Wegmans' Meat-In-A-Bag Meals Are The Secret To Easy Weeknight Dinners
Fortunately, the grocery chain Wegmans has another option for a quick dinner instead of some greasy French fries or oily pizza slice. Wegmans' culinary innovation is a "cook in bag" dinner which, for the most part, consists mainly of a slice of meat with marinades, sauces, or spices that are sealed inside an oven-safe bag. There's a surprisingly diverse selection of meat-based dishes one can choose from, ranging from carved turkey in gravy, pork shoulder in brown sugar-flavored BBQ sauce, a whole chicken with rosemary-lemon rub, and meatballs in "Sunday sauce." While other "heat-and-eat" products are sold at Wegmans', these cook-in-bag meals are the only ones sold under the Wegmans' label, similar to how Walmart can sell its own products under the "Great Value" private label.
So how exactly can you cook these dinners in a bag? Do you just toss them in the microwave like you would any T.V. dinner or is there some prep work that needs to be done first?
It's recommended you stick to the oven
For most heat-and-eat dinners, it's common for the instructions to tell you to microwave them for a few minutes and then eat. Wegmans' ready-to-eat meals, however, claim that it's a good idea to just stick to the oven.
According to Wegmans, to prepare a cook-in-bag dinner, it's highly recommended that you prepare the meal using only the oven. While some meals may require the use of a slow cooker, almost all of the cook-in-bag entrees require that you use the oven. The bag, while being completely safe to cook with (having been extensively tested by the FDA, Virginia Tech, and Rochester Institute of Technology), can be discarded before putting the meat into the oven following the cooking directions. It's also suggested that, unlike other frozen heat-and-eat meals, Wegman's entrées should be best left to thaw out instead of being cooked directly from the freezer. You also don't have to puncture the bag to let steam escape as the bag itself is designed to separate or "vent" on its own to prevent steam from building up.
In short, although Wegmans' heat-and-eat dinners require a bit more work than just tossing the package into the microwave, it's still a much faster method than cooking something from scratch. But none of this effort would be worth it, of course, if the meals weren't all that good to begin with. Are these dinners actually any good or are you better off choosing another ready-to-eat dinner?
Wegmans' meals are good for what they are
As anyone who has ever eaten gas station food before can tell you, convenience doesn't always equal quality. How can you be sure that Wegmans' cook-in-bag meals, while being easy to make, are actually any good to begin with?
Tracy Schuhmacher of The Democrat & Chronicle reviewed Wegmans' chicken cacciatore, serving it alongside pasta. Although she noted that the entrée could have used more peppers and mushrooms for her taste, the overall quality of the meal was pretty good. The chicken was described as tender and the sauce had a decent tomato flavor. Schuhmacher also noted that the meal was sufficient enough to serve two people, making it a cost-efficient meal. Her review was overall positive in both flavors, serving portion, and price.
One Reddit user reviewed the pork roast variety of the cook-in-bag dinners, although they didn't seem too impressed. While they noted the flavor was decent enough, the meat itself actually came out somewhat tough despite being cooked in the slow cooker. The user wondered if the bag itself kept the meat from getting tender or if they had taken it out too early, noting that they had followed the directions on the packaging label. In the end, while the user did admit to being open to trying different options of cook-in-bag dinners, the pork roast option wasn't exactly a hit, with the user claiming it was meant for "people who want to take as many shortcuts as possible."