PRODUCT REVIEW: Cascadian Farms Frozen Vegetables

This is going to be a group review, since it would be silly to review just their corn or broccoli. My girlfriend and I are pretty busy doing things. We don't really have the time that we want to dedicate to making meals on a nightly basis. We're also too lazy to wander too far every day. Thus! Our reliance on frozen foods was born. We can't bring ourselves to buy frozen meals (seriously, yyyyuk!), but we will buy frozen raw materials. As such, our freezer is completely open to frozen vegetables.

If you've ever eaten frozen veggies from the likes of Birdseye and Green Giant, you know that they're totally acceptable, but not really the best of the best. Broccoli is heavy on the stems, corn isn't exactly bursting with flavor, and the peas are small. Broccoli is the worst offender. It's usually so bad that I'll keep everything else frozen, but the broccoli gets bought fresh and steamed in a microwave steamer bag.

If your nightly meal sounds similar to that, do I have the product for you! Cascadian Farms is organic, but don't hold that against it. Its vegetables are in a different league than GreeGi or Birdseye. More expensive, but as worth the extra money as anything in the store.

The corn is exploding with super-sweet flavor. The texture is denser with more snap. I swear, even the color is better. The peas are large and not the slightest bit mushy. The pre-made blends like the Garden Vegetable Medley are absolutely amazing for frozen food. Not just acceptable, but downright friggin' good. It's the broccoli, though, where Cascadian hands the other brands their deportation order. NO stems. Not one. Just big, beautiful, tender florets that steam up and taste as close to fresh as I think anything frozen could ever taste. The only sore spot was the spinach. It was watery and light-to-devoid of flavor. It didn't taste bad, but that's kind of because it didn't taste like much of anything. I wouldn't buy that again, but that might just prove that you shouldn't buy spinach frozen. I mean, would you buy iceberg lettuce from the freezer?

As I mentioned, their products are more expensive. Single-steam, 8oz boxes usually cost about $1 more than comparable products from Green Giant and others, but it's completely, totally, 100% worth it. Cascadian Farms are the best frozen veggies that you can buy. And, honestly, can you really say no to a company that does this?

Cascadian Farms Frozen Vegetables: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED