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The Tater Tot Brand To Avoid At The Grocery Store

We ranked tater tots as our absolute favorite type of french fry, which is saying a lot considering that there are over 20 different types to choose from. Of course, not all tater tots are created equal, whether you're making them from scratch or picking up a frozen bag at the grocery store. If you're going the easier store-bought route to satisfy your tater tot fix, we've done a taste test and ranking of 7 brands to help you make the best choice. While our taste tester found some real winners, the tater tot brand that she thinks you should avoid at all costs is Great Value.

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Walmart's store brand, Great Value, is true to its name, offering some of the cheapest prices compared to name brands. Unfortunately, the cheap price of Great Value tater tots doesn't compensate for its poor quality. The criteria for ranking tater tot brands were texture, taste, and oil content. Great Value tater tots fail in all three aspects. They were under-seasoned and bland, with a mushy, pulpy interior. And while cooking them according to the package directions crisped up the exterior, they were ultra-oily. Despite a promising golden-brown visual on the tater tot crust, the taste and overall consistency was as far away from a fried potato as you can get. According to reviews on Walmart's website, the tater tots have suffered over the last year or two due to what many customers surmise is a change in the product's recipe.

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How to salvage sub-par tater tots

If you've already purchased Great Value tater tots, you can try to correct the unfortunate texture. While the cooking instructions are to bake the whole bag on a tray at 425 degrees Fahrenheit or air fry half the bag at 360 degrees Fahrenheit, you can try increasing the temperature, the cooking times, or both. For example, you could increase the air fryer to 400 degrees Fahrenheit for the same 10 minute cook time. If you're using the oven method, you can tack on an extra 10 or 15 minutes to the cooking time, flipping the tots halfway through for even browning. You can also season them while they're hot, allowing the heat and oil content to dissolve and adhere to the crispy crust.

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While you might be able to salvage the taste with seasonings and introduce crispy crunch with altered cooking temperatures and times, the mashed-potato or instant potato center that we and negative customer reviews describe will be hard to overcome. You could try using a waffle iron, like this one from Dash on Amazon to take frozen tater tots to the next level, as the press will flatten a mashed potato center into a crispy waffle. Nevertheless the best way to ensure tasty frozen tater tots is to simply choose a better brand. Store-brands that ranked especially high on our list were Aldi's Season's Choice and Target's Market Pantry tater tots.

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