Banquet Chicken & Broccoli Pot Pie Review

Once cooler weather arrives I love pot pies.  For me, being single, it is an answer to the question: "What shall I have for dinner?"  A pot-pie gives me meat, veggies, and bread all in one.  Banquet brand pot-pies aren't the greatest but aside from a store brand they are probably the cheapest.  I think I pay about 89 or 99 cents for them and they come in a variety of flavors.  The one I ate this evening was Chicken & Broccoli.  They also have a good shelf life.  The one I had tonight was left from last winter.  The box said it was produced after 10/26/07 and best if used by May 14/2009.

Banquet potpies aren't as big as the competitors' let's say Stouffers or Marie Callender's. 

These pot-pies don't produce a flaky crust when baked.  Once you go to pop the top it sort of just caves in and becomes like mush.  I prefer the Marie Callender's and will do a review on those once I get some more!  Another downside with the Banquet is that they use bits and pieces of chicken; which appeared to be dark meat.  I don't like dark meat-I only like the chicken breast.  The vegetables are miniscule compared to those in other brands.  The picture on the box said, "Enlarged to show detail."  Well, I should have had a magnifying glass to look into my bowl because you could barely see the vegetables.  I knew there was broccoli and carrots because I could see some chunks of green and orange. 

It was enough to satisfy my appetite because I didn't have a craving for anything special.  I just knew I needed to eat at some point and this seemed to serve the purpose.  One good thing came about with me choosing a pot-pie.  Since I chose to bake mine I was able to leave the oven door open after it finished baking and it produced a little more heat in the house while the oven was cooling off.

Nutrition Facts for 1 pie (198g):

• Calories: 350/180 from fat
• Total Fat: 20g
• Saturated Fat: 9g
• Trans Fat: 0
• Cholesterol: 30mg
• Sodium: 800mg (whew!)
• Total Carbs: 32g
• Dietary Fiber: 2g
• Sugars: 4g
• Protein: 10g

If you want something cheap then this may be for you but if you want something good, you should pass.

I'm giving it a 3 because I know I have tasted worse things than this and obviously I like them enough because I buy them year after year when I don't want to fork out more for the Marie Callender's. 

I am now in tears as I was reading the back of the box.  I have never paid attention to the cooking instructions except to get the correct temperature setting for the oven (400 F) and baking time (30-42 minutes).  But I just realized that it said "Check to be sure the pot pie is cooked thoroughly.  Internal temperature needs to reach 165 F as measured by a food thermometer in several spots." 

Now that's deep!  I have never used a cooking thermometer for a pot-pie.  I don't even own one.  I would hope that after mass producing these things they would get the directions right and we wouldn't have to second guess whether or not it's fully cooked.  Do you think that's why mine always caves in?  Should I go buy a food thermometer so I can be better prepared next time?