When it comes to lower calorie, lower fat frozen dinners, Smart Ones meals tend to play second fiddle to Lean Cuisine’s frozen dinners. Even Healthy Choice might be more popular, but there are reasons to go with Smart Ones over other brands. The biggest reason? Well, if you’re on the WW diet (formerly Weight Watchers), Smart Ones conveniently puts WW points on their boxes so you know what you’re getting into (and what you’ll be able to eat for the rest of the day). In fact, Smart Ones launched in the 1990s as a subsidiary of WW; Kraft Heinz eventually sold WW, but hung onto the Smart Ones brand. A little frozen food history for ya! But let’s talk about the best Smart Ones meals, shall we?
Full disclosure: We didn’t try all 26 Smart Ones frozen meals, but we did try 11 of them—that’s a lot of meals. We cooked them all in the microwave according to the instructions on their respective boxes and then tasted them back to back. In general, I gotta say I’d personally stick with Lean Cuisine over Smart Ones, but there are a handful of decent options. Here are the five Smart Ones meals we’d actually recommend you buy.
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- Smart Ones Santa Fe Rice & Beans (7 WW Points)
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This is not something I would personally choose to eat (I’ve developed a dysfunctional relationship with frozen Mexican food), but as Smart Ones frozen meals go, it’s way better than I thought it would be. There’s a lot of cheesy, queso-like sauce in the container, which makes it a lot saucier than just rice and beans. If you are forgiving of Mexican food that was cooked in a microwave, it’s one of the better Smart Ones frozen meals.
Credit: Merc / Albertsons
- Smart Ones Three Cheese Ziti with Meatballs (10 WW Points)
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Okay, disclaimer: The itty-bitty meatballs in this Smart Ones frozen meal taste a little funny. I don’t love them, and I’m pretty forgiving when it comes to small, weird meatballs (in fact, I’m a bit of a small, weird meatball myself). This meal’s good aspects outweigh the bad. The marinara is bright and doesn’t taste like bad dried herbs, the ziti is long and thin and fun to eat, and there’s a surprising amount of cheese on the meal. I thought for sure that the Ziti Marinara meal (minus meatballs) would be better, but it was incredibly bland. So, yeah, I’d take weird meatballs over no meatballs—and you get a little more protein, too.
Credit: Merc / Instacart
- Smart Ones Angel Hair Marinara (4 WW Points)
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Even the best Smart Ones meals come with disclaimers. The asterisk here? The sauce is not very good. If they’d used the marinara that comes on the meatball meal, this would rank higher. But the marinara sauce in this meal is much more seasoned—not in a good way. It tastes like old, dried basil and oregano, which isn’t ideal, but this ranks higher because it’s satisfying (pasta usually is) and actually has some veggies in the mix. The zucchini is a nice touch even if it is a little watery. If you can spare the WW points, a generous sprinkle of parmesan cheese will go a long way.
Credit: Merc / Pavilions
- Smart Ones Cheesy Scramble with Hashbrowns (4 WW Points)
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If you’ve ever done the WW diet, you’re aware that eggs are a go-to. They’re zero points (!!) and they’re packed with protein, so they actually fill you up. WSo while this Smart Ones frozen meal doesn’t taste like much, it’s a pretty nice little breakfast if you’re point counting. It’s very cheesy and the potatoes are much better than they look like they’d be—they’re silky rather than grainy. There are peppers in the mix, and they do a lot of heavy lifting since the potatoes and eggs aren’t exactly bursting with flavor on their own. It’s the best of the Smart Ones frozen meals if you need a quick breakfast.
Credit: Merc / Instacart
- Smart Ones Slow Roasted Turkey Breast
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I’ve learned a lot of invaluable lessons since I started eating packaged food for money, and one of them is that turkey frozen meals are typically so much better than chicken frozen meals. The chicken in Smart Ones meals is pretty bad across the board—pale, flavorless, mushy. But the turkey medallions in this meal are pretty good. They’re actually the texture of turkey, which we love. Now, there isn’t much else going on here. Mashed potatoes and gravy—that’s it. No veg. No apples. It’s definitely not the best or most satisfying microwave turkey dinner you can buy, but it’s the best of the Smart Ones frozen meals we tried.
Credit: Liv Averett / Walmart
Smart Ones!
Smart Ones!
Smart Ones!
Smart Ones!
Best of the Best
Other Smart Ones meals we tried: Three Cheese Ziti Marinara, Pot Roast, Ham & Cheese Scramble, Creamy Rigatoni, Creamy Basil Chicken with Vegetables, Chicken Alfredo
Thoughts? Questions? Complete disagreement? Leave a comment!