If you’re looking for a pasta dish that’s ready to serve in minutes this Rana Tagliolini Seasoned White Chicken & Creamy Lemon Sauce from Costco is an option. I’ve found that pre-packaged meals like this tend be lacking in quantity and sometimes quality but the fact this dish has a unique lemon sauce immediately made me want to try it. Did I regret my decision to pick this up?
Rana is one of the main brands carrying the ready to heat and eat pasta meals at my Costco. Some other pasta dishes Rana carries are the Beef & Short Rib Lasagna, Tagliatelle Seasoned White Chicken & Mushroom Sauce, Butternut Squash Ravioli, Lobster Ravioli and the Fettuccine, Grilled Seasoned White Chicken & Alfredo Sauce.
Location in Store
This is located in the refrigerated deli section at Costco, near the cheese, sausages and other fresh pasta. The item number is 1818292.
Taste
The pasta itself is pretty good, not really flavorful but no plain pasta is! At first the pouch of sauce seemed ginormous and I figured there was surely double what we needed. However, after microwaving it, stirring it and plating it the amount of sauce seems reasonable and not too heavy. The sauce doesn’t have a particularly strong lemon flavor, its not overpowering but you still notice the lemon flavor.
There’s chunks of zucchini, red bell peppers and asparagus in the sauce but not a ton, I would have liked more. There’s a decent amount of chicken and the appearance of the chicken looks pretty good, but it tastes fairly processed as you might expect.
Some of the chunks of chicken have a weird crunchiness and sort of an unpleasant processed flavor. I found that some pieces of chicken were better than others. The pasta itself is good but the chicken is definitely rubbery and not great.
Cost
The total package weighs 1.14 kilograms and I paid $17.99 Canadian for the meal which isn’t cheap at all. You’re definitely paying for the convenience.
The package comes with a bag of pasta, a bag of sauce and a bag of chicken and vegetables.
Convenience
This can be cooked in the microwave or on the stovetop. It’s easier to microwave it but both methods are very convenient. We cooked it in the microwave. I cooked it for the recommended eight minutes and it came out fine.
I don’t love heating things in plastic so if you’re going to microwave it I recommend putting it in a microwave safe dish rather than heating it in the plastic tray it comes in.
The tagliolini needs to be kept refrigerated and the package does not recommend freezing it, the best before date is about three weeks from when I purchased it. To complete the meal, I recommend serving this with a side salad and bread.
Nutrition
Calories
A one and 3/4 cup serving contains 480 calories, 25 grams of fat, 42 grams of carbohydrates, three grams of fibre, six grams of sugar, 24 grams of protein and 1180 milligrams of sodium! That’s a ton of sodium and the calories, fat and carbs aren’t low either.
Ingredients
The ingredients list has a lot of ingredients on it. I don’t like that there’s rice starch, dextrose and natural flavors added to the chicken. However, I do appreciate that the sauce contains real heavy cream, lemon juice and real ricotta.
This Rana Tagliolini dish contains eggs, milk and wheat so it’s not gluten-friendly or dairy-free.
Scoring
Taste: 6/10
Cost: 6.5/10
Convenience: 9/10
Nutrition: 3/10
Overall
Walk on by!
Overall it’s not quite as good as it looks. When it’s plated it looks colorful and nice but it’s definitely a fairly processed dish.
Have you tried the Rana Tagliolini Seasoned White Chicken & Creamy Lemon Sauce? What did you think of it?
Please note that this review was not paid for or sponsored by any third party. This product was purchased by Costcuisine for the purpose of producing this review. The opinions in this review are strictly those of Costcuisine. Costcuisine is not affiliated with Costco or any of its suppliers. In the event that Costcuisine receives compensation for a post from the manufacturer of a product or some other third party, the arrangement will be clearly disclosed (including where the manufacturer of a product provides Costcuisine with a free sample of the product).
This used to be my cheat before I know how to cook.
1, I boiled 11 oz of Costco egg noodles, bought separately. I discard the RANA packing the day before.
2, I emptied the sauce from a container into a pan, add additional mushrooms. bring it to a boil. While simmering, I added half of a zucchini & half of a green bell pepper. The sauce became thinner because of the mushroom sauce. No worry
3, After disturbing the chicken on the noodles, I pour the sauce & the vegetables on top. I then grated plenty of Parmesan cheese on top.
I never cook the sauce with additional cheese…. That’s just too American. Cheese is a condiment, not a cooking ingredient.
My friends knew I was cheating because I told them.
Now I cook from scratch, good old European way.
I’ve tried Rana products in the past and like them. Normally, I start by putting the chicken in a pan with a little olive oil and brown them. I add the pasta and sauce to the pan and then add artichokes and Parmesan, both from Costco. If the dish looks a bit dry, I add half and half until creamy. I wouldn’t eat the meal right out of the package without adding what I noted above.