The Best Frozen Meal From Walmart's Great Value Brand Is An Italian Staple

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Walmart isn't just a one-stop shop superstore; it also draws customers in with its low prices. And no name brand compares in price to Walmart's Great Value brand. If you're looking for easy meals, the Great Value brand supplies a long line of frozen meals, many of which rival name-brand counterparts. We sampled 14 Great Value frozen meals, and the best one is a classic meat lasagna.

Great Value Italian-style lasagna with meat sauce exceeded in every category, including taste, texture, convenience, and comparison to offerings from name brands. It's enough to feed a family or a large group of friends, and there's no denying this frozen lasagna's convenience. No cooking, assembly, or dirty dishes are involved in this Great Value meal. All you have to do is pop it into the oven for a few hours; the taste is worth the wait!

Taste and texture are clearly the most important criteria, and the reason the lasagna is a clear winner. The umami-rich tomato and meat sauce was perfectly balanced by the creamy ricotta cheese. We were impressed with the aromatic and flavorful herb blend that was mixed into the ricotta, amping up the complexity of the lasagna. The noodles were nice and thick, and there was no skimping on any subsequent layer. The cheese crisped up and charred beautifully on top, making for the perfect textural contrast to the chewy meat sauce and noodles, and creamy, gooey layers of cheese.

We weren't the only ones impressed with how tasty the Great Value Italian-style lasagna turned out. Customers on Walmart's website, as well as on Reddit, wrote many rave reviews. While frozen lasagna is a common staple most name brands offer, one Redditor wrote, "no other brand can compare" to its "nice fresh, genuine flavor." Redditors go on to compliment each element, stating, "this has lots of ricotta, perfectly balanced with the meat sauce and the pasta...It's the kind of dish that hits the nostalgia factor." If you're hesitant to make the purchase due to the sheer size of the lasagna, one Walmart customer assures that "it bakes up evenly, has a comforting, homemade-style flavor, and the portion size is perfect for family dinners or leftovers." One thing many customers recommended is to bake the lasagna for more than its recommended 2 hours, as this will not only crisp the top, but also help any residual moisture at the bottom of the tin evaporate.

If you need some veggies with your meal, you've got plenty of time to prepare them while you bake lasagna. To keep things convenient, grab a bag of frozen vegetables to steam. While you're in the frozen section, you can also pick up some frozen garlic bread to round out the meal. Great Value has some delicious frozen garlic bread options that ranked favorably in a taste test of garlic bread brands.