QUICK REVIEW: Campbell’s Slow Cooked Sauces

A few weeks ago, a friend posted a picture of some Korean-style barbeque she’d made. She’d made it with a new product called Campbell’s Slow Cooked Sauces. Oddly, Campbell’s doesn’t seem to mention them on any of their websites, so I had to get more info about them from Amazon. In doing so I found this:

campbells_luau

I’m a sucker for anything “Hawaiian” or “luau” related. I just had to track some of this stuff down and try it out. For some reason, though, I kept forgetting to look for them at the store. It took several trips for me to remember, but I finally found them last week at Walmart. Just so ya know, they come in several other flavors: my friend’s Sweet Korean BBQ (for beef), Moroccan Spice (for chicken), Tavern Style Pot Roast (for beef), Mexican Red Chile (for beef, for tacos) and Apple Bourbon BBQ (for pork).

I can’t speak for the other sauces, but preparing the Hawaiian Luau couldn’t be simpler: just put a pork roast in a slow cooker (pro tip: use liners to make clean-up easier), then pour the sauce over the meat, set your Crock Pot to 8 hours… and that’s just about it! The instructions tell you to shred the pork just before serving, which I was kind of nervous about: I didn’t want to pull the meat from the Crock Pot (and make a giant mess), but if I left the meat in the Pot I was afraid the forks would shred the liner and make a huge mess… which is why I used a liner in the first place… ya know? Thankfully, the meat was so tender that brute force wasn’t needed – the pork shredded very easily when it was done.

So… how is it? Pretty good! I liked the “Hawaiian” flavors of pineapple and mango. It was well balanced with the pork and was very… harmonious. One thing, though: either 8 hours was too long to cook the meat, or my Crock Pot runs hot… because some of the sauce burned. I don’t mind the taste (burnt ends are the best part of the brisket, in my opinion), but it you have any family members who are “sensitive” to burnt tastes, you might want to keep an eye on the Crock Pot and add some water or pineapple juice halfway through cooking to keep any burning to a minimum.

Other than that little quibble, I really liked the dish. What I didn’t like, however, was the price. The actual sauce mix is only $1.98 at my local Wally World, but it seems that most of the sauces are intended for 2-3 pounds of meat. I got a 3 pound pork roast from Walmart for around $9.77, making the total cost of the meal $12.24 (this includes 49¢ for the liner, but not sales tax or the electricity needed to power the Crock Pot for 8 hours, or the side of white rice I made to accompany the meal). $12.24 is a bit spendy for me, since I’m the only one in the house that’d eat it. Of course, for a family of four, it would be a much more reasonable $3.06 per person. And I did make two meals and a couple of snacks out it, so perhaps I should think of it as $3.06/meal, too. Still, as the only one in the house who eats meat, it seems expensive to throw down almost $15 for a meal. I wish they made the sauces in smaller portions, so you could cook, say, a pound of pork chops instead of a three pound roast. I’d be much more likely to buy them that way.

12 Replies to “QUICK REVIEW: Campbell’s Slow Cooked Sauces”

  1. But surely you won’t eat the three pounds of meat at once.. Wouldn’t you divide the cost into the number of left over meals it would make for you?

  2. Found your post after seeing Campbell’s doesn’t list this item on their site. Trying it now in the crockpot, perhaps has a stir fry type meal. Fingers crossed this will come out…if so I can freeze and use for lunches–thanks!

  3. We tried the pot roast and bbq and they wereboth great. I was surprised that they were so good. I was expecting yuck but they were awsome

  4. We use the campbells hawaiian crock pot sauce I add pineapples and onions and bell peppers and cherries let cook all day serve over rice amazing!!!! My kids love it!!!!

  5. Any of the leftovers freeze very good. It is just 2 of us and we can make several meals with 1 of them. Also I use beef in all of them and it works great. I had about 3 lbs of stew beef in the freezer and I thawed them out and used them for the Hawaiian Luau and it was GREAT. Also I cut back on the cooking time(6hours) because the meat would burn. I bought a lot of the mixes when they was on sale and I had coupons that made them .50 cent a package. The date is running close and wonder if I could put them in the freezer? What do you all think?

  6. What is amazing to me is that you highlight the absolute worse tasting, worst smelling one of Campbell’s Slow Cooker Sauces. The Hawaiian Sauce smells horrible and tastes even worse. If possible it tastes like it was made by a blind person who just grabbed things from the spice rack and tossed it in a pot. They must have accidently tossed in some paint and detergent? Try the Sweet Korean BBQ instead.

  7. The Mexican red chile is our favorite, but would never think to use it on tacos even though that is what it says. We do a rump roast with it, and then serve it over polenta or grits. AMAZING!

  8. Frank, not necessary to add your remark about a ‘blind person’. Would have read just as well without ‘blind’. Lee, learn to spell.

  9. We tried the tavern style pot roast. GROSS….extremely strong taste of vinegar. Very disappointed had to toss the roast out.

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