It’s about time for another product review, no?
So, as you know, I recently went to Unilever HQ and was set loose in the company store. Before leaving me, the Lipton Brand Manager, with whom I’d been chatting all day, pointed out the frozen case and said “Oh, the Bertolli frozen pastas are actually pretty good, you should give one a try,” and I obliged. I picked up this “pasta and sauce” – this one being mushroom ravioli in a mushroom cream sauce; skillet prepared in 10 minutes.
I needed a quick side dish with the salmon I made on Friday night (recipe to come!), so I took the bag out of the freezer.
I immediately ran into a problem here. The front of the bag, as you can see, under which is printed “Suggested Serving” (meaning, “what you see in the picture, that’s how we would serve it, were we to buy this bag and bring it home to eat”, as is my understanding), shows just the pasta, along with a glass of wine. No bread, no meat, just “This is how we would eat it.” Well, I wanted to eat this alone, and with some protein, which presented a problem, as the directions are strictly for making the entire bag. I didn’t want to make the entire bag, and then leave some in the fridge for who knows when. I’ll eat frozen foods, I’ll eat leftovers, but leftover frozen food seems a bit weird to me.
The bag said there were two servings inside. I wanted less than a full serving, since ostensibly, one serving (with a glass of wine, according to the picture) would suffice as my meal.
So I poured the entire contents of the bag out of into a bowl. I was going to count the ravioli and then take 1/3 or 1/4, but I decided that was too messy (and the ravioli seemed to be melting quickly at that point), so I just guessed how many would be good with a big slab of salmon. Since I’ve been in resturants that serve 6 ravioli as a full entree (!!!), I decided 6 would be okay (they looked a bit small). Then I decided two more wouldn’t hurt.
Popped it in a skillet and heated it with some of the sauce “cubes” until it’d all melted and heated through. Smelled really, really good… this was looking promising. Although, to be completely honest, it smelled like a certain company’s condensed cream of mushroom soup, something with which I grew up… and occasionally even will use to cook…
Plated it up, some parsley flakes for color. I don’t think I used enough sauce cubes.
Time for the moment of truth…
Kind flat, not much inside, huh?
Well, I found this inside one. Probably the stem from an herb they used, but a bit disconcerting to find within mostly soft ravioli.
The taste of the ravioli itself was alright. Nothing special or WOW about it, nor was it offensive in any way.
A few days later, for lunch, the BF and I were hungry and couch potato’ing, and too lazy to go out and get lunch or anything civilized like that. I remembered the partially-eaten bag of ravioli, and suggested we eat that, which he quickly agreed to.
Unfortunately, when I poured the entire bag into my pan, I discovered 14 ravioli left and a lot of sauce cubes. I guess my educated guess as to how many were in there was a bit off.
We each got 7 ravioli, a lot of sauce, and BF thought it was okay, though it wasn’t anything he’d want me to go out of my way to buy again. Eh. I thought it tasted better with more sauce, a bit plumper with the sauce coating it anyway.
Yvo says: Passable… barely. If I were really hungry, and this was in the freezer, I wouldn’t turn my nose up at it, but I probably wouldn’t buy it again, either. It satisfied the hunger, but it was definitely nothing great. Considering I paid the low price of just under $2 for this, and it basically made up 3 meals (counting the BF as one), it’s a great bargain – I think in regular stores it’s probably $4-6? which still isn’t that bad. If you round out the meal with other stuff – garlic bread, maybe a piece of chicken? you’d do yourself well with this. I’ll have to check out other flavors to know if they’re good, but this one was only alright.
middle of the road
Olivia says
Ten minutes in the microwave I’ve found is better than cooking it on the stove. Any Bertolli’s will be done in 10 mins.
Rochelle says
I’ve been toying with the idea of buying those, but the way they look when still frozen is such a turnoff. I was actually pretty surprised to see how nice and pretty they looked when you cooked them (though to be honest, you’re a damn good cook, so it was probably more a testament to your skill than the product).
But eh, not a lot of filling at all .. I like mine stuffed to the brim!
Anonymous says
If you had 22 ravioli in your bag, you were lucky. I probably got half that amount. Mine were completely flat after cooking and had a very weird unpleasant flavor. Someone on another blog said they tasted like plastic. The sauce was thin and watery with no flavor at all. I even added some shredded Italian blend cheese to it and that didn’t help. I would never buy this again.
oddlyme says
Well wish me luck – before I read your blog I just bought four bags of this. However I got them at the 99¢ store in Los Angeles, so if they are icky, my life is not over : )
We’ve had the Bertolli broccoli and orchette and liked it very much, so I hope the gods of cheap eats have placed a few of the better bags in my cart!
Andrea says
I have not tried the frozen bertolli ravioli but I have ate the refrigerated version of it. It’s really good. I loved it. It is just the ravioli, no sauce or anything. It was like 4 bucks for one serving. I found it in the area of our grocery store where other refrigerated items were…like special cheeses and such. I bought the white alfredo mushroom Bertolli sauce to go with it and it was really good. It took about 5 min to boil on the stove top and the ravioli’s were really full, not flat. They had a lot of filling. It was better than I thought it would be….I had been wanting to try a mushroom ravioli for a long time and was hoping I wouldn’t be disappointed and I wasn’t. I will definitely be making this on a regular basis. If I were to score it on a scale of one to ten, ten being the best I would say 10.
Michelle Robison says
I miss this ravioli soo much.I just found out it was discontinued in March. I had one last bag I stashed in teh deep freeze and ate it last night. I’ve been slowly savouring it,having a feeling it would be DC’d ! If I love it,they DC it,Murphy’s Law.
I serve this over a hard crust bread to emulate Crostini Al fungi. It’s the closest thing I can make to imitate Crostini Al fungi,which I love. BRING IT BACK…PLEASE,PLEASE,PLEASE!!!!
I’ve turned many friends and family onto this idea and they love it too.Mushroom Ravioli doesn’t sound good at first blush,but if they just try it,they’ll be hooked! BRING IT BACK!!!!
Lauren B says
I miss that ravioli too- use to add chicken and it was devine- very nice taste, but hey I am bias and love mushrooms- so sad they discontinued it- would so love if it made a come back- my BF and I adored that pasta and sauce combo.