United States 2015 menu 5 diced chicken
Posted: Fri Jul 21, 2017 5:48 pm
Hello all. This will be my first mre review ever. So hopefully it isn't too bad. This review is for the 2015 menu 5 diced chicken United States mre. Let's get to.
The package. Nothing out of the ordinary here.
Let's get it on the tray. (Huge thanks to steve1989 for sending this awesome melmac tray to me to use in my reviews. Do yourself a favor if you haven't already and go check out his YouTube channel!)
Wait a minute. That's not right. Let's try again.
That's better. The items included were:
Diced chicken
Cranberries sliced
Tortillas
Jalapeño cheese spread
First strike Apple cinnamon
Buffalo hot sauce
M and M's
Lemon lime carb beverage
Accessory packet
Hmm what's missing here....
No FRH. Nope. Nada. Nothing. Looks like we have to improvise with our handy tactical microwave device. We will start with the diced chicken, buffalo hot sauce, tortillas and jalapeño cheese spread.
There we go. All heated and ready. On to the flavor.
The chicken alone tasted well.... like chicken. Plain chicken. Not bad but definitely boring. Smelled like a can of chopped chicken for salad that you'd get from the grocery store. Not exactly sure how they intended this one to be eaten so I tried a couple things. First I added the buffalo sauce to the chicken which impoved it greatly. The sauce is decently spicy but not insane. For someone with a low tolerence to spice it would probably be too hot.
I then tried the tortilla alone with the japeneo cheese spread. It was also pretty good. Not amazing but something I could imagine my teenage self eating in an herb induced haze and loving it. Thankfully those days are behind me. The flavor was that of thickened nacho cheese. Like the type from 7-11 or the movie theater. You know the stuff you know you'll regret the next morning if you catch my drift... *cough* toilet time *cough* overall not too bad.
Since I couldn't quite figure out the intended purpose of these seemingly random items I decided to make a small burrito or taco type deal from the cheese spread and the buffalo chicken pieces placed in the tortilla. This really didn't do much for the it all except make it easier to eat it quickly. Again flavor not too bad. It definitely upped the spice with the Jalapeño cheese and buffalo sauce uniting in an unholy union but didn't do a lot for the flavor.
I'd give this entree and side combo a solid c+ to b-. Would I eat it again... maybe but not by choice. Would it boost my moral if I was in the field... no. Not at all.
On to the beverage and other additions.
I mixed this one up in my handy bottle of water simply because when checking my cupboard I didn't have anything clean. Which reminds me I should be doing dishes right now not reviews... oh well.
Not much to say about this one. It tasted like a generic Gatorade type thing. Not bad. Not spectacular. Wouldn't mind drinking it again. Better than plain water for sure.
Final item I ate was the first strike apple cinnamon bar.
This was the star of the show for me. If you've ever had a cliff bar or other protein type bar then you know what this is like. It's a very dense and soft bar filled with nutrients. In fact it's probably the only healthy item included in this besides the cranberries I didnt eat because well... I don't like cranberries. The texture is taffy like with a slight crunch from sugar or whatever else that might be in it. Flavor was exactly as described but definitely more cinnamon than apple here. Very sweet. I can imagine folks trading out the main entree or other items for these instead with others in the field.
Lastly we have the accessory pack.
Sort of sparse:
Moist towelette
Gum
Salt
Lemonade beverage
Tissue (please don't tell me this is supposed to be toilet paper. You'd be better off just using your hand since that's what's going to end up happening anyway if you try to use this)
Didn't try any of those items or the cranberries or candy. Pretty sure we all know what cranberries and m and ms taste like so figured I'd toss those in a bag and save them for another time.
My overall impression is this is a solid meal. Pretty much devoid of any actual nutritional content but a solid meal. I would probably be pretty disappointed in this if I had bad hiking all day or fighting all day and ended up getting it as a dinner but honestly maybe that would be the last thing on my mind. Anyway I hope you enjoyed my first review and I will be definetely be doing more in the near future. Video reviews should be coming along soon. Thanks for checking it out!
The package. Nothing out of the ordinary here.
Let's get it on the tray. (Huge thanks to steve1989 for sending this awesome melmac tray to me to use in my reviews. Do yourself a favor if you haven't already and go check out his YouTube channel!)
Wait a minute. That's not right. Let's try again.
That's better. The items included were:
Diced chicken
Cranberries sliced
Tortillas
Jalapeño cheese spread
First strike Apple cinnamon
Buffalo hot sauce
M and M's
Lemon lime carb beverage
Accessory packet
Hmm what's missing here....
No FRH. Nope. Nada. Nothing. Looks like we have to improvise with our handy tactical microwave device. We will start with the diced chicken, buffalo hot sauce, tortillas and jalapeño cheese spread.
There we go. All heated and ready. On to the flavor.
The chicken alone tasted well.... like chicken. Plain chicken. Not bad but definitely boring. Smelled like a can of chopped chicken for salad that you'd get from the grocery store. Not exactly sure how they intended this one to be eaten so I tried a couple things. First I added the buffalo sauce to the chicken which impoved it greatly. The sauce is decently spicy but not insane. For someone with a low tolerence to spice it would probably be too hot.
I then tried the tortilla alone with the japeneo cheese spread. It was also pretty good. Not amazing but something I could imagine my teenage self eating in an herb induced haze and loving it. Thankfully those days are behind me. The flavor was that of thickened nacho cheese. Like the type from 7-11 or the movie theater. You know the stuff you know you'll regret the next morning if you catch my drift... *cough* toilet time *cough* overall not too bad.
Since I couldn't quite figure out the intended purpose of these seemingly random items I decided to make a small burrito or taco type deal from the cheese spread and the buffalo chicken pieces placed in the tortilla. This really didn't do much for the it all except make it easier to eat it quickly. Again flavor not too bad. It definitely upped the spice with the Jalapeño cheese and buffalo sauce uniting in an unholy union but didn't do a lot for the flavor.
I'd give this entree and side combo a solid c+ to b-. Would I eat it again... maybe but not by choice. Would it boost my moral if I was in the field... no. Not at all.
On to the beverage and other additions.
I mixed this one up in my handy bottle of water simply because when checking my cupboard I didn't have anything clean. Which reminds me I should be doing dishes right now not reviews... oh well.
Not much to say about this one. It tasted like a generic Gatorade type thing. Not bad. Not spectacular. Wouldn't mind drinking it again. Better than plain water for sure.
Final item I ate was the first strike apple cinnamon bar.
This was the star of the show for me. If you've ever had a cliff bar or other protein type bar then you know what this is like. It's a very dense and soft bar filled with nutrients. In fact it's probably the only healthy item included in this besides the cranberries I didnt eat because well... I don't like cranberries. The texture is taffy like with a slight crunch from sugar or whatever else that might be in it. Flavor was exactly as described but definitely more cinnamon than apple here. Very sweet. I can imagine folks trading out the main entree or other items for these instead with others in the field.
Lastly we have the accessory pack.
Sort of sparse:
Moist towelette
Gum
Salt
Lemonade beverage
Tissue (please don't tell me this is supposed to be toilet paper. You'd be better off just using your hand since that's what's going to end up happening anyway if you try to use this)
Didn't try any of those items or the cranberries or candy. Pretty sure we all know what cranberries and m and ms taste like so figured I'd toss those in a bag and save them for another time.
My overall impression is this is a solid meal. Pretty much devoid of any actual nutritional content but a solid meal. I would probably be pretty disappointed in this if I had bad hiking all day or fighting all day and ended up getting it as a dinner but honestly maybe that would be the last thing on my mind. Anyway I hope you enjoyed my first review and I will be definetely be doing more in the near future. Video reviews should be coming along soon. Thanks for checking it out!
Funny how the palate changes as ya get older and wiser. I think these MRE's are made for young dude's tastes - makes them a sugar bomb with a side of jalapeno cheese spread sometimes. 