Disclosure: I received product coupons to sample this product. The opinions shared here are 100% mine.

Ah, summertime.  I long for these months all year but when they arrive I find myself completely off kilter for at least a couple of weeks.   I’m a teacher and have the same schedule as my kids, for the most part, so we’re home for supper together during the school year.  Being together 24 hours a day on summer break is always a bit of a shock to my system — and probably theirs, too.  Sometimes I feel like my day revolves around their stomachs.  This is definitely true for my younger child; my older child is now able to prepare snacks for herself which is a huge blessing.  My son is hungry in the instant that his eyelids flutter open and doesn’t stop until he falls asleep.  He has the metabolism of a hummingbird (trying not to be jealous here) and is constantly in motion, so he burns through a lot of calories in a day.   This week I avoided the grocery store since we’re fairly stocked from last week’s trip.   It’s been my goal to make a quick lunch out of the freezer or pantry each day so that I can clean those areas out for the summer. Last week I found Red’s All Natural Burritos at my local Ingle’s market and snatched up the last 4 chicken burritos.  I’ve been scouting for that particular brand for weeks now; it’s quite hard to find here.  I was thrilled to get some to try out; they made for a delicious lunch today!

So when I spotted these in the store, the size of these monstrosities shocked me. I couldn’t believe that in each package was just one burrito! Guess I’m used to the flat puny ones my mom used to buy us when we were kids.  These are man-sized burritos people!   They were priced at $3.99 which seems very reasonable for a handheld meal like this one.  I will definitely stock up the next time I see them available; this was the perfect quick meal for my family.  I noticed from their website that they have several varieties; my local store didn’t carry these.  I would also like to see multi-packs at my local store.  They only had the individual burritos.  Still, this was a homerun for us.

I tried to give you an idea of the size; the best thing I could come up with was a coffee cup.  The burrito stands just over half the height of the cup and easily exceeds the cup in length.  Wow!  And let me mention that it was chock full of goodness, too.  There was no wiggle room inside this thing.

So one important thing to note here is that Red’s Burrito needs some extra love.  You can’t just pop this into the microwave and do it justice.  Instead, you need to thaw it in the microwave for 2-3 minutes, then bake it in the oven for about 20 minutes.  I suppose you could try to cook it in the microwave for the whole time, but the oven time crisps up that tortilla in a magical way.

You’re supposed to put it on a baking dish coated in spray, but I didn’t have any, so I improvised with parchment paper.  Worked just fine.  When I pulled it out of the oven, I could almost swear that the burrito smiled at me.  All that cheesy goodness was just dripping out of the sides.  YUM!

Inside, the filling was just perfect.  I’m rather picky about frozen meat in prepared dishes.  Red’s uses high-quality chicken that is free of antibiotics and hormones.  The filling is all natural with no preservatives.  I kind of expected the saucy nacho cheese when I saw it leaking out of the sides, but it was really good cheese — the kind I would use in my own kitchen.   The inside of the burrito had plenty of veggies and rice to balance out the filling.  It was seriously good.  I loved that the tortilla held up to the gooey insides; this would be the perfect handheld lunch to take outside while the kids swim in the pool.   It’s hard to find a freezer meal that isn’t overly processed or laden with all kinds of scary chemicals.  Red’s Burritos are the real deal; I’ll keep buying this for my freezer!