Dollar Store Tamales

The freezer section of my local Dollar Tree always contains such interesting surprises. Sometimes they're disgusting, but sometimes they can be pretty decent. So when I saw Sunny Acres Tamales (in my choice of pork or beef) I figured I'd take a chance. After all, even Banquet's frozen tamales aren't that bad.

As it turns out, I was very pleasantly surprised by just how good these tamales were. The pork version was smooth and bursting with piggy goodness; the beef ones were hearty and full-flavored, just exactly what you'd expect. Both were moderately seasoned (I'd say it was on the mild side of medium, but someone with less chile-heat tolerance might find them somewhat "zestier.") Each tamale weighed in at 2 ounces - a decent side-dish size, certainly no smaller than the Banquet version - and had generous amounts of meat filling. Best of all, there was a minimum of filler to the meat (some masa flour but absolutely no textured vegetable protein) making the eight-ounce packages a good value at a dollar each. I followed the microwave heating instructions on the package, and they came out perfectly. They made delicious lunches, and I had them with a very simple sauce made by simmering some canned stewed tomatoes with a few dollops of sofrito.

Pretty decent for cheap eats.

Link:

Sunny Acres is a brand owned by SmartPrice Sales & Marketing Inc., a supplier of perishable and non-perishable foods to "extreme value retailers" (as their website refers to them.) Their website says, "...when a consumer picks up one of our brands the reaction is always the same, 'Wow, what a fantastic value!'" and based on these tamales, that might not just be empty ad copy.

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