The best Banquet frozen meals—which now include the newer, bigger, (theoretically) better Banquet Mega Bowls—should be filling, flavorful, and addictive to eat. We’re not looking for high quality ingredients and incredibly nuanced flavor combos here, okay? The best Banquet meals just need to be comforting, hearty, and nostalgic.
As a kid, I used to fantasize about eating Banquet’s addictively salty little microwavable meals for lunch. If I couldn’t convince my parents to get me Wendy’s or McDonald’s on the weekends, I would happily settle for Banquet’s chicken fried steak instead. In my mind, this was some of the finest frozen slop you could buy. I don’t know what it was about them (spoiler: sodium), but for some reason (the sodium), these had a chokehold on my taste buds that made me actually crave them over freshly home-cooked meals (thank you, sodium).
I’m not ten years old anymore, and if you’re reading this article, more likely than not, I could say the same about you. Going into this taste test, my biggest question was how even the best Banquet frozen meals would hold up against my adult taste buds. All these years later, will I still think they’re actually kind of good, perhaps comfortingly bad, or just downright terrible? Here’s a spoiler: After trying 15 different microwavable meals, I’m not entirely sure Banquet frozen meals are meant to be consumed by fully grown human beings. This might be baby food in disguise. But I digress. Some are actually pretty yummy, but a lot of these…a lot of these aren’t winners, you guys. Since I’m ranking all of the Banquet meals, I’m going to be brutally honest here. Let’s get into it.
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- Banquet Mega Crustless Pizza Three Meat
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Have you ever had the greasy top of a pizza slide right off the crust? That’s what it’s like to eat Banquet’s Crustless Pizza. This should not exist. It’s just a bed of cheese, red sauce, and meat that actually tastes a little rancid. Now remember, we’re starting right at the bottom, so theoretically, things will only improve from here, right?
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- Banquet Mega Bowls Kung Pao Chicken
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Not quite yet. I’m going to stop myself from going too negative and give an overall note here: There are many decent brands of frozen kung pao chicken. You don’t need to buy this. The biggest pro: The breading on the chicken and its bumpy, uneven shape, at the very least, resembles fried chicken from a Chinese restaurant. (It’s not just the Banquet chicken nuggets repurposed for another meal, which unfortunately is the case elsewhere.) The biggest con: The rice doesn’t taste real. It’s like grains of plastic disguised as something edible. Make of that what you will.
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- Banquet Mega Bowls Dynamite Penne & Meatballs
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What do Banquet’s Dynamite Penne with Meatballs and Banquet’s Spaghetti and Meatballs (the next of the Banquet frozen meals on this list) have in common? Small, squishy meatballs made of questionable meat (my colleague Jordan Myrick tried to eat one and had to spit it out). Both are pretty bad, but Dynamite Penne was a case of wasted potential. It came out of the microwave with a bubbling pink sauce, a smattering of herbs, and melted cheese. It actually looks pretty appetizing. But somehow, it tastes like nothing! Zilch! Zero flavor!
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- Banquet Spaghetti & Meatballs
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Unlike Dynamite Penne’s pink sauce, the red sauce (I’m not comfortable using the term “marinara” here) in this Banquet frozen meal at least has discernable tomato flavor. But the short, stubby spaghetti legitimately looks like something you would feed a toddler. (A running theme through this ranking.) The meatballs are also…grainy? I don’t know why, and I don’t want to know why.
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- Banquet Sweet & Sour Chicken
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“It’s barely food,” remarked managing editor Gwynedd Stuart, when her curiosity got the best of her and she decided to try a bite of Banquet’s Sweet & Sour Chicken. These are repurposed chicken nuggets (from the chicken nuggets in other Banquet frozen meals) tossed in a sweet and sour sauce. And you know what? I’m kind of okay with that. They are basically flavored nuggets, and it’s not the worst thing on this list of Banquet meals. The rice is still weirdly plasticky, though.
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- Banquet Mega Meats Crispy Chicken
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Two pieces of fried chicken with a side of airy, over-whipped mashed potatoes? It’s not doing what it should be doing, fam. The fried chicken is, thankfully, tender on the inside, but the breading isn’t crispy at all—in fact, after a minute or two out of the microwave, it starts to get pretty tough. That’s just false marketing! I would award points if there was some sort of dipping sauce here, but nope! Just plain chicken and plain mash. Boo.
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- Banquet Chicken Fried Beef Steak and Mashed Potatoes
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Ah, yes. My childhood. Smothered in a buttery white gravy, the chicken fried beef steak meal comes with a side of corn and mashed potatoes. When you take off the plastic, you’ll notice the chicken steak is pretty small, which is the main reason why this is one of the Banquet frozen meals that ranked low for us. The flavor itself isn’t offensive, and I actually enjoyed the corn (yay vegetables!), but the size of the meat patty just makes this Banquet frozen meal a bad value!
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- Banquet Mega Bowls Chicken Fried Beef Steak
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This Banquet Mega Bowl corrects the mistake the original chicken fried beef steak meal makes: the lack of meat. Not that I’m especially craving Banquet’s bland meat (which they try to overcompensate for with the gelatinous white gravy), but at least I’m getting my money’s worth of protein. We preferred the taste of the brown gravy in other Banquet meals, but honestly? This is one of those Banquet meals that is comfortingly bad instead of downright terrible. With chicken beef steak nuggets on a bed of mashed potatoes, green beans, and corn, we’re hitting the major food groups, and that’s important.
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- Banquet Meatloaf Meal
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Here’s what I’ll say in favor of Banquet’s meatloaf: It has more flavor than their chicken fried steak and enough gravy to drown a grown man (and that’s a compliment). Even if you nuke the side of corn into oblivion, it still comes out a little crispy, which I can appreciate. Texturally, it’s a nice break from the mushy, sodium-rich yet oddly flavorless mash. But among frozen meatloaf meals, this is some of the worst you can buy. Sorry, but it’s true.
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- Banquet Chicken Nuggets and Mac & Cheese
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Right on theme, Banquet’s chicken nuggets have little discernible flavor and come in small enough pieces for three year olds to easily consume. Did I eat all of them? Yes, yes I did. Apparently, I’m a three year old. The mac and cheese tastes like a bland Kraft dupe. The brownie goes rock hard within a minute, so make sure to channel your inner child and eat that first!
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- Banquet Chicken Nuggets and Fries
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This Banquet meal skips the dessert and vegetables and opts for what they know the kids really want: chicken nuggets and crinkle fries. Small, stubbly crinkle fries—but crinkle fries nonetheless. I ate the whole thing. No, I would recommend anyone else buy it, but you know what? I enjoyed it. And that’s all thanks to you, sodium.
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- Banquet Backyard BBQ
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Banquet Backyard BBQ does what many at this point may think is impossible: It delivers a flavor! The mesquite BBQ sauce is smoky and a tad sweet. Maybe I have Stockholm Syndrome, but I was pleasantly surprised by this one. The meat is a little chewier than the chicken fried beef steak or the salisbury steak, but in a way, that sort of makes it more realistically like pork ribs.
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- Banquet Mega Bowls Country Fried Chicken
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With chicken fritters, creamy mashed potatoes, brown gravy, corn and shredded cheese, this Banquet Mega Bowl is an obvious dupe of KFC’s Famous Bowl. While I can’t say it comes close to being Famous Bowl-level delicious, I have to give it some props: It may be gelatinous slop, but it’s yummy gelatinous slop. We’re crossing from “comfortingly bad” to “actually kinda good” territory here.
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- Banquet Salisbury Steak
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We’ve finally reached the classic Banquet meal, and the reason most of you might be here: Banquet Salisbury Steak. This is what you throw in the microwave to recreate the classic TV dinner—tray table, reclining sofa, retro decor and all. Salisbury Steak is the best Banquet Frozen Meal of the OGs, if you ask me. (In fact, it made Rhett & Link’s ranking of the best frozen Salisbury steak meals; granted, they named it “best prison food.”) The meat has a bold beef flavor and plenty of savory brown gravy. The steak is thicker and wider than the other meats—it fills the tray, so you actually feel like you’re getting a good value. It comes with potatoes, crisp corn, and an apple dessert. This really fires on all cylinders, and I’m here for it!
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- Banquet Mega Bowls Nashville Hot Chicken
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I went from thinking, “Most of these Banquet meals really shouldn’t exist,” to, “I’m proud the Nashville Hot Chicken Mega Bowl exists, and I was able to experience it.” This is basically the Country Fried Chicken Mega Bowl (KFC’s dupe), but spicy. And let me tell you, for a brand that likes to lean bland, this stuff is hot. It’s exactly the kick in the face you need—plus, that cayenne pepper in the Nashville-style heat really brings out the other flavors. This is both comforting and a kick in the face, all in one. Good job, Banquet!
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