I Tried And Ranked 10 Frozen Turkey Dinners

There's one annual meal that rivals all others. It creeps up on us in November, the unofficial kickoff to the holiday season. You know the one I'm referring to. The day we all gobble gobble our way through a feast of comfort foods. That's right, we're talking about Thanksgiving and its famous turkey dinner.

It's a grand tradition to serve the bird on this day each year with a mound of other savory side dishes. But who said this same marvelous meal can't be enjoyed on other occasions as well? Like a random Tuesday night or a lazy Sunday afternoon. Thanks to frozen dinners, it can be, and without the hassle of endless dishes or the stress of figuring out how much food you'll need for the big holiday get-together. Brands have packaged up all that turkey goodness into easy, microwavable meals. Let's take a closer look at which ones actually deliver those Thanksgiving Day feels — along with a mini tryptophan coma. I picked up 10 frozen turkey dinners to sample and ranked them from worst to best.

I looked at the turkey first and foremost, ensuring it was plentiful, tender, and juicy. But everyone knows a great dinner is only as good as its sides, so I made sure they complemented the meat and were flavorful in their own right. Now, let's dig into this taste test to find which frozen turkey dinners deserve a spot in your microwave and a seat at your table.

You can always count on Banquet for a cheap frozen dinner. Case in point, I paid a couple of dollars for this box. If you're looking for a tasty and filling frozen dinner, though, you may need to look elsewhere.

By the looks of it (and the verbiage on the packaging), this is a classic comfort meal. It includes turkey with gravy and dressing, plus a side of both mashed potatoes and sweet peas. The brand also makes sure to tout the fact that the mashed potatoes are made with real cream. It sounds so inviting. Then, you dig in and wish you had never accepted that invitation. I was actually scared to try this thin-sliced turkey since it comes in different colors. The one on top is light, while the two underneath come in more of a brown shade. The box confirms that both white and dark meat turkey are included, but either way, all three pieces were chewy with a flavor as though they had gone bad. Bleh.

The watery gravy and small bits of stuffing weren't flavorful enough to make the turkey any more appealing. The same way that real cream was useless against a mound of dehydrated potato flakes and granules. The only good thing that came out of the box was the snappy, sweet peas dressed in salt. So, with just one small win under its belt, Banquet easily earned the title of the most disappointing turkey dinner I tried.

This meal gets back to the meat and potatoes of things. The brand doesn't bother with any kind of supporting veggies, which doesn't seem like that smart of a decision for a brand called Smart Ones. You'd think it would want to include a bit more nutritional value, but I guess it was mostly focused on keeping the protein count high and the calorie count low.

What it does include is a hefty amount of plump, slow-roasted turkey breast medallions. It's one of the most turkey-heavy meals in the taste test, which also explains where those 19 grams of protein came from. The meat itself is juicy and well-cooked. It simply doesn't have a ton of flavor. The classic pan gravy that it sits in — made from dried broth, water, food starch, carrot juice concentrate, salt, and other spices — comes off diluted, and it doesn't elevate the turkey beyond making it moist.

I could have made my peace with the mediocre turkey. But the mashed potatoes are unforgivable. Certainly don't expect the tastes of garlic and herbs that are promised on the box. Instead, you can look forward to a texture like that of runny Cream of Wheat with a flavor as bland as the hot cereal. Then, be ready for the potatoes to leave you with an unpleasant chalky taste sitting on your palate. Needless to say, the meal in its entirety didn't fare well, and surpassed only Banquet in the rankings — though not by much.

If nothing else, Healthy Choice has ingenuity on its side. As part of the brand's Café Steamers line, the meal comes in a microwavable bowl with a strainer on top. The food sits in the strainer with the sauce in the bowl below. You microwave everything at once, then pour the food into the sauce afterwards. So innovative.

I clearly love the cooking contraption, and I see the fresh and healthy vision the brand was going for here, but it's not well-executed. Mostly, its faults have to do with the turkey. I counted three whole pieces of the poultry, and they appeared pink and raw. They didn't taste very good either — chewy with next to no flavor. For a "turkey dinner," this was a sad showing.

The rest is okay. You have a potato double feature of both Russet and sweet potatoes. Both are palatable enough with a bite that's tender yet not too mushy. A handful of bright, squeaky green beans is also included, as well as a few extra-tart, apple juice-infused dried cranberries. I think all of it would have been a bit better with a bolder-tasting sauce. It's supposed to be a honey pepper glaze, and it has some sweetness to it, but it's weak overall. The good news is it weighs in at 240 calories for the entire container, and it's an improvement compared to Smart Ones' unsavory potatoes and Banquet's mess of a meal.

Banquet attempts to redeem itself with this Mega Meats turkey meal. The premise of this line is how it sounds: to add more meat. In doing so, it ups the protein count to a whopping 26 grams, putting the Smart Ones meal, with its 19 grams of protein, to shame.

With all this meaty buildup, I expected big things. What I got was two bologna-sized slices of turkey. It has decent flavor, though, so I'll give it that. It's roasted for a light smoky taste and is cooked with brown sugar for a hint of sweetness. It also swims in a brown, sauce-like gravy that's extra salty. The surrounding stuffing does its best to make up for the overload of sodium, tasting surprisingly homemade with classic flavors of onion and celery. On the flip side, the mashed potatoes are about as appealing as the batch from the first Banquet box (a.k.a. hardly appealing at all). And these don't even use real cream, but rather a dried dairy blend, which leaves them bland and a little pasty.

Even though this meal doesn't quite live up to its "Mega Meats" description, there are still a few bright spots here. Between the nicely seasoned stuffing and the lightly smoky turkey, it's a step in the right direction, and the closest any box has come so far to capturing that cozy, Thanksgiving-inspired comfort meal I'm searching for.

Lean Cuisine offers a meal quite similar to Healthy Choice, but it does it better. You have to get past the uninspiring look. The dinner includes roasted turkey tenderloins, roasted potatoes, green beans, and dried cranberries, all soaking in a light gravy. It comes across as a healthful, real-ingredient kind of meal. There are only about three slices of turkey, but they're larger, tender, and juicy. The potatoes are soft and well-cooked, and the green beans taste perky and fresh. When you get a bite of everything together — including a burst of sweetness from the cranberries — you get a nice spectrum of flavors and textures that actually feels balanced.

I only have a few complaints. For one, it could use a bit more depth overall. Namely, a richer gravy would go a long way toward tying everything together. The current one has turkey stock, turkey fat, chicken powder, and other ingredients. So, it doesn't bring much character to the plate. My other gripe is that, in my eyes, it's not a full meal. At 180 calories, it's far from the kind of dinner that fills you up on turkey day. I think I would be ready for a snack only an hour after polishing it off. These two criticisms aside, I can still appreciate the effort to create a lighter option, especially one that manages to taste this fresh from the microwave.

Don't judge a book by its cover on this one. Yes, it looks rather shoddy. I was certainly questioning the strange yin and yang blend of mashed potatoes and turkey feeding into the gravy-soaked dressing. Not to mention the choice of shredded carrots in the veggie medley rather than dices or slices ... But somehow, it all comes together to form a pretty decent meal.

The turkey holds its own, a bit dry, but with a nice roasted flavor that feels genuine. The mashed potatoes land somewhere between sticky and creamy, yet they're better than any of the others I tried up to this point. They even use real butter, which magically makes anything more enticing. The dressing turns into a bit of a goo in the made-from-scratch gravy, but it's a tasty goo. The bread cubes in the stuffing bring personality thanks to the use of shortening, onions, celery, and a strong hit of sage. The gravy itself deserves some credit, too. It brings character to the table with a blend of chicken glace, Chardonnay wine, milk, butter, garlic, and spices that unify all the flavors. The vegetables are your average everyday frozen mix, nothing more, nothing less. They serve their purpose as a colorful sidekick.

With everything taken into account, this ends up as a middle-of-the-road frozen turkey dinner. Not the most memorable plate, but one that's respectable. Thanks, Marie.

Stouffer's is a big name in the world of frozen dinners. The brand may not be credited with creating the first-ever TV dinner — that honor goes to the Swanson Brothers – but its frozen lasagnas and mac and cheese have become staples in freezers across the country. And I have to say, I think its roast turkey dinner deserves some praise as well.

I counted five decently sized slices of white meat turkey in the tray. It keeps the skin on, which helps give it a rotisserie-style appeal that's moist and savory. The juice it's sitting in, described as a homestyle gravy, adds a welcome dose of saltiness and an extra layer of meaty richness. The stuffing that escapes the gravy stays fairly crunchy, which makes sense considering the ingredient list actually calls them croutons. Even so, it tastes well seasoned, with just enough onion, celery, and salt folded in. There's also a lot of mashed taters in this container, which make up nearly half the meal. Thankfully, they're not offensive. The texture still leans a bit gummy, like many frozen varieties, but the buttery flavor (and what tastes like a hint of cream) makes up for it.

All in all, Stouffer's roast turkey dinner stands out as one of the better options in this frozen food lineup. It's unlikely to ever eclipse the brand's iconic mac and cheese or lasagna, but it continues to prove that Stouffer's knows its way around comfort food.

This is the first offering that truly feels like a Thanksgiving-sized meal. It even comes with its own little dessert. How cute is that? It makes it seem like the adult version of a kid's Lunchable, and I'm all for that.

Getting into the taste, the bird and all its accompanying sides come together nicely. Even though the turkey is carved so thin it could almost pass as deli meat, it still works thanks to its pure white meat and clean, natural flavor. Plus, you actually get a respectable portion with four full slices. They're backed up by a well-seasoned stuffing and mashed potatoes, both drenched in a savory brown gravy. The dressing is on par with a boxed mix like Stove Top, which I personally have no problem with. In fact, it's my family's go-to stuffing during the holidays. The mashed potatoes are also creamy enough to make you forget they're made from dried flakes. As for the veggies, including a blend of corn, green beans, and carrots, they're about as fresh as frozen vegetables can be.

Even with all that, the real star of the show might be the sweet treat at the end: a cranberry-apple compote. It's like the filling of a pie, without the crust, and it's perfectly sweet, juicy, and not too tart. The ideal finish to a nostalgic and filling turkey dinner. If you want classic, go with Hungry-Man.

Lean Cuisine one-ups even itself with its Glazed Turkey Tenderloins meal. The brand's signature roasted turkey and vegetables never stood a chance against this version — it's that much better.

From turkey to cranberries, this grouping of ingredients has it all. The turkey is extra juicy and tender to the point where I can't wrap my head around how it came out of a box. It sits atop a bed of stuffing that's fluffy with all the right stuffing spices. What makes the bird and bread combo really pop is the gravy and added cranberries. As a mix of chicken broth, dried soy sauce, onions, celery, sugar, and other spices, the gravy is balanced between sweet and savory. The cranberries are then scattered throughout, adding bursts of tartness that offer even more flavor complexity. The combination feels like Thanksgiving dinner's cool, modern cousin. It's comforting and familiar, but upgraded.

And we haven't even gotten to the best part: the sweet potatoes. They're whipped to a silky consistency, and thanks to a mixture of milk, sugar, molasses, and vanilla extract, they taste more like a dessert than a side dish. All that's missing is the layer of toasted mini marshmallows on top — we have Angelus Marshmallows to thank for that sweet combo. With this component leaving a great taste in my mouth, this entire meal won me over. It easily landed as one of my faves.

You can't go wrong with a pot pie, whether it's a classic frozen chicken pot pie, filled with hearty beef, or even teeming with turkey. Marie Callender's helps to prove that. She not only knows her way around sweet frozen pies, but also the savory variety. And her turkey rendition is a turkey dinner dream.

No, it's not your standard turkey meal with mashed potatoes, stuffing, and cranberry sauce. But it holds as much savory and wholesome appeal. It's stuffed with cooked and diced turkey, carrots, peas, celery, and onions, all encased in a flaky pie crust. This is actually the only meal on the list that I cooked in the oven rather than the microwave (because microwaving a pot pie would be a crime), and the extra cooking time was well worth it. The crust came out buttery and crumbly around the edges — usually my favorite part of the entire dish — and everything inside was as flavorful. The turkey was tender and juicy, soaking in a gravy that's not overly salty and slightly creamy from non-fat dry milk and cream.

The serving size is the entire pie, which is good because I wouldn't have wanted to share anyway — though it's sure to put you straight into a post-dinner nap. It may not be the most traditional kind of turkey dinner, but it's a reliable choice that's sure to please every time, and it's my favorite of the taste test.

Microwave turkey dinners may not sound all that appealing at first — and many don't inspire much confidence with their looks either. But there were some surprisingly great meals in this mix. I just had to weed out a few bad ones to find them. As I ranked, I looked at the meat itself first. This is a "turkey" dinner, after all, so I wanted meals that actually included a decent amount of it. I also wanted the turkey to be tender, juicy, and flavorful. From there, I turned my attention to the side dishes and the obligatory gravy in every tray.

For any microwaved sides, texture is a major concern. Mashed potatoes are notoriously hard to get right in this format, and many meals suffered because of it. Any gummy, astronaut food-like potatoes were not well received. I looked for veggies that still had some freshness and snap, and stuffing that was soft rather than dry or overly crisp and seasoned with a classic blend of herbs and spices. Gravy needed to be rich and not too watery, but at the same time not too salty.

I also appreciated when meals paid a small tribute to cranberries — either mixed into the dish or, in Hungry-Man's case, as part of a sweet dessert. It's those small touches and attention to detail that make a frozen turkey dinner stand out.