Review: Lean Cuisine Panini

The Good: It's super-quick. It's hot. And let's face it: sometimes that's just what a healthy foodie needs {especially a busy, or in my case, particularly sick one}. The bread is on the thicker side, there's a bit of creaminess from the jack cheese, and the flavor was good, with just enough heat to leave a lingering spiciness on your tongue. It's perfect as part of a lunch or light dinner. Add a bowl of soup or a fresh garden salad and you're good to go. According to this review at Hungry Girl, it's the lowest in calories of all the Lean Cuisine Paninis. Plus, It's ready in only 4 minutes!

The Bad: It suffers the same fate that all nuked baked goods do: lack of crunch. If you're looking for the crispness that an real-deal panini offers, you'll be disappointed. It's about as crispy as a lightly toasted piece of bread. It's not super filling & only has very tiny chunks of chicken. That's really the worst of it. It's pictured on a 6" sized salad plate, so you have some sort of reference as to how big {or small} it is.

The Low-down: This particular panini clocks in at 280 calories, 7 g of fat, 20 g of protein {!!}, and 3 g of fiber, which means 6 WW POINTS. Perfect amount to fit in with my around 6 PT lunches and easily can be made part of a larger quick dinner. At $2-ish per panini, I'm not sure I would load my freezer full of these. I usually only buy Lean Cuisines when they're on sale {less than $2 each} and with that only eat about 1-2 per week. It is a cheaper {and more than likely ~ healthier} alternative than eating fast-food. {Good to remember when you're feeling famished & tired after running errands or just plain running after the kiddos.} Yep. I would buy it again. If I had my own panini press though.....