Mountain House Veggie Chorizo Breakfast Scramble

This is pretty much exactly what one would expect of an egg-based Mountain House breakfast meal—not bad, but certainly nothing to get excited over.

Mountain House has done it again: they have produced another extremely adequate breakfast dish. The package advertises vegetarian chorizo, eggs, potatoes, and bell peppers. The package contains those things.

Preparation
Per the package instructions, I added 1-1/3 cups boiling water to the pouch and stirred. Waited 5 minutes, stirred again. Waited a further 4 minutes, stirred, and ate. All the ingredients rehydrated adequately with this procedure. The potatoes, being a mixture of shredded and cubed, did rehydrate, although some of the cubes were still just a little chewy even at the end of the pouch, some 20 minutes after the start of the whole process.

Nutrition
580 calories is a reasonable amount of energy, coming from a decent balance of sources. 28g of protein, 42g of carbs, and 34g of fat.  As with any egg dish, cholesterol is a little high, but not as high as many similar meals: 170% of your recommended daily allowance. Likewise, sodium is not too bad for what might be expected in the genre: 1500mg or 65%.

Taste
Here's where things go off the rails just a little.

Firstly, I know it's not real chorizo. This vegetarian option is made of pea protein and mushroom with a relatively mild blend of spices, rather than pork and spicing ranging from mild-paprika to knock-your-socks-off heat. I know this meal doesn't have real, pork-based chorizo; but the vegetarian offering here was extremely bland and textureless.

And while the overall spice levels were fine, it was a little boring—I was expecting a spicy explosion in my mouth every time I ate some of that "chorizo," and it just wasn't happening.

Likewise, the sodium content here is not too wild, and salt was not the primary flavor...at the start of the meal. But by the end of the pouch, all I was tasting was modestly spicy salt.

My palate is sensitive to the flavor of bell peppers, and I wasn't even tasting them. That's kind of wild, in its own way.

Satiety
This was reasonably filling. I didn't feel logy, and I wasn't still hungry after eating. I jumped up and hit the trail right after lunch with no ill consequences.  But I was hungry again within the hour.  This meal is probably about 80% eggs, and eggs don't really "stick." Had MH included a larger helping of potatoes, more of that pea- and mushroom-based "chorizo," this likely would have been more filling, for longer.

Recommendation
I mean, it's not bad.  It just could be so much better. I understand that using vegetarian options in recipes reduces cost and is better for the environment. I had just hoped for a little more. Of, like, everything—flavor, bulk, texture. Okay, maybe not actually more of everything—I could go for less saltiness and less egg.

Your mileage may vary, of course; but I won't be adding this to the rotation.

Background

Joshua has been hiking, backpacking, and car-camping for more than four decades. He is based primarily in the Pacific Northwest, but has hiked throughout the US, with forays into Hawaii and New Zealand.