I love eating authentic stir fry whether it is at home or in an Asian style restaurant, but as of lately I have not had the extra time to prepare any at home much less go to the store and purchase the necessary ingredients to make it. I am new to shopping at Trader Joe since it is recently new--about a year or so, and what I have come to love about the organic store is that it sells a lot of great, authentic frozen meals.

The Asian vegetables with Beijing style soy sauce is a frozen meal I found while strolling the aisles of the market. I was immediately drawn to the frozen meal because it had all the authentic veggies that are included in an authentic stir fry: peas, carrots, peppers, corn, watercress, etc. I opted for the vegetable stir fry because I knew I would be able to add my own protein to make it my own.

I have made soy sauce once from scratch so it is the one element of a stir fry I am not comfortable with which is why I was thrilled when I saw there was a soy sauce packet included with the meal. Preparing the bag meal was so easy and simple which is why half my freezer is stocked with this meal because it takes less than 15 minutes, and all I have to do is add the heat.

For the stir fry ingredients within the bag, cooking them was the same as any stir fry recipe: a little bit of fat and high heat. I love the frozen vegetables in this bag because they had such a beautiful color to them which is another reason I love eating stir fry because of the vibrant colors of the vegetables that pop off the plate. I'm not really into bell peppers, but because it added a nice pop of color to the overall meal, I decided to leave them in and not pick them out as I usually would have.

Although I liked everything that came in the stir fry bag, I wanted to include protein to vegetables and I did so with Tyson grilled chicken slices. I cut up the grilled chicken and then included it into the stir fry. With the chicken being included into the stir fry, it actually doubled the serving amount which was really good because my family and I were able to eat off this meal for a couple of days.

After I put in the chicken, I added the soy sauce packet and cooked it down until it was a nice, thick sauce for the vegetables and chicken. I like how the soy sauce had the perfect balance of sweetness and tang to it. It was also just the right amount of sauce where it covered everything perfectly, but didn't drown the food like when you put too much dressing on a salad and the lettuce is weighed down by the heaviness of the dressing.
When everything had completely cooked through, I was so happy that the vegetables maintained their crispiness, especially the watercress. The crispness of the vegetables made for the perfect companion to the tender chicken. The snowpeas were my favorite next to the carrots and watercress. I liked the mushrooms, although I wish there had been more because there were so few of them that I didn't even notice them on my plate or in the stir fry itself. I served the stir fry with some white rice, and my family and I really enjoyed the meal. The only thing we were missing was the fortune cookie.

I wasn't sure what to expect from Trader Joes Asian Vegetables with Beijing style soy sauce, but I was pleasantly surprised that the frozen meal turned out well. It's one of those frozen meals where everything is included in the bag, so you don't have to worry about buying additional ingredients. It only takes 15 minutes or less to prepare, and I was able to get creative and add chicken to it to personalize the meal to me and my family's liking. Overall, I really enjoyed the bag meal and plan on buying a few extra bags to keep in the freezer whenever I want a taste of home made Asian cuisine.