Trader Joe's Orange Chicken

Trader Joe's Mandarin Orange Chicken is $5 for a bag that makes 2 generous servings and it has been the best-selling frozen product in the store for over a decade. That's market validation that is hard to argue with even if you are a food snob. Chicken pieces are pre-cooked and you bake them for 20 minutes and then toss them in the sauce packet. The result is not restaurant quality but it is significantly better than any other frozen Chinese food I have tried. It Makes the comparison irrelevant because the real competition is not a restaurant, it is the other things I could make in 25 minutes on a Tuesday night. I like it and I eat it probably twice a month. I also recognize that the sauce is sweeter than it needs to be and the breading gets soggy if you do not eat it within 10 minutes of saucing, which is a window that rewards urgency. Bag design is simple with a photograph of the finished dish on the front and cooking instructions on the back. The Trader Joe's branding is small enough that the product speaks for itself. It sells so well because it solves the problem of feeding yourself a hot. Good-enough meal with almost no effort and at a price point that doesn't require you to think about whether it was worth it.