Tag: Hot Pockets

Here I go again, reviewing another Hot Pocket. What keeps me coming back to the Hot Pockets product line when I know every pocket will be reminiscent of the last? Do I have a problem? Will my constant attraction to all pockets Hot, Lean, and Pretzeld ultimately be my undoing?

The new Limited Edition Chili Sauce Cheese Dog Hot Pocket may not be the best Hot Pocket Ive ever tasted, but it certainly provides no cure for my stuffed sandwich addiction. In other words, Im hooked on Hot Pockets. Can we make that a slogan and sell it to the Hot Pockets people? I can use the money to pay for treatment.

Psssst…Treatment includes lots and lots of burning the roof of ones mouth.

Lets start with the filling because as we all know, Hot Pockets are like my unattractive friend I want you to ask out: Its whats inside that counts. The name itself spells everything out for you. The Chili Sauce Cheese Dog Hot Pocket contains chili sauce made with beef and chicken pattie crumbles, which is suitably savory.

It also contains cheese just gooey and flavorful enough to make a good impression. But that dog part? The box claims that the chili sauce contains pork franks. The last time I ate pork frank pieces this tiny was when I was experiencing finger foods for the first time in my high chair. The Chili Sauce Cheese Dog Hot Pocket is filled with more lies than pork franks.

And if youre expecting an awesome exterior to make up for the disappointing interior, youre out of luck. The Limited Edition Chili Sauce Cheese Dog Hot Pocket has an unseasoned, unspectacular crust. In fact, its a lot like a plain ol hot dog bun. (Another thought… just what should I call this outer part of the sandwich if they keep changing the texture? The crust? The bun? WHAT DO I CALL THE POCKET PART OF A HOT POCKET??? Since Chili Sauce Cheese Dog Hot Pockets arent particularly crusty, Im going with “buns.” The quotation marks are in full effect.)

I tried to remember the last time I ate an unseasoned and unadorned “bun,” and I realized that these are the same “buns” they use for the Sideshots. I guess the approach with the Sideshots was to mimic a hamburger bun, and they go for the same effect here in a hot dog bun way €¦ but when I consider the filling of the Chili Sauce Cheese Dog Hot Pocket (or lack thereof), I wish they had tried something different.

In fact, they should probably have gone back to the drawing board entirely with this sandwich, starting with the ridiculous name: “Hot Pockets Limited Edition Chili Sauce Cheese Dog.” Its like theyre saying Cheese Dog when they really mean Chili Dog, but they forgot to include the dog. Have the creators of this Hot Pocket never had a chili dog before in their lives? Why not just call it “Hot Pockets Limited Edition Chili Cheese?” Eliminate the weird “Sauce” part and any reference to HOT DOGS altogether. With the scanty amount of pork franks in this Hot Pocket, it wouldve been better to let us make the pleasant discovery of pork frank pieces in our chili-infused sandwich, and then wed be happy instead of incensed.

Okay, I just went on a long rant about a microwaveable sandwich. Maybe I do have a problem.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 sandwich – 280 calories, fat calories, 13 grams of fat, 5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 30 milligrams of cholesterol, 620 milligrams of sodium, 31 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of fiber, 6 grams of sugar, 9 grams of protein, 15% Calcium, 10% Iron, 0% Vitamin C, 6% Vitamin A.)

Item:  Hot Pockets Limited Edition Chili Sauce Cheese Dog
Price: $2.49 (on sale)
Size:  2 sandwich
Purchased at: Ralphs
Rating:  5 out of 10
Pros:  Suitably savory chili with beef and chicken pattie crumbles. Hooked on Hot Pockets. Gooey cheese. Will not negatively affect my Hot Pockets addiction.
Cons: Filled with more lies than pork franks. Burning the roof of your mouth. Unseasoned bun. Quotation marks.

I haven’t had much luck with giant soft pretzels lately. The most recent incident involved a soft pretzel at a baseball game which had most likely been fashioned out of brine-cured leather and sawdust then stamped with a $5.95 price tag. Another episode involved the greasiest, most stale-tasting mall pretzel ever created, which tasted like its main ingredients were leaden biscuit dough and the leftover grease scooped from the bottom of a fast food fry vat.

There are clearly some pretzel standards that were not being followed here. Sure, they were hot. Sure, they were twisted. But they weren’t pretzels. They made me wish there was some sort of graduate school for pretzel-making. Most of these pretzel vendors understood the basics, but they really needed a more intensive education in order to perfect their soft-pretzel-making skills. Crust brown and crackly? Check. Innards hot, light and fluffy? Check. Salt applicator well-calibrated? Check. Bam, Masters degree!

I know some people really only use giant soft pretzels as a delivery mechanism for nacho cheese, ranch dressing, melted butter, or icing, and they couldn’t care less about how it tastes by itself…but I really like soft pretzels as an actual snack food, so it disappoints me when they turn out horribly. Little did I know that Hot Pockets would revive my love of hot, salty soft pretzel goodness. They’ve made a new line of stuffed sandwiches called Pretzel Bread Sandwiches. So far, there are two varieties: Queso Chicken and Cheddar Bacon Melt. The results were top-notch. Looks like someone matriculated at the National Conservatory of Soft Pretzels.

The Cheddar Bacon Melt is just as face-meltingly delish as it sounds. The melted cheddar cheese blends well with the generous chunks of bacon and tomatoes. I don’t know if the bacon is nitrate-free, but this is a Hot Pocket, guys. The bacon itself is slathered with creamy sauce, so it clearly doesn’t matter. The Queso Chicken is also a seriously tasty sandwich. The grilled white meat chicken breast is tender, and the cheddar cheese mixed with fire-roasted poblano peppers is a savory combination. And they are not kidding about the jalapeños – each stuffed sandwich contains large, chopped pieces that really turn up the heat. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I certainly wasn’t expecting the mega-spiciness these guys turned out. They would get an A+ in Jalapeño School.

But I’m burying the lead here. What you really want to hear about is the pretzel bread crust. Let’s just say that the creators of this pretzel crust must have built their graduate thesis around this recipe. It is exactly right for this sandwich. Meaning, it’s soft and crusty and salty, and once cooked, emits the distinctive aroma of freshly baked pretzel dough. The pretzel bread perfectly complements the creamy cheese in both sandwiches as well.

The only area where the pretzel bread crust gets a big fat F is ingredient seepage. The extremely hot insides can sometimes still ooze out during microwaving, so the somewhat firmer and sturdier pretzel bread crust doesn’t offer a solution to that little problem. But a little problem it is, especially when you’re chowing down on cheesy/bacon-y or cheesy/spicy deliciousness. So what if your fingers get a little burned? Try pursuing a Masters degree in Grubbin’, not Whining.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 sandwich – Queso Chicken – 280 calories, 10 grams of fat, 5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 50 milligrams of cholesterol, 790 milligrams of sodium, 34 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of fiber, 2 grams of sugar, 13 grams of protein, 6% vitamin A, 20% calcium, and 15% iron. Cheddar Bacon Melt – 320 calories, 14 grams of fat, 6 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 55 milligrams of cholesterol, 810 milligrams of sodium, 55 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 4 grams of sugar, 13 grams of protein, 6% vitamin A, 25% calcium, and 25% iron.)

Item: Hot Pockets Pretzel Bread Sandwiches (Queso Chicken and Cheddar Bacon Melt)
Price: $2.28
Size: 2 sandwiches
Purchased at: HyVee
Rating: 7 out of 10 (Queso Chicken)
Rating: 8 out of 10 (Cheddar Bacon Melt)
Pros: Enjoying pretzels as more than a delivery mechanism for gooey dips. Generous chunks of bacon. Getting an A+ in Jalapeño School. Earning a Masters degree in Pretzel dynamics.
Cons: Ingredient seepage. Overpriced pretzel creations from vendors who believe pretzel = twisted anything. Whining. Grad school loans that cannot be paid off with hot, delicious soft pretzels.

Hot Pockets had to eventually make their Limited Edition Spicy Hawaiian Style Pizza because they were running out of normal pizza varieties to stuff into their crust.

Let me go through the list, which, by the way, IS NOT the list of pizzas I’m going to use to pull a prank on a particular person who knows what they did and deserves whatever punishment I give them. So if you happen to have a pizza delivery person at your door who says they have one or two dozen pizzas for either a Jack Ulf or Jack Haas, it wasn’t from me.

There are currently Hot Pockets in the following pizza varieties: supreme, cheese, pepperoni, sausage, and pepperoni and sausage. That pretty much covers the entire basic pizza spectrum, so Hot Pockets had to start going into “specialty pizzas.” Hell, I’m surprised Hot Pockets didn’t do a little Marvel/DC Universe-like crossover action with California Pizza Kitchen frozen products. Hot Pockets California Pizza Kitchen BBQ Chicken Pizza sounds tasty and verbose.

Each Hot Pockets Limited Edition Spicy Hawaiian Style Pizza is stuffed with Canadian-style bacon, pepperoni, pineapple, mozzarella cheese and sauce. There are also tiny chunks of jalapeño peppers which adds a little heat. The crust that envelops all those ingredients looks slightly different than your normal Hot Pocket. There’s appears to be some seasoning baked into it and it’s a lot less pale than a regular Hot Pocket. It looks like a classy Hot Pocket, which I know sounds like a total oxymoron. like jumbo shrimp or fast food salad.

I thought I wouldn’t care for this particular Hot Pocket because of my indifference towards Hawaiian pizza, but just like Katy Perry kissing a girl, I liked it. Although, before I ate the Hot Pockets Limited Edition Spicy Hawaiian Style Pizza I was really hungry, so perhaps I enjoyed it because of hunger pangs, which, if you think about it, are the beer goggles of the digestive system.

If you find Hawaiian pizzas offensive because of its use of pineapples, you’re not going to enjoy this Hot Pocket because every bite has the taste of pineapple. Although it gets that pineapple flavor mostly from pineapple juice because I counted only three small chunks of pineapple in each of the two Hot Pockets I consumed. But its flavor is noticeable and it gives the Hot Pocket a nice sweetness.

While there aren’t a lot of pineapple chunks, there’s a lot of Canadian-style bacon. Sadly, the pepperoni didn’t stand out as much as I hoped, getting lost in between the ham and jalapeño. Speaking of the jalapeño, its mild spiciness and flavor are the reasons why I enjoyed this Hot Pocket more than I thought I would. Its heat is not going to make you instantly reach for a glass of water, but it’s going to make you think you should have one handy.

Overall, if the idea of Hawaiian pizza doesn’t gross you out and the idea of eating a Hot Pocket doesn’t gross you out, then I really suggest you try the Hot Pockets Limited Edition Spicy Hawaiian Style Pizza before they disappear. The combination of sweet pineapple and savory meats with spicy jalapeño peppers makes for a very mouthwatering ménage à trois.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 Hot Pocket – 290 calories, 90 calories from fat, 10 grams of fat, 4.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat*, 20 milligrams of cholesterol, 610 milligrams of sodium, 41 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of fiber, 6 grams of sugar, 9 grams of protein, and a bunch of vitamin and minerals.)

*Uses partially hydrogenated soybean oil.

Item: Hot Pockets Limited Edition Spicy Hawaiian Style Pizza
Price: $3.89 (on sale)
Size: 2 Hot Pockets
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: A mouthwatering ménage à trois of sweet, savory, and spicy. Lots of Canadian-style bacon. Jalapeño adds a mild spiciness and makes this Hot Pocket better than I thought it would be. A future Hot Pockets/CPK crossover.
Cons: Pineapples might be off-putting for many. The idea of a Hot Pocket might be off-putting for many. Pepperoni wasn’t noticeable. Not a lot of pineapple chunks. It’s a limited edition product. Uses partially hydrogenated oil.

The longevity of Hot Pockets has hinged upon two things: 1) Their manufacturer’s ability to successfully stuff as many different things into a tender, seasoned crust as possible; and 2) Speedy microwave zap-ability. If either of these things changed for the worse, the Hot Pockets franchise would be deader than the skin on the roof of your mouth after biting into one too soon.

We’ve already seen the various styles of Hot Pocket crust filled with pizza toppings, deli meats, casseroles, meatballs, breakfast scrambles, taco/quesadilla fixings, and a plethora of hot sandwich combos (e.g. cheeseburger, sloppy joe, philly cheese steak, and barbecue chicken). Given this lengthy list of stuffed sandwiches, one may wonder, “Is there no limit to the ingredients they can stuff inside these crusts?” Trust me, there are limits. There are some things you would never want to see stuffed in a Hot Pocket: Bubblegum, iron ore, nothing but black olives, shoelaces, unshelled walnuts, Kleenex, eleven Habanero peppers, rubber cement, tripe… So barring these abominations, what other Hot Pocket flavor combinations could possibly tickle our taste buds? Mini penne in cheese sauce, that’s what.

We now have the Limited Edition Four Cheese Garlic Pasta Bake Hot Pocket — a garlic-seasoned crust stuffed with pasta and cheese. It’s so ludicrously simple that I’m surprised Hot Pockets hasn’t tried to do this already. People tend to like pasta and people tend to like cheese. Pasta + Cheese + Crust = Yum. Never let it be said I didn’t excel at mathematics. Delicious mathematics.

As is the general rule within the Hot Pockets family, the Four Cheese Garlic Pasta Bake is simple to prepare 2 minutes in the microwave in its specially-designed cooking sleeve, and you have a molten-hot stuffed sandwich. In this case, melted cheese (four different ones!) began to ooze out of the sides of my Hot Pocket and burned my fingers (four different ways!), but I’m used to that. They’re not called Room-Temperature Pockets for a reason. Definitely wait a few minutes before chowing down.

Upon first bite, you’ll quickly find that the garlic sauce and four cheese mixture has a nice, creamy, gooey texture, and the pasta has not become super-mushy. The crust is crisp around the edges and nicely seasoned you can really taste the garlic. I’d say the sensation is like a highly-advanced grilled cheese sandwich. The pieces of miniature penne are very small… You would almost forget they were in there if it weren’t for the fact that the Four Cheese Garlic Pasta Bake Hot Pocket has a decent noodle/cheese ratio. But we’re not talking mouthfuls of penne. The only mouthful you have with the Four Cheese Garlic Pasta Bake Hot Pocket is when you say its name.

I’m glad they introduced the Limited Edition Four Cheese Garlic Pasta Bake Hot Pocket. It’s quick and tasty and fills a flavor niche I didn’t know existed. Since it’s Limited Edition, I don’t know how long this variety will be sold, but I hope it’s popular enough to persuade the Hot Pockets gods to let it stick around permanently… and will dissuade them from introducing Limited Edition 2-Ply Toilet Paper and Rocks Hot Pockets.

(Nutrition Facts 1 sandwich 290 calories, 10 grams of fat, 5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 grams of polyunsaturated fat, 0 grams of monounsaturated fat, 30 milligrams of cholesterol, 670 milligrams of sodium, 0 milligrams of potassium, 39 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of fiber, 6 grams of sugar, 10 grams of protein, 2% vitamin A, 25% calcium, and 10% iron.)

Other Hot Pockets Limited Edition Four Cheese Garlic Pasta Bake reviews:
KJ’s Food Review

Item: Hot Pockets Limited Edition Four Cheese Garlic Pasta Bake
Price: $2.00 (on sale)
Size: 2 sandwiches
Purchased at: Ralphs
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: Speedy microwave zap-ability. Warm, crispy garlic-seasoned crust. Highly-advanced grilled cheese sandwiches. Creamy and gooey garlic sauce/four cheese mixture. Decent noodle/cheese ratio. Mini penne is not mushy. Mathematics can be delicious.
Cons: Limited Edition only, so may not be around later. Not called Room-Temperature Pockets for a reason. Amount of pasta in the Limited Edition Four Cheese Garlic Pasta Bake Hot Pocket isn’t a mouthful, but the name is. Hot Pockets stuffed with toilet paper and rocks.

Baked Not Fried*

Those three words are on the front of every package of the new Hot Pockets Snackers. But what’s that snowflake-shaped thingie that’s hanging on the end of those three words like a piece of poop hanging from a dog’s fur around its poop chute? That, my friend, is an asterisk and it’s the shifty side of the eight key on your keyboard.

If you’re a person who doesn’t like to read, an asterisk always leads to more reading, which begins with another asterisk that hangs at the front of a sentence or phrase like a piece of snot hanging from one’s nose. Whenever there’s an asterisk on food packaging it can lead to three things:

1) An obligatory line found in every nutrition facts label: “Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet. Your daily values may be higher or lower depending on your calorie needs.

2) Something scary that food companies, sometimes by law, have to let you know about, like “This statement has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration”, “Contains MSG naturally occurring in foods”, “Ingredients not in regular mozzarella cheese” or “If you’re a male who’s 35 or older, hide this box of Lucky Charms when women come over*.”

3) Something the food company didn’t really need to tell us, like what the asterisk after Baked Not Fried leads to — NOT A LOW FAT FOOD

Duh.

I don’t know of anyone who thinks Hot Pockets is a low-fat food, although I do know of people who think Lean Pockets will make them skinny. Hot Pockets Snackers are definitely not a low-fat food, but they aren’t a high-fat food either, like other Hot Pockets. They’re like fancier and slightly bigger pizza bites, or Hot Pockets for babies**.

They come in four varieties:

Toasted Five Cheese Ravioli – mozzarella, ricotta, romano, parmesan and asiago cheese in a toasted ravioli. I wish I could say my tongue was talented enough to distinguish every cheese in the Hot Pockets Snackers, but my tongue is only good for one thing, ladies. I could only detect the mozzarella and parmesan, but I wonder how much of each cheese they stuffed into each one because there wasn’t much cheese filling. It’s definitely my least favorite of the four flavors. Although while being microwaved, it made my place smell like parmesan.

Fiesta Nacho Bites – taco seasoned beef, mexican style cheese sauce, and jalapenos in a tortilla style crust. Despite reading that there were jalapenos in it, I didn’t think there would be any heat, just the flavor of the peppers. However, there is a mild level of heat, maybe a 3 or 4 on a scale of 10. These triangular-shaped Snackers have a good flavor to them thanks to the jalapenos. It tasted like either something from Taco Bell or Mexican Hamburger Helper was stuffed into it***.

Grilled Italian Style Bites – Italian style deli meats and mozzarella cheese inside a panini crust. I enjoyed these as much as the Fiesta Nacho Bites. The prosciutto cotto, salami, and capicola provided wonderful flavor with a little spice. It had a decent amount of filling and the panini crust came out soft. Probably the fanciest of the four, but then again isn’t everything Italian considered fancy.

Loaded Potato Skin Bites – bacon, cheddar cheese, potatoes and green onion inside a golden potato crust. My second least favorite. While it did taste like potato skins, it didn’t have a strong flavor, even though there was as much filling as some of the others. The golden potato crust easily beats Pringles as the most embarrassing way for potatoes to end up. Despite being made of potatoes, the crust has very little potato flavor and was a bit too chewy. Thank goodness for the additional potatoes stuffed into it to give it a recognizable amount of potato flavor.

A serving of four takes about one minute and fifteen seconds to warm up, and there is no crisping sleeve. However, the instructions, which comes in English and Spanish, says completing the cooking process also involves letting it sit in the microwave for two minutes. So that one minute claim on the front of the package is misleading. Also, Hot Pockets really needs to work on preventing the filling in their products from oozing out while microwaving. And why do I have to use a damn paper plate to heat Hot Pockets? I don’t go on picnics, nor am I a hoarder who needs to use paper plates because my sink, which is blocked by a mountain of stuff that is valuable to me and no one else, is full of dishes that haven’t been washed in months.

Overall, my opinion is split between the different flavors of Hot Pockets Snackers. The Fiesta Nacho Bites and Grilled Italian Style Bites are the tastiest and have crusts that turn out decent from the microwave, while the Toasted Five Cheese Ravioli and Loaded Potato Skin Bites don’t have strong flavors and have tough crusts after being microwaved. However, the Hot Pockets Snackers does make it possible to create a Hot Pockets Diet****, which is like the Special K Diet, except instead of a bowl of Special K for breakfast and lunch, and a Special K snack in between meals, the Hot Pockets Diet would consist of a Hot Pocket for breakfast and lunch, and these Hot Pockets Snackers to help curb hunger in between meals.

*Not on boxes of Lucky Charms.

**If you feed your baby Hot Pockets, you are a horrible parent.

***Might be a good or bad thing, depends on how you feel about Taco Bell or Hamburger Helper.

****Don’t attempt to make the Hot Pockets Diet a reality.

(Nutrition Facts – 4 pieces – Potato Skin Bites – 230 calories, 90 calories from fat, 10 grams of fat, 5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat*, 610 milligrams of sodium, 25 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 9 grams of protein, 6% vitamin A, 20% calcium, and 6% iron. Italian Style Bites – 210 calories, 60 calories from fat, 6 grams of fat, 2.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat*, 500 milligrams of sodium, 28 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 8 grams of protein, 10% calcium, and 10% iron. Five Cheese Ravioli – 220 calories, 60 calories from fat, 6 grams of fat, 3 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat*, 540 milligrams of sodium, 33 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 9 grams of protein, 2% vitamin A, 20% calcium, and 10% iron. Fiesta Nacho Bites – 220 calories, 80 calories from fat, 8 grams of fat, 4 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat*, 540 milligrams of sodium, 28 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 7 grams of protein, 4% vitamin A, 10% calcium, and 10% iron.)

*Made using partially hydrogenated oils.

Item: Hot Pockets Snackers (Loaded Potato Skin Bites, Grilled Italian Style Bites, Fiesta Nacho Bites & Toasted Five Cheese Ravioli)
Price: $3.00 (on sale; reg. $4.79)
Size: 10 ounces/Approx. 12 pieces
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 4 out of 10 (Loaded Potato Skin Bites)
Rating: 7 out of 10 (Grilled Italian Style Bites)
Rating: 7 out of 10 (Fiesta Nacho Bites)
Rating: 4 out of 10 (Toasted Five Cheese Ravioli)
Pros: Grilled Italian Style Bites and Fiesta Nacho Bites were tasty and have crusts that microwave well. Baked not fried. Like fancy pizza bites. Using asterisks to create ASCII pictures. Hot Pockets Snackers package may contain an extra one or two pieces. Might be able to stuff these Hot Pockets into a regular Hot Pocket to make Jim Gaffigan’s nightmare come true.
Cons: Not a low-fat food. Loaded Potato Skin Bites and Toasted Five Cheese Ravioli lacked strong flavors and had crusts that don’t microwave well. Good source of sodium. Microwave instructions are misleading because it takes over three minutes to warm them up. Made with partially hydrogenated oils. Using asterisks to let people know how scary their food could be.