family-sized chicken and pork entrees that you prepare by tossing the fried meat in a separate sauce packet. The texture of the meat plays a crucial role—so it better taste like the real thing!
- Authentic flavor: If it says “sweet & sour,” I want sweet and sour sauce, not a vague approximation of “Asian” flavors that you can’t distinguish between!
- Innovation: Yep. If you’re going to name your brand something that makes me a little uncomfortable to say out loud, I can only hope you’re delivering on the product you’ve promised.
Oh, by the way, we filmed ourselves doing this taste test. Watch it below!! Or just skip to the final ranking if you’re in a hurry.
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- Sesame Noodles
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These sesame noodles divided the Sporked team a bit, which makes sense. Personally, I love a slippery sesame noodle dish when it’s drowned in fragrant sesame oil, and that’s basically what you have here. But the aftertaste also has that overly tangy thing going on that too many microwavable “Asian” noodle dishes have. I’m very sensitive to that, and I still liked these well enough to include them, but it’s not a very authentic flavor profile. The sauce is missing that crucial earthy note of peanut butter or tahini. But I’m down-bad for the toasted sesame of it all, so what can I say? It’s passable, InnovAsian. Next.
Credit: Merc / Instacart
- Crispy Teriyaki Chicken
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InnovAsian makes just about every stereotypical chicken entree on a Chinese take-out menu: Sweet & Sour, General Tso’s, Teriyaki, Orange Chicken, Chicken & Broccoli, Kung Pao… the list goes on. During this taste test, we realized that this brand actually doesn’t repurpose the same chicken for each entree. That might sound like a good thing, but it isn’t. Some of the chicken came out too spongy and battered, while the chicken in other meals had a slightly tougher, crispier chew that we definitely preferred. This was one of those—we were pleased by the chicken itself, even if the teriyaki sauce didn’t blow us away. The sauce leans heavier on the soy than the sweetness (which I personally like) and could just have a little more depth overall. Not bad, though!
Credit: Merc / Walmart
- Crispy Butter Chicken
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I’m not sure when InnovAsian added Indian entrees to their roster, but I’m not going to complain about it, because most grocery store frozen aisles aren’t exactly bursting with options for Indian food to begin with (Trader Joe’s is an exception). I found the curry gravy on this butter chicken really enjoyable—the spongeiness of the chicken meat, however, could be rectified if they used the chicken from one of the other, better InnovAsian meals. This has decent flavor depth (they actually seasoned the chicken on its own, which did help) but not a lot of heat, so you might need to add your own!
Credit: Merc / Walmart
- Chinese-Style BBQ Pork Fried Rice
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Look, this has a lot of potential, which is honestly why it’s so high on the list. To prepare it, you just steam the bag in the microwave for a minute or two. When you tear it open, a cascade of tender, piping-hot rice falls beautifully into the bowl. It looks and smells delicious, but the flavor, I’m sorry to say, lacks umami. All they really need to do is put some MSG in this, and they’d be in business. In fact, this might be a good time to say that InnovAsian is a company founded by people who are not Asian and still market their products with a “no MSG added” descriptor. This is your downfall, InnovAsian. Add some MSG to your food. All that said, we did really like the sticky texture of the rice and lacquered bits of pork. We’ll just be adding our own soy sauce and chili crisp to enhance the flavor.
Credit: Merc / Albertsons
- Vegetable Lo Mein
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Okay, so I went rogue again, I’m sorry. In our original taste test of InnovAsian frozen meals, we gave this vegetable lo mein the #1 top spot. That’s because it gets a couple of important things right. First, it has that edge of smokiness you get from something that’s been tossed around in a wok. Second, the sauce has the savory tang we’re looking for (without overdoing it). Honestly, it might be one of the best microwavable lo mein products out there—but in order to be something you’d actually look forward to eating, you’d really have to add to it. More veggies, maybe a protein like tofu or chicken, an extra drizzle of soy sauce, etc. On its own, I think this is too unremarkable to make the top two…but it’s still one of the best things on the InnovAsian line-up right now.
Credit: Merc / Ralphs
- General Tso’s Chicken
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Believe it or not, General Tso’s Chicken isn’t that easy to find here in Los Angeles, let alone at a normal grocery store. We were pretty excited to try this, but our expectations were really low. And maybe that’s why the flavor hit the mark for us. The sauce is sticky, spicy, lightly sweet, and deeply savory. It’s absolutely giving mall food court Chinese food. And it’s one of the only InnovAsian meals we tried with real heat to it, which is probably a crime against Asian cuisine, but, eh, it is what it is. We originally had this lower on the list, but I thought it deserved a bump—I don’t think there’s much (if anything) out there right now like it, and that should be celebrated.
Credit: Merc / Walmart
- Sweet & Sour Chicken
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This tastes like someone tossed McNuggets in a lightly tangy sweet and sour sauce, and I mean that in the best way someone could mean that, alright. The effect is something yummy, classic, unpretentious, and probably more addictive than it should be. A little added MSG would make this pleasurable slop into something that really wow’d us, but still, I’ll take it as it is and silence my complaints. The next time you’re in the frozen aisle staring at the large selection of InnovAsian meals, curious to try one, just go for this and call it a night!
Credit: Merc / Walmart
InnovAsian Meals
InnovAsian Meals
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Runner Up
Best of the Best
Other InnovAsian frozen meals we tried:
InnovAsian Orange Chicken, InnovAsian Crispy Honey Chicken, InnovAsian Mini Chicken Spring Rolls, InnovAsian Beef & Broccoli, InnovAsian Crispy Chicken Tikka Masala
Griffin Parker
Madison Ramirez
Matt Crowley
Thoughts? Questions? Complete disagreement? Leave a comment!