Product Review: Trader Joe's Simmer Sauce review

We love LOVE shopping at Trader Joe's. The variety and unique foods are fun to try- especially since we've had a lot of success with them. Although I love to cook, some days- I just want EASY, but many prepackaged meals tend to be high in fat, and just taste... FAKE. Since we usually try to pick up new items with every TJ's store outing, we picked up 2 of their Simmer Sauces- Masala Simmer Sauce and Curry Simmer Sauce. The instructions said to place it into a pot, add a cup of water, add cubed meat- and a complete meal will be ready in 10-15 minutes. We were sold.

Here are what the jars looked like:



Cost: $2.99 each

Instructions:
Very easy- Place the simmer sauce into a pot. Add 1 cup of water, diced meat of choice, cover, and simmer for 10-15 minutes.

Review:
Masala Simmer Sauce- DB and I both love Chicken Tikka Masala at Indian restaurants, and were hoping it would taste near similar. The flavor was spicy yet slightly sweet. After adding 1 cup of water, we felt that the sauce was too runny and tasted too bland. While it was a good alternative, next time we will choose not to add any water to this sauce. Pair it with some basmati rice or Trader Joe's naan bread. All in all, I would make this again. It only took about 20 minutes all together to make the rice, chicken masala, and naan. This meal won’t replace my favorite Indian restaurant, but makes a great weeknight meal.



Curry Simmer Sauce- I was pretty disappointed with this curry sauce. With the addition of water, this sauce wasn't as "runny" as the Masala sauce, but IF we tried it again, we won't add any water. This simmer sauce is in desperate need of some flavor.