Is there a way to check the exact list of packages that will be installed in the image in Yocto?

yes,

Yocto maintains packages information in a form of manifest file located in /tmp/deploy/images/<"machine_image">/<"image_name">.manifest.

Yes, like this On old Bitbake versions:

bitbake -g <image> && cat pn-depends.dot | grep -v -e '-native' \
    | grep -v digraph | grep -v -e '-image' | awk '{print $1}' | sort | uniq

Taken from the NXP Community website

On newer:

bitbake -g <image> && cat pn-buildlist | grep -ve "native" | sort | uniq

You can find the list in the generated .manifest file. See IMAGE_MANIFEST