Del Real Foods Review + Party In A Box Giveaway

We’re conducting a Del Real Foods Party In A Box giveaway in celebration of Cinco de Mayo! A few weeks back they offered to let us to try some of their food before we ran the giveaway. The Party In A Box includes a Del Real picnic cooler basket, a Del Real blanket, an Al pastor Taco Kit, Carnitas, Pupusas, Pork Tamales, Arroz, and Fire Roasted Red Salsa. That’s enough food for a small village or really hungry family! You can enter the giveaway at the bottom of our review.

We were able to choose five different items to try and they recommended we get a variety of different meats and pupusas. This is what we ended up receiving. Each of the meat trays are fairly large weighing in at roughly one pound. And boy does it go a long way if you have sides like rice, beans, and tortillas. They pride themselves on authentic Mexican recipes without any preservatives.

I didn’t think I had come across their products before, but after I received them I quickly realized I had tried Del Real Foods at Costco in the past. They actually sell their stuff all over San Diego at Vons, Ralphs, Food For Less, Albertsons, etc. Chances are you’ve seen it or are already shopping somewhere that carries their products. Check their store locator to see if they sell their products at your local market. The meat packages all look similar and feature a bag of food in a microwave safe tray. There are different options as far as preparing the food. The simplest of which is to microwave for a few minutes, rotate, puncture a few holes, microwave again, let it sit, and empty the contents into the tray. The picture on the right is the Chile Verde right out of the box.

Here is what it looks like after I heated it and then emptied it into the tray. Again, that is a pound of chile verde!

We had a little dinner at MJ’s to try (almost) everything. We left the chile verde out for this meal because it was just too much to heat up all at once.  But I did try it on another occasion so I’ll just lump everything together. Since we didn’t ask for any sides, I decided to make Spanish rice and guacamole to help accompany what we ate. In addition to that I chopped up some lettuce, tomatoes, and brought extra tortillas, sour cream, and shredded cheese.

The Al Pastor Taco Kit comes with small street style corn tortillas and red salsa on the side.

Alright, on to how everything tasted! To be honest, we weren’t expecting much from microwaved pupusas. Jorgina insisted on putting them in the pan for a few minutes to give them some texture. I’m sure it helped a lot because all of us really liked them! The pupusas have bell peppers in them, a small tidbit of information I withheld from Michael and Jorgina because they both hiss at the sight of them. Ha, they didn’t even notice until after they admitted liking it. Score! They were slightly crisp on the outside, soft once you bite into them, and cheesy all the way through.

The carnitas packed a ton of flavor and came out fairly moist. We regretted not crisping it up a little for more crunchy bits. Little K throughout the meal kept on asking for more of “the salty one.” The chile verde is not spicy, but it was really soft and comes swimming in a large amount of sauce. The pork came apart easily and I was most excited about my ability to soak up the sauce with tortillas, double dipping to my hearts content.

A recurring theme here is the tenderness of the meats. The shredded chicken was surprisingly moist. Throughout our meal we looked at each other, nodding in agreement that for premade food, everything was quite tasty. My least favorite of the night was the al pastor. I’m probably forever spoiled from Tacos El Gordo with their vertical rotisserie and the amount of juicy goodness they extract out of their pork.

Overall we had a worry free, easy as can be meal. Those pressed for time or not wanting to try and prepare all these different foods can really benefit from something like this. No cooking necessary in order to celebrate Cinco de Mayo! Even though we’re giving away a cooler I imagine you can store hot foods in there if you decide to warm everything up and bring them on a picnic. Good luck winning the Party In A Box and Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Del Real Foods
http://www.delrealfoods.com/
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SDF Update: Congrats to our winner, lucky Lynn, and everyone else for entering our Del Real Foods Party in a Box giveaway!

The giveaway will end Monday, May 11th at 11:59 pm PST and our winner will be notified by the end of the following day. Winner must respond within 72 hours to claim the prize or we will select an alternate winner.