Chick-fil-A meal kit put to taste test by Yahoo Finance

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced restaurants around the world to close their doors, and as a result, people are spending more time in their own kitchens.

Meal kits are having a resurgence, and several companies have been jumping on the bandwagon recently, including fast food chain Chick-fil-A.

After a successful test run exclusively in Atlanta in 2018, the fast food joint rolled out its Chicken Parmesan Meal Kit nationally May 4.

“After receiving such a positive response about our Chicken Parmesan Meal Kit during our 2018 test, we’re thrilled to offer it with great enhancements at participating restaurants nationwide during a time when our guests need convenient mealtime options,” Chick-fil-A Senior Culinary Lead Stuart Tracysaid in a statement.

For $14.99, the meal kit contains two servings and can be cooked in under 30 minutes, according to the company.

Under 30 minutes? A meal for two people for only $14.99? It sounded too good to be true, so Yahoo Finance put Chick-fil-A’s new meal kit to the test.

The meal kit came neatly organized in a white box, and inside, it contained all of the necessary ingredients and a card with detailed instructions.

Two chicken patties come separately packaged and precooked, but the instructions still called for use of the oven to cook the chicken along with tomato sauce and cheese.

Though each oven will vary, preheating the oven took the most time at 16 minutes. The instructions called for 16 minutes of cook time for the chicken parmesan. So if the oven can be preheated ahead of actual cooking, the entire process would take significantly shorter.

Cooking the pasta was extremely easy. After washing the kale and tomatoes thoroughly under running water, we tossed everything into a skillet with the Alfredo sauce and 1/4 cup of water. Total cook time for the sauce was under 10 minutes.

The finished product didn’t look quite like the marketing material, but that was to be expected.

The meal kit gets five out of five stars in terms of ease. While other meal kits require a lot of chopping, dicing and prepping, the Chick-fil-A meal kits actually delivers on its promise of being an easy meal to cook. Cutting out the time it took to preheat the oven, the entire process took under 20 minutes.

Taste was also pretty impressive. Though it wasn’t quite restaurant quality (others might disagree), for two servings at only $14.99, it was definitely worth the price.

Overall, Yahoo Finance gave the Chick-fil-A meal kit a solid four out of five stars. With one star being ‘not good at all’ to five stars representing ‘excellent.’

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Heidi Chung is a reporter at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter:@heidi_chung.

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