Celebrity Chef Frozen Meals, Ranked Worst To Best, According To Customers
Celebrity chefs are experts in their field. They know food: where to find it, how to make it, and we love them for this. We watch them on TV, eat at their restaurants, and buy products that bear their names — even if that product is a frozen meal. Since frozen meals are typically reserved for occasions where quick and easy trounces scratch-made quality, it doesn't seem like the kind of food a celeb chef would promote, much less turn into a brand. Still, a few prolific chefs have done exactly that. Are their frozen meals any good? We took a deep dive into customer reviews to find out.
Food Network stars Kardea Brown and Guy Fieri announced the release of their frozen meals in the summer of 2023, which are being sold exclusively at Walmart. They weren't the only TV chefs to jump on Walmart's big-name frozen food bandwagon. Andrew Zimmern of "Bizzare Foods" fame also climbed aboard ... as did the one and only Gordon Ramsay.
These are not the first celebrity chefs to embark on the frozen meal circuit; well-known chefs like Wolfgang Puck and Ree Drummond have done so in the past. Veteran celeb chef Ming Tsai is currently working his frozen food muscle through Whole Foods, Big Y, and elsewhere. Want to know who struck a chord and who struck out in the freezer aisle? This is our list of celebrity chef frozen meals ranked from worst to best.
Read more: Frozen Pizzas, Ranked From Worst To Best
Guy Fieri's Flavortown Sweet & Sour Pork Bowl
Guy Fieri is a huge Food Network star, best known for his shock of platinum spikes and frequent journeys to Flavortown, a mythical utopia where Fieri is the mayor and the food reaches unchartered heights of awesomeness. Now, Flavortown has come to a frozen food aisle near you, courtesy of Fieri's new frozen meal line. The meals, sold under the label "Guy Fieri's Flavortown," consist of four bowls: Cheesy Chicken Enchilada Bowl, Cheesy Lasagna with Pepperoni Marinara Sauce, Sloppy Joe Mac & Cheese, and Sweet & Sour Pork Bowl. So, how does the popular chef interpret pre-made frozen Chinese? Not well.
Fieri fans were let down by the Sweet & Sour Pork Bowl. First, all of Fieri's Flavortown bowls cost $5.94 each, and the portion-to-price ratio left many feeling quite literally unfulfilled. The paper vessel is cereal bowl small and barely halfway filled with contents, though in the case of this bowl, perhaps the less you consume, the better. Sweet and Sour is such a classic Chinese sauce. However, Fieri's version fails to hit the tangy notes that the sauce is known for — and the addition of soggy pineapple chunks doesn't help. One of the biggest criticisms of Fieri's Sweet & Sour Pork Bowl is the poor-quality, fatty shredded pork that is a bit off in color and taste. The other major diss is the price tag, with a lot of reviews insisting that your $5.94 will be better spent elsewhere.
Caramelized Onion Pulled Pork Mac & Cheese By Andrew Zimmern
In an interview with Broken Palate, Andrew Zimmern, the charismatic TV host of Travel Channel fame, was asked about the inspiration behind his latest venture: frozen meals. Zimmern began by saying, "I wanted to create meals that the most number of people would find appealing." Unfortunately, the Walmart exclusive line is proving to be a bit of a miss, especially the Caramelized Onion Pulled Pork Mac & Cheese.
One look at the meal choices in Zimmern's frozen repertoire, and you get the sense of classic American family dinners. Caramelized Onion Pulled Pork Mac & Cheese is joined by Meatloaf with Mashed Potatoes, Swedish Style Meatballs, and Turkey Dinner. Although Caramelized Onion Pulled Pork Mac & Cheese sounds the most modern of the four, it is the least appealing to reviewers. Our Mashed taste test of Andrew Zimmern's frozen dinners ranked Caramelized Onion Pulled Pork Mac & Cheese last. Zimmern isn't the first frozen food purveyor guilty of selling a meal that looks nothing like it does on the box. However, the grayish paleness of the pulled pork and caramelized onion sauce is offputting.
Frozen meals that come out of the microwave looking watery can often be helped with a few vigorous stirs, yet that doesn't do much to help the blatant lack of flavor in the mac & cheese or the missing savoriness from the pork or onions — it all gets lost inside the bowl of uniformly mushy textures.
Lemon Caper Chicken By Chef Ramsay
The hypocritical streak that runs through Gordon Ramsay's frozen food deal with Walmart is lost on no one. Ramsay has shamed countless restaurant owners for relying on microwaves, but when it comes to business, the man is no dummy. He knows microwaving a frozen dinner on a short lunch break or a busy evening is not the same as serving microwaved brisket to paying customers at a smokehouse. That said, we're left wondering if Ramsay himself would eat his own Lemon Caper Chicken frozen meal.
Lemon Caper Chicken By Chef Ramsay is a take on a traditional Italian dish. The breaded chicken breast and bite-sized potatoes deserve the attention of an oven. However, only microwave directions are provided on the box. Reviews pointed out that the fried chicken cutlet flavor does come through, and the broccoli is decent, but the microwave heat makes the lemon white wine sauce goopy and emphasizes the un-crispness of the potatoes. Reddit reviewers who maintained the perspective that they were eating a frozen meal and not sitting in one of Ramsay's restaurants said they would buy the Lemon Caper Chicken again. The TikTok crowd, not so much. One taste-tester on the platform rated it a two out of ten, and perhaps inspired by Ramsay's legacy of brutal quips, commented: The sauce is a little sus looking ... I wouldn't be able to tell this was lemon if I was eating this blind.
Guy Fieri's Flavortown Sloppy Joe Mac & Cheese
Frozen meals aren't known for being all that healthy, so if you only eat them occasionally, opting for a comfort food-inspired dish makes sense. The Sloppy Joe Mac & Cheese from Guy Fieri's Flavortown brand sounds like a cheesy, meaty bowl of satisfaction. We hate to disappoint you, but this frozen meal doesn't live up to its indulgent description. Fieri's choice to use wavy cavatappi noodles brought something a little unexpected to the situation, but the cheese necessary to make this a proper mac & cheese ensemble tastes artificial. It is mostly swallowed by another dominating flavor: meat grease.
It's somewhat confusing why the cheese and sloppy joe sauce are overpowered by greasiness because one of the main complaints from reviewers is an unignorable lack of meat (the front of the box promises ground beef and pork). Surely, Fieri didn't intend his Sloppy Joe Mac & Cheese to miss the exit for Flavortown in such catastrophic fashion, but sifting your fork through noodles tinged with notes of processed cheese and steeped in a shallow pool of grease is what you should brace yourself for when you pull this out of the microwave.
Turkey Dinner By Andrew Zimmern
When comparing celebrity chef frozen meals, it's clear that the paper bowl is the new partition tray. All of the celeb chefs with Walmart exclusives present their frozen meals in this vessel. That decision is one of the not-so-great aspects of Turkey Dinner By Andrew Zimmern.
Turkey with veggies and mashed potatoes on the side was one of the first TV dinners to hit the market in the 1950s, and the partitioned tray it was served on became a hallmark of the meal. Zimmern serving his turkey dinner in a bowl is both misleading and a bit unappetizing.
Unlike Guy Fieri's Flavortown offerings, which are marketed as bowls, Zimmern's turkey dinner is shown on the box as roasted turkey, mashed potatoes, and green beans sectioned off from one another. Once you see the meal in real life, it becomes clear that crowding the components of the turkey dinner into a bowl means they will have to be eaten on top of each other. This will disappoint some, yet there's a silver lining to the situation. When Mashed ranked Andrew Zimmern's frozen dinners the turkey earned first place. Aside from the obvious criticism of false-ish advertising, our review acknowledges that the potatoes are fluffy and the turkey is moist — though the portion inside the paper bowl might not be filling enough for a hungry person.
Guy Fieri's Flavortown Cheesy Chicken Enchilada Bowl
Fieri puts a Mexican twist into his Flavortown frozen meal lineup with the Cheesy Chicken Enchilada Bowl, and it turned out to be his most successful. His enchilada sauce gets the job done, and there's a plentiful amount of meat in the bowl. Reviewers call Fieri out on not packaging the tortilla strips separately so that they can be stirred into the meal after it's ready, and they couldn't be more right. Enduring five minutes in the microwave makes what could have been a much-needed crunchy element in the Cheesy Chicken Enchilada Bowl fade into the mush.
Quality issues continue to plague Fieri's Flavortown meals. Processed cheese is hardly the worst crime committed by frozen meal manufacturers, but you would think a celebrity chef would pay a little more attention to the meat being put into meal boxes that bear his name and likeness. Fieri tries to pull a fast one with the "pulled chicken" inside this bowl. The ingredients list indicates some mysterious additives to the chicken, such as "Rib Meat," which could make someone think twice about what they are about to ingest. Although we agree with TikTok's lukewarm acceptance that the Cheesy Chicken Enchilada Bowl is the best of the lot, it doesn't change the fact that Fieri's new path to Flavortown is paved with a trail of overpriced frozen meals.
Lasagna With Bolognese Meat Sauce By Chef Ramsay
We, too, are struggling to embrace Chef Ramsay as the proud papa of a frozen meal line. He has simply said so much against it over the years. Ramsay is a shrewd businessman who is almost certainly aware of the conflicting nature of his face on a frozen dinner, and maybe that's why he agreed to film himself tasting the frozen Lasagna with Bolognese Meat Sauce he wants you to buy. He stands in a pristine model kitchen and eats his lasagna from a pristine white dish (no paper bowl for this A-lister). He even refers to the lasagna as "the family recipe." So how does Chef Ramsay's Lasagna with Bolognese Meat Sauce really taste?
It tastes alright. Ramsay's lasagna isn't as salty as some of the other frozen meals in his line (it's still 39% sodium with 900 milligrams per serving), and there is a good amount of ricotta cheese between the lasagna noodles. Some taste testers said it is his best frozen meal they had tried, even if those reviews weren't exactly glowing. Chef Ramsay's Lasagna with Bolognese Meat Sauce has a sauced surface that doesn't handle the microwave well and comes out with a puckered, splattery look (naturally, the top of the piece Chef Ramsay ate did not look like that ). Also, it's on the greasy side, making the sauce underneath the pasta thin and oily.
Mings Bings Plant-Based Cheeseburger
Famed chef Ming Tsai made a name for himself by familiarizing cooking show audiences with Chinese-American fusion on shows like "East Meets West" and "Simply Ming." Now, the "Iron Chef" champ brings a multicultural flair to the frozen food aisle with Mings Bings, which first hit stores in 2020. Never heard of a bing? It's a Chinese flatbread that dates back centuries and remains a popular national street food. Mings Bings get a modern makeover by filling the flatbread with plant-based protein and Americanized ingredients, like Cheeseburger.
A huge selling point of the Cheeseburger Bing is that it's vegan and gluten-free. Using soy-based burger substitute from vegan brand Uncut and vegan cheddar cheese, Tsai creates a convenient yet filling handheld snack. Many customer reviews have applauded the Cheeseburger Bing as a tasty frozen option that satisfies their dietary restrictions. Non-vegans enjoy them, too.
Not all the feedback has been positive. Complaints range from the price — $5.99 for a box of two bings — to breaking apart and making a mess in the air fryer or oven (these are the recommended heating methods). Others cite a lack of flavor, too much grease, and too many chemical ingredients.
Delicious Eats By Kardea Brown Country Kitchen Chicken Pot Pie
She may be a new-school face on Food Network, but thanks to the success of her cooking show "Delicious Miss Brown," Kardea Brown has become a celebrity chef. The Charleston, South Carolina native is all about Low Country cooking, a unique culinary style that marries bold Southern flavors with the West African cuisine of the region's Gullah community. Considering the popularity of Brown's recipes like Curry Chicken Pot Pie, launching a collection of frozen meals seems like a way for the TV chef to reach an even larger audience. And since chicken pot pies are already a hit in the frozen dinner aisle, Brown included Country Kitchen Chicken Pot Pie in her line, which is called Delicious Eats.
If you like your frozen chicken pot pie with the usual salt-forward gravy, chicken, and veggies encased in pie crust, expect Brown's interpretation to be different. Hers is salty but goes heavier on garlic and pepper flavors — which some reviewers note as a highlight. The crust is a circle of pastry sitting atop the pie, but doesn't go further. Several customers said the flaky crust redeemed the filling, which misses the mark, taste and texture-wise. Others found the crust tough and struggled to cut through it with a fork. Overall, the reviews of Brown's Country Kitchen Chicken Pot Pie are decidedly mixed.
Shepherd's Pie By Chef Ramsay
This one isn't going to earn accolades in the looks department, but Chef Ramsay's Shepherd's Pie fared well in the Mashed ranking of Gordon Ramsay's frozen dinners. Ramsay's Shepherd's Pie is made with ground beef in tomato sauce mixed with peas and carrots and topped with cheesy mashed potatoes. The good news is that the cheesy potatoes are a nice element in the dish, giving it the desired comfort food feel. Flip over the box, and you'll see that the ingredients are what they claim to be — although less than 2% of the frozen meal is peas and carrots, and the nutrition facts reveal 1.5 grams of trans fat. Then again, no one popped a Shepherd's Pie in the microwave and expected it to come out as diet food.
A TikTok taste test yielded less favorable results than ours. One reviewer could not move past the greasy surface, saying, "Gordon Ramsay, I am appalled; this is a piece of slop." and lamented over its mushy texture and lackluster flavor. This Shepherd's Pie is nowhere near homemade quality, but Walmart customers are mostly satisfied, giving it an average rating of 3.8 out of 5 stars.
Mings Bings Fiesta Bing!
For frozen food fans who love tacos and quick, heat-and-eat meals, Mings Bings' Fiesta Bing! might do the trick. The vegan and gluten-free Fiesta Bing! combines plant-based chorizo from the vegan-friendly brand Before the Butcher with bell peppers, black beans, and shredded vegan cheddar for a zesty taco-inspired variation of the bing, a stuffed flatbread native to China. As we've seen, celebrity chefs' ability to make frozen meals taste good has been quite challenging, but Fiesta Bing! Chef Ming Tsai has cracked the code.
Target customers have given the Fiesta Bing! a near-perfect average rating of 4.9 stars, and it's earned a seal of approval on Twitter, too. Many customer reviews point out that the plant-based chorizo has a genuine sausage taste with just the right amount of zip. Reviewers have also said that of all the Mings Bings flavors (and there are many), Fiesta Bing! is their favorite. The only major ding about this bing is a grumble from a few customers that it's not always easy to find it in stock.
Delicious Eats By Kardea Brown Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo
Shortly after Kardea Brown released her Delicious Eats frozen meals, she took to Instagram to express her nervous excitement about the new products. "Moment of transparency ..." she wrote, "I was so afraid to come out with this frozen food line because I didn't know how it was going to be received." before going on to thank her fans (whom she calls "Cousins") for their enthusiasm and support for Brown's brand. Delicious Eats by Kardea Brown includes Country Kitchen Chicken Pot Pie, Country Kitchen Fried Chicken with Mashed Potatoes & Gravy, Sausage & Grits, and Southern Kitchen Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo. The Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo is the best.
The seasoned, diced grilled chicken breast and spicy Alfredo sauce accented with collard greens and red peppers give this Italian pasta dish the Southern treatment. Customers appreciate the uniqueness of the dish, with its al dente noodles, moist chicken, and herbaceous, cheesy sauce. Less adventurous eaters didn't love the liberties Brown took with this classic, but the five-star reviews far outnumbered lower ratings.
Mings Bings Plant-Based Veggie Egg & Cheese
While other celebrity chefs churn out frozen dinners, Iron Chef Ming Tsai beguiles the public with Mings Bings, a product that lends itself to a lot of versatility thanks to its simple format. Tsai's bings are made with a crispy brown rice wrapper, stuffed with various vegan and gluten-free fillings, and folded into a square. Buffalo Cauliflower and Plant-Based Cheesesteak are some of Tsai's eclectic bing flavors, yet it's his Plant-Based Veggie Egg & Cheese Breakfast Bing that stands out as the best in the group.
Tsai's Breakfast Bings fit perfectly within the frozen breakfast segment, where handheld meals like egg sandwiches and toaster pastries are popular options for quick morning meals on the go. The Plant-Based Veggie & Cheese Bing contains vegan eggs courtesy of Tsai's collaboration with JUST Egg, as well as potatoes, Violife cheddar (also vegan), spinach, peppers, and onions.
Online taste tests praised the Plant-Based Veggie & Cheese Bing's layers of texture and flavorful vegetables that don't have a watered-down, out-of-the-freezer taste. Tsai has also garnered adoration for putting a thoughtful spin on a street food many Westerners aren't familiar with. Other Breakfast Bings selections include Plant-Based Chorizo, Egg & Cheese, Plant-Based Egg & Cheese, and Plant-Based Sausage, Egg & Cheese but it's the combination of greens and potatoes with the egg that makes the veggie Breakfast Bing a real winner in the frozen food aisle.
Read the original article on Mashed.
