14 Family Size Frozen Meals, Ranked

Feeding a family a filling, well-balanced, often prompt, and nutritious meal is the priority of parents nationwide. To help busy moms and dads achieve this desire, frozen meal producers package entrees in family-size portions, promising to feed the whole household in one meal. However, not all of these family-size meals are alike. Though many offer similar nutritional elements, portion sizes, and prices, the quality of the meals can range from one end of the spectrum to the other. 

To help find the best option to feed your family, we gathered a group of family-size meals from a variety of frozen dinner brands to decide which you should stock in your freezer and which to avoid. My family and I taste-tested each while taking into account the ease of preparation, cost, and nutrition to create the ranking. Here are 14 family-size frozen meals, ranked.

Some recommendations are based on firsthand impressions of promotional materials and products provided by the manufacturer.

Michael Angelo's prides itself on producing high-quality Italian foods with authenticity from family recipes passed down through generations. I was looking forward to trying the brand's vegetable lasagna. Sadly, Michael Angelo's entrée was not the quality vegetable lasagna dish I typically enjoy. 

The dish combines many of the elements I was hoping for. However, there was an unusual sweetness in the tomato sauce, and there was very little of it. There was also a layer of tangy ricotta nestled in between the two pasta sheets. Still, the entire layer of mozzarella cheese on top of the entrée adhered to the plastic film covering the dish, removing the much-needed gooey cheesiness. The vegetable blend of cauliflower, carrots, mushrooms, and broccoli was watery and without seasoning. 

The dish's primary element was an abundance of overly chewy pasta. I don't mind a lot of pasta, it is expected in a lasagna. Still, there needs to be balance in the sauce-to-vegetables-to-pasta ratio. This one was lacking, placing it last on the list. I am glad I was able to purchase it on sale for under $7.00 instead of the $10.99 regular price.  

Birds Eye brand is synonymous with frozen vegetables and entrées. Birds Eye founder Clarence Birdseye is credited with inventing the method for freezing foods. Birdseye discovered that when you freeze foods quickly, they will retain their natural flavors, textures, and nutritional value. 

Birds Eye Voila! family meals are an abundant 42-ounce size, giving the impression that the large bag will feed a family of four or five a well-balanced mix of protein, vegetables, and starches. However, the company's Voila! Garlic Shrimp is a pasta meal, not a shrimp meal. While there were a few small, pre-cooked shrimp in the bag, the number and size were significantly less than the bag's picture. 

These mix with carrots, corn, broccoli florets, a lot of broccoli stems, and a sauce that should have a rich garlic flavor. However, that, too, was lacking with the meal tasting like broccoli rather than shrimp or garlic. The preparation instructions indicate that adding a 2/3 cup of water will create a savory garlic sauce, as described by Birds Eye. However, the garlic flavoring components are less than 2% of the bag's ingredients. 

I appreciate that the meal's preparation was less than 20 minutes from bag to table in a skillet and 10 minutes in the microwave, keeping it from ranking last. Still, by the time the vegetables became soft from cooking, the few, small, pre-cooked shrimp were severely overdone and rubbery, landing this meal at the bottom.

Great Value reimagines the typical grab-and-go burrito with its Stacked Beef Burrito family-size meal. The entrée includes cooked ground beef seasoned with chilis, peppers, and spices, cooked white rice, tomato salsa, and refried pinto beans. Great Value layers these ingredients between corn tortillas. Walmart's store brand, Great Value, offers a range of products that provide quality and affordability, with the store promising a money-back satisfaction guarantee. While this $7.88 dish didn't warrant returning to Walmart, it wasn't a favorite, ranking it low. 

Looking at the package photo of Great Value's stacked burrito, one can see that each layer should remain intact. However, the 32-ounce meal became a mushy, runny, glob without defined layers once cooked. Understandably, the ingredients inside a hand-held bean burrito will co-mingle. However, the burrito's tortilla wrap lends structure, holding everything in while adding texture. In Walmart's product, the dish became a mishmash of ingredients after cooking in the oven for 55 minutes. The corn tortilla layers dissipated into the meaty salsa sauce. My family and I opted to dip tortilla chips into the stack, adding texture to the dish. 

The Stouffer's brand is synonymous with frozen entrées. The company has been crafting wholesome meals since Mahala and Abraham Stouffer opened their first restaurant in 1924. The first frozen meals came in 1954. Today, dozens of options are available from the company in single-serving, family-size, and party-size portions. 

Stouffer's Chicken Enchiladas combines shredded chicken meat and pinto beans inside corn tortillas atop a bed of seasoned brown rice. Each portion contains 16 grams of protein, with Stouffer's claiming their meal has two times the amount of chicken compared to the enchilada standard and costs about $10. Though the brand says the dish contains a good amount of chicken, I had difficulty finding it. 

The meal's flavors were Mexican-inspired; however, the dish lacked texture, turning into a mushy, dry enchilada-style casserole, ranking the option lower on the list. Another downside for me when feeding my family, this Stouffer's meal and a variety of others include an ingredient derived from a bioengineered source. Stouffer's did not indicate which ingredients are genetically modified. 

Birds Eye Voila! Family Size Alfredo Chicken melds peas, carrots, broccoli, and penne pasta with white meat chicken. Sadly, Birds Eye leans heavily into its frozen vegetable history in this meal, producing a dish with very little chicken, a sauce that lacked flavor, tiny pieces of penne, and a dominant broccoli taste. Where the sauce in a classic chicken alfredo is thick and rich, this one was thin, watery, and without seasoning. I was able to salvage this meal by adding heavy cream, parmesan, and several tablespoons of butter to create a creamy dish reminiscent of an alfredo sauce. 

Nutrition-wise, the meal is lower in fat, calories, and sodium than other creamy dishes I tried. Like other Birds Eye Voila! family-size dishes, it costs around $10. While I appreciate the quality that Birds Eye provides in its large range of frozen vegetables, this meal lacked authentic alfredo flavor without the additional ingredients, ranking it lower on the list. 

Albertsons' private label brand Signature Select offers a range of frozen family-size and party-size meals, each with an affordable price. Its $8.99, 32-ounce Signature Select Gourmet Club Chicken Enchilada family meal is tasty, large, and filling. The meal includes five corn tortilla enchiladas stuffed with shredded chicken breast and thigh meat, diced onions, tomatoes, peppers, and two kinds of cheese atop a bed of saucy Spanish-style rice. The dish is well-seasoned with Mexican-style flavors, and the chicken is plentiful. 

The preparation instructions indicate the preferred cooking method is the microwave, which will take about 30 minutes total with cooking time and resting time, long for a microwavable meal. I was concerned the corn tortillas would become rubbery. Thankfully, they did not. The downside is the portion size as it is only one enchilada per serving. A salad or other vegetable was necessary to create a well-balanced meal, ranking this entrée in the middle of the options.

Amy's Kitchen delivers certified organic, vegetable-based meals with non-GMO ingredients. Their products' taste and quality will make any meat-eater become a vegetarian. Amy's family-size cheese enchiladas pack organic corn tortillas with a mix of cheddar cheeses, organic tomatoes, onions, green chilis, olives, and bell peppers with spices. The enchiladas lie under a smoky, spicy, slow-simmered red enchilada sauce with a deep roasted red color.  

When heated for 16 minutes in the microwave, or 65 in the oven, it becomes a gooey, cheesy, spicy blend of Mexican-inspired, slow-roasted flavors that are hard to resist. Unlike the stacked burrito, the tortillas in Amy's enchiladas remain intact with a toothsome consistency that provides texture to the dish. The downside to the entrée containing six enchiladas is the 27-ounce package is smaller than other family meals. Though tasty, it is not enough food to feed an entire family without adding rice and beans or a salad. The fat and calories are also high for a small amount of food. Each serving has 360 calories and 21 grams of fat. 

The meals are among the most expensive family-size products I tried. These factors keep these cheesy enchiladas in the middle of the family-size meal ranking. However, they were delicious. If you follow an organic diet and are looking for high-quality ingredients, Amy's is worth a try.

When opening Amy's Kitchen Pad Thai family-size meal box, I was struck with how delicious the organic family meal looked. It was by far the most appetizing dish visually. Pieces of large, bright green broccoli florets, julienned carrots, green onions, and tofu lay atop a bed of wide rice noodles. Amy's Kitchen makes its organic tofu in-house using only filtered water, organic soybeans, and magnesium chloride to help solidify the tofu. Crushed, organic, baked cashews finish the meal instead of the traditional peanuts you might find in other versions of the dish.

Though the total weight of the meal was smaller than some others, weighing 28.2 ounces, the size seemed larger with more substantial ingredients. Nutritionally, the dish is on par with other family-size meals' fat and calories. However, each portion has 18 grams of sugar, which is high and something to keep in mind if watching your diet's sugar content. 

The first taste of the dish was sweet, more so than I was expecting, even with the high sugar. I needed soy and hot sauce to balance the taste, bringing umami and more traditional Thai-style recipe flavors. Aside from the sweetness, it was a filling meal with a proper noodle-to-vegetable ratio. The meal is worth the price, which is expensive, in the $20 range. The cost and high sugar keep the dish from moving any higher in the ranking. Still, with some doctoring, it was an enjoyable vegetarian dinner.

Stouffer's takes mac and cheese seriously. The dish has been a part of the company since its earliest days. Today, you can enjoy a variety of mac and cheese options, including mac and cheese with broccoli, mac and cheese bites, and spicy nacho mac and cheese. However, the classic version, plain mac and cheese, is the best for my family, with a thick, 100% real cheddar cheese sauce blanketing tender elbow pasta. 

Each Stouffer's Mac & Cheese family meal includes five servings, costs under $10, and has about the same nutritional elements as others, with 310 calories, 14 grams of fat, and 13 grams of protein per serving. Though some sort of green vegetable or salad is needed to create a complete, well-balanced meal, Stouffer's satisfies with this creamy, gooey, indulgent mac and cheese, ranking it close to the top.

Stouffer's Lasagna Italiano combines an Italian sausage meat sauce and fresh tomato sauce with tender, caramelized onions, tomatoes, garlic, tangy ricotta cheese, tender pasta sheets, and a cheesy layer of mozzarella cheese. Each layer came together to create a rich, harmonious, hearty meal with Italian-inspired flavors that can easily feed a family of four. I even had leftovers, making the $10 meal an affordable option as well. 

Cooking the meal takes longer in the oven than other options, 75 minutes in the oven and an additional 15 minutes of resting time. If you need a quick-fix dinner, microwaving the entrée will cut almost an hour off your cooking time. Thankfully, the mozzarella layer on top of this lasagna remained on the dish after I removed the plastic wrapping. 

The meal includes a bioengineered ingredient I would prefer not to feed my family. However, Stouffer's lasagna as a whole was affordable, flavorful, and very filling, with similar nutrition as other meals. These factors rank the entrée close to the top.

Chinese take-out is an easy weeknight dinner, and chicken fried rice is always a favorite at my house. However, what if you can have authentic Asian flavors in a family meal prepared at home without a delivery fee? Birds Eye Voila! Chicken Fried Rice is one of the best family-size frozen meals, and best frozen chicken entrées, providing a well-proportioned mix of rice, chicken, and vegetables in an umami-filled sauce. The white meat chicken pieces are plentiful throughout the dish, melding with carrots, broccoli, peas, and eggs. The sauce blend includes soy sauce, sesame oil, vinegar, ginger, garlic, and sugar, creating a sweet and savory flavor, complementing the richness of the buttery fried rice, juicy chicken, and earthy vegetables. 

The best part of this dish is the 42-ounce size, which creates a complete meal that is filling. Where some of the family meals need a salad or additional side dish to ensure a well-balanced meal, this one is plenty on its own. The entrée was also one of the more affordable options we tried, with the meal costing less than $10, giving Birds Eye a top-five spot for its fried rice.

Bertolli offers a wide range of Italian specialties, including pasta and pizza sauces, olive oil, vinegar, and frozen Italian-style meals, all readily available at your local grocery store. Its chicken and pasta family meals are quick to prepare in a skillet, taking only 16 minutes on the stovetop, including Bertolli's Chicken Florentine & Farfalle family-size meal. 

The easy preparation isn't the only reason the dish ranks high on the list. This meal was one of the most flavorful in the taste test. The brand combines white wine, cream, and Italian cheeses into a rich sauce. While the sauce was not overly thick, it had a creamy consistency that was a tasty coating on the chicken, spinach, and pasta meal. Bertolli's chicken breast pieces were tender, juicy, and more substantial than in many of the dishes I tried. The pasta was tender, but not overcooked. 

The combination came together in an enjoyable, filling meal without the inclusion of artificial flavors or ingredients. Nutritionally, the dish is comparable to other options. The price of around $10 is also comparative, giving Bertolli a top evaluation. 

Marie Callender opened her first restaurant in Orange County in the 1960s. Since that time, the company has become one of the most recognizable brands for sweet and savory pies in America, operating 27 restaurants nationwide. From her start until today, Marie Callender's pies depict comfort food, including the company's chicken pot pie. Marie Callender's offers multiple pot pie options, including cheesy chicken with bacon and parmesan chicken. However, the classic chicken pot pie delivers nostalgic, familiar flavors that are delicious. 

Marie Callender's primary ingredients are all natural, including peas, carrots, celery, onions, and a ton of juicy, white meat chicken. These are baked in a buttery pastry crust with an unctuous gravy. The vegetables are quite soft; however, the flaky, crumbly pie crust added necessary texture to the dish, ensuring every bite had crunch. 

The 45-ounce family-size pot pie serves four easily, costing around $10. The pie's downside is the nutrition. Though the ingredients are of a high caliber, the calorie, fat, and sodium amounts are very high. Each portion has 32 grams of fat, 570 calories, and 1060 milligrams of sodium, almost half of the recommended daily allowance. Though Marie Callender's is one of the best, these elements keep the dinner from taking the top spot.

With any protein-filled frozen entrée, the hope is that there is an ample meat-to-starch ratio. Zatarain's comes close with its Blackened Chicken Alfredo family-size meal, the closest of any family meal I taste-tested. Not only is the protein plentiful, it is flavorful and juicy. 

To deliver the Creole taste of New Orleans, grilled white meat chicken receives a dusting of spicy red pepper and paprika blackening seasoning. The spice blend adds zestiness to the rich creaminess of the alfredo sauce. The combination lends complexity to the dish, making me wonder why more brands don't include Creole and Cajun seasoning in their chicken alfredo. These flavors co-mingle with generously sized penne pasta with just the right amount of bite. The size of the penne was twice as large as that in Birds Eye's alfredo. 

The 40-ounce package includes six servings per bag, easily feeding the whole family. The chicken and penne pasta dish can be conveniently microwaved in just five minutes, helping you get dinner on the table quickly. Nutritionally, each portion's fat, calories, and protein are similar to other family-meal options. Zatarain's meals are slightly more expensive, around $12. Still, the additional few dollars are worth the price as it is difficult to find fault in the dinner, ranking it in the top spot of frozen family-size meals.

To create this family-size frozen meal ranking, ingredients, portion size, nutrition, price, how filling each meal was, and mainly the flavor factored into the decisions. Producers may aim to provide wholesome meals. However, the caliber of some offerings was still higher than others. Better ingredients can often lead to better meals, yet expensive doesn't mean it's better. To prepare each dish, I opted for either cooking on the stovetop for the skillet meals or in the oven, forgoing the microwave option unless specifically instructed. This kept the integrity of the meals intact, ensuring an equal evaluation.