9 Trader Joe's Prepared Meals, Ranked Worst To Best

You know those days when you need a satisfying, hearty meal, but you just don't have the time or energy to make one? Trader Joe's is ready to step in and save you in these dire situations. Head to the refrigerated section of the store, and you'll find a varied array of prepared meals that only need a few minutes in the microwave or about 20 minutes in the oven before they're hot and ready for the dinner table. Bonus — they're all under $10.

With such a wide selection to choose from, you may want a little bit of guidance. After all, when you're hungry and short on time, the last thing you want to have to do is make a quick decision without knowing the facts. To make things easier, I've selected and taste-tested nine of Trader Joe's prepared dishes, limiting the selection to fresh (not frozen) options, and those that are complete meals on their own without the need for additional sides or sauces. I then ranked them against one another so you can see which ones I think are slam-dunk dinners, and which others should be left on the sidelines.

I don't even know where to begin with this one. Trader Joe's meat lasagna is a disjointed mess. I heated it in the conventional oven according to the instructions, and it looked and smelled fine when it came out, but once I dug into its layers, I uncovered a whole host of problems. The first glaring issue here is the pasta, which is gooey and gluey in some places, yet bone-dry and stiff along the edges. The fact that Trader Joe's has the audacity to call this pasta "delicate" is actually quite funny — take one look at how thick the ruffled ends of the noodles are, and I'm sure "delicate" is not a word that comes to mind.

There are three main components to the layers here. First is the meat, which consists of ground beef and Italian pork sausage. The flavor is fine, but there's not very much of it. Next is the cheese, which again was way too sparse. A lasagna should give you a nice cheese pull from mozzarella with every bite, but I never got that here. What cheese there was, both inside and on top, was oddly firm and not the glistening blanket of rich dairy goodness that I was hoping for. The sauces were the best part, with the tomato tangy, spicy, and flavorful, and a layer of rich cream sauce that mellowed it out. Unfortunately, the sauces weren't enough to save this dish.

I've tried again and again to love this dish, but Trader Joe's Chicken Parmigiana always breaks my heart. That image on the box, with the crispy breaded chicken and gleaming golden layer of cheese, always draws me in, even though I know it's never turned out even remotely like that. After trying it once again for this project, I'm finally ready to set my boundaries and let the dream go. Although it's flavorful, this is not a successful dish. You can probably tell that by the photo of two indistinct rust-colored lumps on my plate.

I understand that this is a tough dish to pull off well, because Chicken Parm's combination of crispy breaded chicken and buckets of marinara sauce can make the meat's coating unpleasantly soggy. If you're making Chicken Parm yourself, you can fix this by cooking the sauce separately, but alas, with this meal, Trader Joe's has already combined everything into a single blob. With the breading and sauce mingling in the box for who knows how long, it's impossible to imagine there's any way in the physical known universe to get the chicken to actually be crispy. The breading is so wet and soft that it slides right off the meat, so you're left with plain chicken breast and a tomato sauce that's full of waterlogged breadcrumbs. Oh, and there's never enough cheese. Don't believe the propaganda on the package.

There are a few things I really enjoyed about Trader Joe's roasted rosemary chicken breast meal. One, it's got a short ingredients list of identifiable items. Two, you get a thick, sizable breast of chicken. Three, it boasts a heady perfume of aromatic herbs that will make your mouth water and your kitchen smell divine. The downsides of this dish, as they so often do, come down to its textures.

I never expect pre-cooked chicken breast to be particularly juicy, and while this one did have bites that were fairly tender, a lot of them were pretty dry. The fact that there's no sauce with this dish, only a side of brown and wild rice, made the dryness of the chicken seem even more pronounced. As for the rice itself, it was an odd combination of chewy and mushy. I loved the nutty, woodsy, herbal flavors and the interspersed diced vegetables, but I just couldn't get past the mouthfeel. With some tweaks and additions, I think this could be a decent meal, but as is, it's pretty underwhelming.

I love enchiladas, but they're labor-intensive to make from scratch, so I was hoping that Trader Joe's chicken enchiladas verde would be a hit. Sadly, this dish suffers from a lot of issues that I've run into with store-bought enchiladas, which seem to be tough to get right. What works here is the enchilada filling: the chicken chunks are tender, and there are a lot of them; the combination of jack and cotija cheese adds creaminess and a nice salty kick, and those flavors complement the tangy, spicy tomatillo-green chile pepper base.

If this were just filling in a bowl, I'd have rated it higher. Unfortunately, filling is just one small element of a successful enchilada, and the other two pieces of the puzzle — the sauce and tortillas — don't work at all. In fact, they actually knock the filling down a few notches. The green chili sauce was nearly invisible to the naked eye, and the bit that I did taste had an odd texture that was somewhat gel-like, yet also watery and nearly tasteless. The tortillas had a strong corn flavor, which I liked, but their texture was all over the place — stiff and overcooked in places, mushy and falling apart in others. Some parts I could barely cut through with a serrated knife because they were so tough. The lack of seasoning in the tortillas and the weird texture and blandness of the sauce killed any enjoyment I got from the filling.

Like the Chicken Parmigiana, Trader Joe's Chicken Marsala suffers from the same pointless breading of the chicken. I found myself in the exact same situation as if it were Groundhog Day, watching soft and soggy clumps of breadcrumbs fall off the meat. I couldn't help but become preoccupied by this logistical issue, which seems like it should be easily resolved — put the sauce in a separate part of the container, perhaps, or just forego the whole breading thing altogether. Once I got past that, I ran into another problem: the Marsala sauce. It was so thick it seemed less like a sauce and more like frosting on a cake.

With this dish's initial two strikes, I wasn't feeling confident about its chances. As I began tasting all of the elements together, however, I couldn't deny that its flavor combination was a knockout. Meaty slices of mushrooms, fluffy and luxurious mashed potatoes, and tender (albeit badly breaded) chicken created a comforting and savory combination. While the sauce looked awful, it tasted wonderful, brimming with deep layers of umami and a beautiful touch of sweetness from the Marsala, a fortified wine from Sicily, that enhances the dish's earthier flavors. Alas, if only the sauce texture and the breading could be fixed, this would be a pretty perfect meal.

My experience tasting Trader Joe's traditional meatloaf is a tale of opposites, the highest high and the lowest low. Classic meatloaf, which seems so American but actually has roots in ancient Europe, is one of my favorite comfort meals to make, so I'm pretty particular about it. I must say that Trader Joe's does an admirable job here, with a compact yet flavor-packed loaf that has a springy, light-on-its-feet texture along with a deep, meaty richness.

It's the sauce, if you can even call it that, that's laughably terrible. I guess I should be grateful that there's barely a smidgen of it on top of the otherwise wonderful loaf, because it tasted like someone spilled a sugar caddy into a container of ketchup and then condensed it down into some horrific, mutated caramelized paste. By the time the meatloaf had reached the right internal temperature in the oven, the smear of sauce had become a dried-out solid mass. I was able to pick it all up in one piece with the tine of a fork. I will not steer anyone away from this meatloaf, which is absolutely delicious, but I will advise you to scrap the sauce before you cook it and add your own instead.

I've tried just about every frozen pasta that Trader Joe's sells, and while some of them are amazing, typically the ones made with thin noodles like fettuccine, linguine, and spaghetti don't fare very well. Once frozen, those noodles have a tendency to stick together, and it's hard to get them evenly cooked. If long pasta is your go-to, I recommend getting the heck out of the freezer section and heading over to where the refrigerated meals live. While many of the store's fresh pasta offerings are stuffed, like ravioli and tortelloni, and require you to provide a sauce, Trader Joe's mushroom fettuccine comes with everything you need for a full dish in one package.

This was the quickest and easiest meal to make: get a pan, heat it up, throw everything in, stir it around for a few minutes, and you're done. You have delicate, well-cooked noodles, crisp and crunchy sugar snap peas, lots of sliced savory mushrooms, a scattering of roasted grape tomatoes, and a silky, savory mushroom sauce. I appreciated the lightness of the sauce's texture, which let the vegetables truly take center stage, each of which offered a unique texture of its own. This dish is light and fresh, while also being surprisingly filling with a nice depth of earthy flavor. I wished that it had a bit more seasoning — not just salt, but more herbs. I could have also used a few more tomatoes, which added a nice hit of acidity.

Obviously, this dish is not a looker. I tried my best to get a halfway-decent shot of Trader Joe's stuffed poblano peppers, but sadly, it's just not a photogenic star. Get past its appearance, though, and you'll be treated to an intensely flavorful, highly satisfying meal. Unlike some of the other supposedly cheese-covered dishes, this one actually had a discernible blanket of melted jack, which was the first good sign. Underneath that topping is a filling that's jam-packed with heat, acidity, and meatiness, all overstuffed into two tender yet sturdy poblano pepper halves.

While this dish shares a similar profile with the chicken enchiladas verde, it's a far more cohesive and enjoyable dish. Brown rice makes up the textural base of the filling, and mixed in are tender chunks of chicken, sweet kernels of corn, both jalapeno and wonderfully flavorful hatch chiles, and plenty of herbs and spices. The whole thing is melded together with a sour cream and cilantro sauce that adds richness as well as a cooling sensation that keeps you from overheating. It's not overly fiery, but there's a nice fresh, tangy spice level that ebbs and flows. The nitpicks that kept this out of first place are minor and won't stop me from buying this again. I do wish the cheese had browned on top, which can likely be easily achieved by throwing it under the broiler for a minute; that would also help it look a little prettier.

When I first tried Trader Joe's chicken tikka masala, I wasn't impressed. I don't know if they improved the recipe or if I had just gotten a subpar batch that time, but on this go-round, the dish shot to number one as soon as I took my first bite. I'm generally a fan of Trader Joe's Indian cuisine offerings, of which there are an astounding number, but they do sometimes miss the mark. This chicken tikka masala, however, was the most flavorful, balanced, and filling of all the prepared meals I tried (yes, I ate the entire thing).

There is one negative, and that's the rice, which is woefully underseasoned. Its texture, however, is perfectly tender and light, and it cooked completely evenly for me — not a single grain of rice was too hard or too soft. Thus, I forgave its blandness, which isn't a dealbreaker because the chicken and sauce are so packed with flavor that you don't notice. The sauce's warm, intense yet inviting aromatics are comforting and transportive, and all of the familiar Indian spices show up in waves as you eat it. The sauce has enough thickness to coat each chunk of tender chicken without being cloying or gloopy, and it's so zippy and tangy it keeps your palate energized. I'm so glad I got the chance to try this meal again, because I'm going to be eating a whole lot of it from now on.

First, I went to my local Trader Joe's store and noted down all of their refrigerated prepared foods. To narrow it down, I eliminated soups, sandwiches, and salads, and focused solely on dishes that could be served as a complete meal right out of the package. From there, I eliminated certain products that were similar to others — I chose one of the two meatloafs, and one of the two stuffed pepper dishes, for example.

Once I had all of the meals selected, I prepared each one at a time according to the package instructions. Each had microwave and conventional oven (or in some cases, stovetop) options, and since the conventional oven was the recommended method for most, I opted for that over the microwave in most cases for consistency. Each dish was judged based on flavor, texture, quality, value, ease of preparation, and how well it worked as a complete meal.