20 Popular Whole Foods Prepared Items, Ranked

Prepared food can be a real lifesaver. It's convenient, time-efficient, and gives you a nice breather from cooking (and cleaning) in your own kitchen. If you're looking for food that tastes like it could have emerged from your own kitchen, complete with high-quality organic ingredients, it's time to try the prepared foods counter at Whole Foods. 

Here, you can buy a delicious homestyle meal — complete with apps, entrees, salads, sides, and dessert if you so choose — and have it on the table as soon as you get home. But there's a catch: it's not all perfection. Some of the options are best left for those other customers who don't benefit from having this list on hand. Before your next visit to the grocery store, check out our ranking of the best-prepared foods, from the worst to the must-try. Some items were good enough to have us planning our next no-cook night thanks to Whole Foods Market. 

This was one of the few items that tried weren't predominantly impressive. A fun, jazzy "popcorn" snack has every promise of a winner since It's basically just an excuse to fry up small pieces of food and get in as much of that greasy, crunchy crust as possible. Unfortunately, these popcorn shrimp pieces took a good thing too far. 

Many of the bites only included a minuscule amount of shrimp, and what shrimp there was did not lend much flavor to the resulting dish. Instead, each bite was overwhelmingly fried, a ball of slightly soggy breading. The prominent flavor was sweet, not chili, which further reduced the savory shrimp-tasting notes. So, it was overall the sort of thing we'd expect from mediocre take-out.

Chicken Fried Tofu? Even though there's a meat product in the title, this is still a vegetarian dish and one that might be a great gateway to anyone who would like to have a more plant-based diet. The tofu is nothing like chicken, however, at least no particularly appetizing chicken. It's springy, chewy, and light as air — until it gets covered in batter and fried, that is. 

There's not a lot of flavor going on here, admittedly, but it's a solid buy nonetheless, particularly when singling out the hottest, crispiest pieces. The older, more chill nubbins were floppy and unappealing, similar to the worse pieces of popcorn shrimp. Definitely reheat if you can, and if the selection looks like it's been sitting out for a while, maybe go for something else. 

Could this list have included any food more plain and simple as chicken breast? But before you keep scrolling to something more complex, just know that once again Whole Foods surprised us by cooking up one of the more tender, juicy, and clean-tasting chicken breasts that ever landed on an unsuspecting audience. 

Naturally, it doesn't have the strongest flavor or most clickbait panache, not when there is literally just a handful of ingredients: Olive oil, chicken, salt, and pepper. It's refreshingly home-cooked, letting the inherent flavor of the poultry come through. Endlessly useful, you can easily throw this multifunctional protein source on lunch salads five days a week without complaint. It is the quintessential upgrade to anything from a well-dressed Caesar to a hearty Southwestern-style plate.

Probably the pinkest of the pink foods, the one perpetrator to rule them all is the lowly beet. That's because a beet becomes a lot less lowly when you realize that if you're not careful, everyone from your fingertips to your lovely white dress shirt will be covered in magenta speckles like Barbie herself ran amuck with a permanent marker. 

Each chunk of beet is soft and velvety, with that rich, fruity, earthy taste of a good root vegetable. But, thanks to the addition of onions that also get feverishly pink by proxy, the salad is a little extra savory, and thanks to the splash of orange and tahini dressing, it's got some uplifting nutty and citrusy top notes. The chefs at Whole Foods did a fantastic job making this humble ingredient sing by surrounding it with good company. 

Brussels sprouts might once have been decreed the most hated of all vegetables, but now it has experienced a major resurgence in popularity. Whole Foods doesn't just throw some sprouts on a sheet pan with salt and pepper and call it good, though. 

Yup, a creamy Sriracha-based sauce is simply fabulous on Brussels sprouts — is there anything that hot sauce can't do? Anyway, once again, Whole Foods goes big on flavor and leaves nothing to be desired in texture. The layers of leaves on each sprout get lovely and silky but never oily. If you want to have your leftovers in a new way and own an air fryer, stick them in. They get so impossibly crispy, almost like they were truly deep-fried.

Regular pulled-style pork, which Whole Foods also has, is always a delicacy. A hearty, meaty delicacy but a real treat. The Achiote Pork, however, is unique. That fire-red color is thanks to the annatto seed, which also provides a subtle nutty, savory finish that's less spicy than spiced. Peppery and warm? Absolutely. 

There's enough fat still on the meat to give flavor but not too much to turn us off. And lastly, like all the best meat, the strands of pork are tender, never chewy. It would doubtless taste great in a quesadilla with a blob of guac on top. Cheese is always a must, but when the meat is this flamboyant, even we can admit that it is barely necessary. This pork can stand up for itself. 

The most notable thing about the Whole Foods BBQ Chicken is the size of each hunk of meat. Seriously, it was huge, and this wasn't even the biggest piece available at the counter. You might not think of a take-out meal from the grocery store as something super hearty, but trust us, this will keep you full. If you love BBQ sauce, the meat is smothered with a thick, brick-red, sweeter-than-spicy layer of the stuff. It wasn't the best-tasting sauce we've ever tried, but hey, if you'd rather have just a hint of BBQ flavor than a mouthful, feel free to simply scoop it off. 

You can have it your way because, underneath the sauce, the chicken is cooked to perfection. It's so moist, with a subtle smoky flavor and juicy texture. We thought we couldn't get enough of it, but recalling the generous portion size, indeed we could.

These Chili Lime Sweet Potatoes have far more of a flavor impact than meets the eye. Full disclosure, it's easy to love sweet potatoes in just about any form, and many are probably aware of the warm, cozy cinnamon casseroles at Thanksgiving. But flavoring sweet potatoes in the classic spicy and acidic flavors that are found in nachos or ceviche is a new angle. It turned out to be a great idea, because the small amount of heat balances out the small, inherent sweetness of the spuds, plus the fresh acidity of lime balances that earthiness.

They melted in our mouths and tasted like they had been roasted or baked low and slow, letting every ounce of flavor develop and bloom. Also, they are a pleasantly healthy mode of eating complex carbohydrates, full of nutrients and vitamins. Eating them cold from the fridge is great, too.

Stuffed grape leaves, or dolmas, are always worth keeping in your pantry. But even still, they are very hit-or-miss. At least they are in this country; it's more than likely that they're all hits if you're nibbling them in the Mediterranean. That being said, our Whole Foods is not located in Greece, and we were primed for the worst. No need for pessimism, because these dolmas are delicious. 

Nuggets of briny, umami-rich grape leaves wrap around soft, savory rice to make an elegant yet convenient mouthful bursting with more flavor than our taste buds knew what to do with. We can only imagine what the real deal can deliver when the Whole Foods version is so enjoyable. Time to schedule a flight to Greece, apparently.

The best result of these taste tests is finding dishes that far exceed expectations. For better or worse, what screams "Whole Foods" more than a kale salad, particularly one with very few accouterments? And also, what food is less exciting? But this Garlicky Kale Salad was one of the best things, salad or otherwise, that we put in our mouths during this taste test. Fair warning: There's a reason that "garlic" is the first word in the title. How in the world did the chefs at Whole Foods manage to rub so much aromatic, warm, slow-roasted garlic flavor into every leafy green? If you don't like garlic, you might want to steer clear, but if you're a garlic fiend, you might suddenly find it much easier to eat kale on the regular. 

Parmesan is a natural partner, and each shred of cheese clings nicely to the greens and coats them with a little extra luxury. There is a crouton topping, too, which is always appreciated. The kale is tender and soft, not at all tough or cruciferous like it can sometimes be. Basically, this salad tastes absolutely divine and will actually make you look forward to eating it. A true success story!