Review: Ainsley Harriott Rice to Go

The winter seems to be going on forever. And at lunch time in this weather a salad or sandwich just won’t do – we need something warm to keep us going during the afternoon.

Ainsley Harriott Rice to Go snack pots are lunch time sized meals in a microwavable tub. This sort of thing is readily available already in various forms – simple, quick and easy wherever you have a microwave.

There are four flavours – Spanish style, greek style, jerk chicken and mexican style – each has long grain rice mixed with relevant flavours and ingredients such as chorizo for the Spanish one and beans for the mexican one. To prepare you peel back the lid and bung it in the microwave for a couple of minutes, giving you a piping hot lunch.

I was given one of each of the four flavours to try and our opinion is quite mixed. The main disappointment was that the chorizo in the Spanish Style one was chewy and, well, not really anything like chorizo. I wonder if it was actually chorizo at all? LincsGeek ended up picking those bits out as he just couldn’t eat them. A shame because the flavours were really good. Apart from that these Rice to Go pots were a hit – the Jerk Chicken and Mexican ones were particularly good, I did enjoy those.

I think these are something I would buy as a one off for lunch rather than something I’d eat regularly. They were very filling and  tasty (except the Spanish one!); although it’s much better to prepare your own the night before. But when there isn’t time or you forget (which is normally what happens here!) then this kind of easy lunch is a great idea. At £1.99 per pot they are cheaper than a Boots Meal Deal and at 450 or so calories (depending on the flavour) they aren’t bad either as you don’t need anything else.