Italian Parmesan Kraft Fresh Take Review - Foodie Friday

This is not a sponsored post and all products mentioned were purchased by me or family members with our own money.

I apologize in advance for the strange pictures of the chicken. I forgot to snap a picture on the actual night we had it for dinner, but remembered when my husband was eating leftovers for lunch the next day.

I've seen the coupons, received the emails and even seen a few advertisements for Kraft's new Fresh Take and I decided that some of the flavors sounded delicious, so I had to try it.

So what is it? It's a cheese and breadcrumb mixture (somewhat ala Shake and Bake, but has cheese in addition to breadcrumbs). You can use it to coat many different types of meat including fish, chicken and pork chops, as well as adding it to other recipes - the package suggests using it as a topping for twice baked potatoes among other things.

It comes in several flavors: Southwest Three Cheese, Italian Parmesan, Rosemary and Roasted Garlic, Cheddar Jack and Bacon, Chili Lime and Panko and Savory Four Cheese.

For the purposes of this review, I will be talking about the Italian Parmesan. I have other flavors in my fridge, just waiting to be sampled so there should be a few more reviews coming!

 

 So in my mind, the Italian Parmesan Fresh Take would go amazing on chicken. The meal would also feature a pasta side, a salad and possibly garlic bread of some sort. My mouth was watering at the thought. The actual meal consisted of the chicken, a large salad and garlic bread. A little underwhelming, but not the point of this post.

I was even more excited when I opened the package and smelled the breadcrumb and cheese mixture. To me, it smelled like pizza - the perfect combo of Italian herbs and Parmesan cheese. Delish! I couldn't wait to get things cooking.

I lined my baking sheet with foil - not a required step, but I did it to help with clean up - and sprayed it as directed. I used a whole cut up chicken instead of the chicken breasts the directions suggested. It worked out fine and there was enough coating in one package for the whole chicken. If your chicken pieces are particularly large, one package may not be enough.

Once I got everything coated nicely and into the oven, the house started smelling lovely. There's something about the smell of Italian herbs cooking away in something that makes me even hungrier.

The directions on the package suggest cooking the chicken for about 30 minutes - mind you this is for boneless chicken breasts and I was using a whole, cut up chicken. My chicken ended up cooking for closer to an hour. All of my chicken pieces had bones in and different cuts take a little longer than others to be done.

I don't feel that this extra cook time affected the outcome of the meal. The color at 30 minutes was pretty much the same as the color at closer to an hour. The coating did not burn.

I sat down to eat expecting an amazing burst of Italian flavor and even a bit of salty, cheesy goodness from the Parmesan. What did I get? I'm not sure but it wasn't really that.

There wasn't near enough herbs in the mixture for my tastes. I got the taste of the Parmesan coming through great, but where was the basil? The oregano? Any Italian herb? Garlic even? I have no idea. The oven must have scared it away because the scent sure was there when I first opened the package! It was just missing something.

I'll be honest here. I had a chicken thigh - not the largest piece of meat by any means - and I didn't even finish it. Why? The chicken was nice and moist (the only real plus), but the flavor was lacking. I feel as though there should have been more flavor that got into the chicken, or even that stayed with the coating.

My taste buds were sorely disappointed.

So I really give this Italian Parmesan Fresh Take from Kraft a C. It kept the chicken moist. It smelled wonderful. It even looked delicious. But the actual taste was lacking. 

The big question now becomes: Would I buy this again? Yep, I probably would, but with a few stipulations. I would probably need to doctor it up a bit with some dried herbs and maybe even a dash of garlic powder. I think the overall flavor concept is great, but the execution wasn't what I was expecting.

 

Have you tried the Italian Parmesan flavor of Kraft Fresh Take? Have you tried any of the flavors? Thoughts? Recommendations?

4/16/12 Edit:
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