Gwynedd Stuart
The hardest thing about dieting isn’t trying not to eat, it’s figuring out what to eat. Even if you’re cutting calories to lose a little weight, you have to do it safely, and that means you gotta eat. And when you need something quick and easy, sometimes you just gotta eat frozen diet meals.
We’ve taste tested a lot of frozen dinners. When we rank them, we always do so based on how good they taste—and once in a while, the lower calorie, lower fat meals actually taste better than a lot of the more indulgent ones. We love when that happens! Whether you’re watching your fat and calorie intake or you simply prefer a lighter lunch, here are the best diet frozen meals we’ve found so far.
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- Lean Cuisine Meatloaf with Mashed Potatoes (250 cal, 7g fat)
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We taste tested a lot of frozen meatloaf, and most of it simply is not meatloaf—it’s glorified Salisbury steak. Only two frozen meatloaf meals made the cut, and one of them happens to be a fit on this list of the best frozen diet meals. Lean Cuisine Meatloaf is genuinely good. The mashed potatoes are creamy and loaded with chives, and the meatloaf itself comes drenched in a tomatoey gravy that really works. Comfort food doesn’t have to be heavy, and the best diet frozen dinners are proof.
Read our ranking of the best frozen meatloaf
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- Smart Ones Cheesy Scramble with Hashbrowns (4 WW Points)
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If you’re on the WW diet, Smart Ones frozen meals are nice because they tell you how many points are in every meal—no need to use the app to scan a barcode. And while our favorite Smart Ones meal is their turkey and mashed potatoes, there are better diet turkey meals on the market, and this breakfast is more unique. You get scrambled eggs (a zero point food!) with cheese, silky Ore-Ida potatoes, and diced bell peppers. This isn’t the most flavorful diet frozen meal you’ll ever eat, but it’s fast and filling—just have a salt shaker nearby.
Read the full ranking of the best Smart Ones frozen meals
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- Blue Zones Kitchen Minestrone Pasta Bowl
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Amy’s makes a lot of vegan frozen meals we love, but a lot of them involve nut-based creamy sauces that don’t exactly make them “diet friendly.” This veggie bomb of a frozen meal from Blue Zones Kitchen is, like, 65% veggies and beans, which keeps the fat and calorie count pretty low—280 calories and 6g of fat for the whole bowl. It’s the best diet frozen meal for vegans who still want something pretty healthy.
Read the full ranking of the best vegan frozen meals
Credit: Liv Averett / Thrive Market
- Healthy Choice Café Steamers Grilled Chicken Pesto with Vegetables
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This diet frozen meal tastes like a diet frozen meal, and, no, I don’t mean that in a good way. Still, it’s perfectly pleasant in a very predictable way. Plus, big ups to Healthy Choice for coming up with its little steamer system. Basically, the sauce is in a lower compartment, beneath the meat, pasta, and veggies, so everything doesn’t turn to mush when it cooks. It’s a good strategy! What this diet frozen meal lacks in flavor, it makes up for by not being a puddle of slop. Plus, it only has 290 calories and 7g of fat—not bad!
Read the full ranking of the best Healthy Choice frozen meals
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- Red’s Egg’Wich Chicken Chorizo (16g protein)
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Breakfast sandwiches that are made with egg patties in lieu of bread take some getting used to, but they’re low carb, high protein, and there’s something kind of fun about the moist, spongy squish of the egg, especially compared to the rock-hard bread you get on so many frozen breakfast sandwiches. The chicken chorizo patty is the star here anyway—it’s really salty and flavorful and has a nice paprika spice. It’s keto friendly but it isn’t totally loaded with fat and calories (13g of fat and 200 cal), and it has plenty of protein to keep you going.
Read the full ranking of high protein breakfast foods
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- Lean Cuisine Protein Kick Shrimp Scampi
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I truly did not think one of the best diet frozen meals from Lean Cuisine would involve shrimp. I love shrimp, but cooking shrimp in the microwave feels wrong. But it’s right! The sauce is light and lovely, and the shrimp are firm and pleasant to eat. I do wish this had something green like broccoli in the mix, but I couldn’t stop taking bites of this Lean Cuisine.
Read the full ranking of the best Lean Cuisine meals
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- Atkins Beef Merlot (290 cal, 20g fat, 6g net carbs)
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This isn’t the best frozen diet meal if you’re on a low fat diet (20g isn’t nothing), but it’s a very nice option if you’re on a low carb diet. In our low carb frozen dinner taste test, we tried options from a bunch of brands, but Atkins, originators of the low carb diet craze, has the best track record. This meal doesn’t have a lot going on—it’s basically just beef and broccoli in a brown, savory sauce—but it’s simple and good, like a low carb beef stew with just a kick of wine for depth of flavor.
Read the full ranking of the best low carb frozen meals
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- Lean Cuisine Protein Kick Roasted Turkey Breast (300 cal, 5g fat)
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This is an elite Lean Cuisine meal, and an elite frozen turkey dinner, too. So many frozen turkey dinners come with a few thin slabs of chopped and reformed turkey that look more like deli meat than slabs that were carved off of a bird. But Lean Cuisine Roasted Turkey Breast dinner—which comes with stuffing AND mashed potatoes—comes with lovely little turkey medallions that actually look and taste like turkey. This is a classic for a reason, and it fully deserves a spot among the best frozen diet meals.
Read our ranking of the best frozen turkey dinners
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- Healthy Choice Cuban Style Pork (340 cal, 8g fat)
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Our favorite high protein frozen meal is not diet-friendly (chicken alfredo will always be sort of decadent), but our #2 pick is a little more reasonable. Not all Healthy Choice meals are winners, but this is one of their frozen diet meals that is worth a damn. You get bits of grilled pork atop a bed of grains, beans, greens, and other veggies. As Sporked editor-in-chief Justine Sterling put it, “It tastes like something you’d get from the Whole Foods buffet, but this way you aren’t paying $20 for it.” That’s pretty impressive when you’re dealing with diet frozen meals.
Read our ranking of the best high protein frozen meals
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Best Lower Cal Frozen Meatloaf
Rating:
6.5/10
Sporks
Best Quick Breakfast for WW
Rating:
7.5/10
Sporks
Best Vegan Diet Meal
Rating:
7.5/10
Sporks
Best Healthy Choice Meal
Rating:
8.5/10
Sporks
Best Keto Breakfast Sandwich
Rating:
9/10
Sporks
Best Diet Pasta Meal
Rating:
9/10
Sporks
Best Low Carb Frozen Meal
Rating:
9/10
Sporks
Best Lower Cal Turkey Dinner
Rating:
9.5/10
Sporks
Best High Protein Diet Meal
Rating:
9.5/10
Sporks
Vinz Karl
Danny Palumbo
Jessica Block
