The Worst Store-Bought Chicken Dumplings Aren't Terrible, They Just Need Something More

Dumplings are one of those perfect foods to buy in the frozen section of the grocery store. Yes, you can make them yourself, but it is a lot of work prepping the filling and carefully folding each individual little parcel. The bag of dumplings in the freezer section gives you a lot less control, but you can get them from the fridge to the table in just a few minutes. Though, depending on the brand you buy, you might need a little more work to get them to a place that you'll be happy to serve and eat them. According to the Tasting Table ranking of store-bought chicken dumplings by Samantha Maxwell, this is especially true when it comes to Signature Select Chicken Potstickers.

In her ranking, they fell to the very bottom of the list — but that is not to say that they are entirely without merit. On the plus side, they are a low-cost option, and they have plenty of chicken in the filling. The downside to these dumplings is that they simply don't have a whole lot of flavor. She noted that the wrappers were on the thick side, the vegetables (cabbage and scallions) were hardly detectable, and even the chicken itself barely registered a salty note on the palate. That said, it's not too tough a task to take a tedious plate of potstickers and turn them into a delicious meal. At its simplest, all you need is a succulent sauce.

Really, the trouble might be deciding between the multitude of options for how you want to spice these dumplings up. You can easily upgrade dumplings with a simple three-ingredient sauce made from just soy sauce, rice vinegar, and chili oil. Or, if you prefer things a bit on the sweeter side, a sweet chili sauce recipe might be more up your alley. But there are many options beyond just adding a sauce.

Of the many frozen dumpling hacks for restaurant-quality meals, the paths lead to everything from sauces to salads to soups. You can easily toss a few chicken dumplings on top of a salad or some flavorful slaw to make up for a little bit of lacking flavor. Floating them in an aromatic broth is also a guaranteed culinary win, and they add an interesting textural component to a stir fry as well. Or you can go ahead and give your chicken potstickers the casserole treatment, and toss them into a dumpling bake recipe.

Before you get ahead of yourself with these more complex recipes, however, you might want to give these Signature Select Chicken Potstickers a taste for yourself. While they were at the bottom of our list, generally people around the internet are pretty happy with them. A quick glance at the Safeway website shows an average of 4.8 stars from 63 reviews for these dumplings, as well as comments like: "So good and worth every penny." So, you can see for yourself — just make sure you have the fixings for a good sauce, in case you find them as bland as we did.