From freezer to fork: What consumers really want in ready-to-eat meals

Convenience often wins these days — and few products deliver it quite like single-serve, ready-to-eat frozen meals. 

These meals offer a quick solution when you don’t have time or energy to cook. They fit neatly into busy routines, unpredictable schedules and solo dining occasions. 

And no matter whether it’s a quick lunch between meetings or an easy dinner after a long day, frozen meals provide comfort and variety without the need to cook from scratch.

We wanted to dive a little deeper into the single-serve, ready-to-eat category to see what brands are winning and what consumers are looking for. Let’s dive in!

1. Convenience drives the category: Most consumers (69%) choose single-serve frozen meals because they’re quick and easy, and more than half (57%) say they’re ideal when they’re too busy or tired to cook — reinforcing that convenience is the top reason to purchase in this category.

2. Trusted comfort brands lead: Marie Callender’s and Stouffer’s dominate the top of the rankings and earned top scores for taste, quality and authenticity — showing that consumers gravitate toward familiar, established names when seeking reliable comfort. Healthy Choice also stands out for innovation with its Power Bowls and Cafe Steamers, signaling growing interest in modern, health-forward frozen meal options.

3. Flavor and familiarity win: Meals with appealing, recognizable flavor profiles — especially Asian-inspired and classic comfort foods — resonate most. Consumers also appreciate meals that feel healthy or are high in protein, showing the importance of balancing convenience with a sense of health and quality.

Two-thirds of consumers (69%) say they choose single-serve frozen meals because they’re quick and easy and more than half (57%) like them because they’re convenient when they’re too busy or too tired to cook — highlighting the importance of convenience in the category. 

Taste is a consideration too of course, with 43% saying they choose frozen meals because they taste good. 

And while not a top reason, dieting is a consideration for some consumers — with 27% saying they choose frozen meals because they help control portion size and 19% saying frozen meals fit with their health goals.

Turning to occasions for eating single-serve frozen meals, it’s no surprise that more than half (51%) of consumers turn to single-serve frozen meals for dinner when they don’t feel like cooking. 

42% like having them on hand as a back up meal option when plans change, while 41% like to eat them when they’re eating alone. 

A third choose single-serve frozen meals for lunch during the workday.

Now let’s take a look at some of the top frozen meals. We selected a variety of brands, cuisines and types of meals to help us get a good understanding of the category. 

We selected these 14 options: 

• Marie Callender’s Chicken Pot Pie 

• Stouffer’s Classic Lasagna with Meat Sauce

• Hungry-Man Country Fried Chicken

• Devour Buffalo Style Chicken Mac & Cheese 

• Healthy Choice Cafe Steamers Beef Teriyaki

• Lean Cuisine BBQ Chicken Sandwich 

• Rao’s Penne Alla Vodka 

• Stouffer’s Bowl-Fulls Fried Chicken & Mashed Potatoes 

• Amy’s 3 Cheese & Kale Gluten Free Bowl 

• Banquet Mega Meals Salisbury Steak

• Healthy Choice Spicy Steak Burrito Power Bowl 

• Marie Callender’s Orange Chicken Bowl

• Saffron Road Butter Chicken

• Lean Cuisine Pepperoni Pizza

In our ScreenIt solution we asked respondents to rank the frozen meals according to which they would be most likely to purchase.

Marie Callender’s Orange Chicken Bowl emerged as the favorite, securing the most first-choice votes (36%). Marie Callender’s Chicken Pot Pie came in second with 31% of the first choice votes, while both Stouffer’s meals (Classic Lasagna with Meat Sauce and Bowl-Fulls Fried Chicken & Mashed Potatoes) tied for third (30%). 

Marie Callender’s and Stouffer’s really dominated the top of the rankings! 

Hungry-Man, both Healthy Choice meals and relative newcomer Devour also scored well with consumers. Some of the smaller brands like Amy’s, Rao’s and Saffron Road got the least amount of first-choice votes, along with the BBQ Chicken Sandwich from Lean Cuisine.

Digging a little deeper, let’s take a look at the attributes most associated with the brands. These are the products that scored highest across key category attributes:

• Most convenient: Healthy Choice Cafe Steamers Beef Teriyaki (63%)

  • Runner up: Banquet Mega Meals Salisbury Steak (62%) 

• Best tasting: Stouffer’s Classic Lasagna with Meat Sauce (57%)

  • Runner up: Marie Callender’s Chicken Pot Pie (53%)

• Top quality: Stouffer’s Classic Lasagna with Meat Sauce (41%)

  • Runner up: Marie Callender’s Chicken Pot Pie (39%)

• Most unique: Saffron Road Butter Chicken (38%)

  • Runner up: Healthy Choice Spicy Steak Burrito Power Bowl (36%)

• Most authentic: Rao’s Penne Alla Vodka & Marie Callender’s Chicken Pot Pie (30%)

• Most innovative: Healthy Choice Spicy Steak Burrito Power Bowl (26%)

  • Runner up: Healthy Choice Cafe Steamers Beef Teriyaki (21%)

• Most versatile: Healthy Choice Spicy Steak Burrito Power Bowl (21%)

  • Runner up: Stouffer’s Bowl-Fulls Fried Chicken & Mashed Potatoes (20%)

Fan favorite Stouffer’s Classic Lasagna with Meat Sauce takes first place in the best tasting and top quality categories — but with Marie Callender’s Chicken Pot Pie right behind in both categories. 

Saffron Road Butter Chicken stands out as most unique, followed by Healthy Choice’s Power Bowl. 

Rao’s — with a long history of preparing Italian food at its New York restaurant — is seen as the most authentic along with Marie Callender’s Chicken Pot Pie. Marie Callender’s began selling pies in the 1940s and has been selling its frozen chicken pot pie for decades. All that history comes through with consumers who view both products as the most authentic in this analysis. 

And finally, Healthy Choice wins for most innovative — with its Power Bowl taking first and its Cafe Steamer taking second!

We also asked consumers to assess each frozen meal on the key drivers of product success:

• Advantage: How much better each of the products is to other products already available 

• Distinctiveness: How different each of the products are from other products already available

• Relevance: How relevant each of the products is to the respondents

• Believability: How believable the claims of each product are to the respondents

Marie Callender’s Orange Chicken Bowl leads as the top-ranked meal, outperforming the group averages in advantage and relevance and scoring in line on believability and distinctiveness — indicating that it is appealing, motivating and relevant.

Marie Callender’s Chicken Pot Pie, Stouffer’s Bowl-Fulls Fried Chicken & Mashed Potatoes, Stouffer’s Classic Lasagna with Meat Sauce and Healthy Choice Cafe Steamers Beef Teriyaki all exceeded the group average in advantage, believability and relevance, but also scored average in distinctiveness. 

Only three of the meals outperformed the average in distinctiveness: Devour Buffalo Style Chicken Mac & Cheese, Healthy Choice Spicy Steak Burrito Power Bowl and Saffron Road Butter Chicken — perhaps due to their unique branding (Devour), unique ingredients (Healthy Choice’s riced cauliflower) and unique cuisine (Saffron Road was the only Indian meal in the set).

Consumers were most drawn to meals with appealing flavor profiles (especially Asian-style or comfort food) from brands they trust — and convenient, complete meal formats that resonate with consumer preferences for easy yet satisfying options.

Appealing flavor profiles

Consumers are most drawn to foods that sound appealing and look appetizing, particularly cuisines they like and are familiar with. Asian cuisines and traditional American comfort foods were most often praised. 

People said things like: 

• "I love orange chicken. It tasted really good so I will most likely buy this."

• "The flavors sound good and the combination of chicken and vegetables is nice."

• "I enjoy chicken and thought the bbq and mac and cheese together sounds good."

• "I really like pizza and I think it's very tasty."

Convenient, complete, satisfying meal formats

Convenience is a big selling point in this category, but consumers also expect to get a full meal. They are most drawn to products that offer complete and satisfying meals that appear easy to prepare. 

People said things like: 

• "It’s quick, healthy, and satisfying for a frozen meal."

• “Tasty. Delicious. Easy to prepare. Great meal if you're in a hurry and don't want to cook."

• “One of the best parts of this meal is that it is easy to cook.” 

Health & nutrition

Many people mentioned that they liked the nutritional value of the options, particularly when something seemed like a healthy meal. The protein content of many of the meals was noted and seen as a big selling point. Plus, many expressed they liked the vegetarian options because they were meat free.

• “I like its fresh taste, tender beef, crisp veggies, and flavorful teriyaki sauce.”

• "All ingredients are easily recognized, it seems like a healthy meal, and it looks delicious.”

• "I like that it's a vegetarian option and looks more healthy than the other options."

• "I like that it has 20g of protein and ingredients that sound like it would be tasty and satisfying.”

Brand trust

Finally, consumers are drawn to brands they recognize and have good opinions of. Respondents were likely to pick their favorite brands from the available choices. 

People said things like: 

• "I like that it is from Healthy Choice. I love the brand of Healthy Choice and have never found a meal that I did not like."

• "Stouffer’s is my go-to brand for frozen food. I like all the ingredients and really like the high protein."

• "I love Italian and Rao’s."

• "I’m a Lean Cuisine lover."

What a great group of brands and products! Do you have a favorite frozen meal? 

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