Side-By-Side Comparison: Do Restaurants’ Frozen Dinners Taste The Same At Home As They Do In The Restaurants?

Many well-known chain restaurants have started offering frozen versions of their most popular restaurant meals.

You can find them in the frozen foods section in most supermarkets.

A few of them are:

• T.G.I. Friday’s
• Claim Jumper
• P.F. Chang’s
• California Pizza Kitchen
• Macaroni Grill
• Grandma’s

They join other high-profile restaurant chains which already have substantial presence at the grocery store. The most recent moves come at a time when many former frequent diners — scared off by the recession — are not returning to restaurants. “It’s a search for new revenue streams,” says Robin Lee Allen, executive editor at Nation’s Restaurant News. “It’s also a way to keep the brand top of mind.” Source

How Do The Restaurants’ Frozen Dinners Taste?

The real question is do the restaurants’  frozen dinners sold at supermarkets measure up to what you get when you order the same meal at the actual restaurants?

No, I’m not referring to some national chain $3 frozen pizza trying to equal your locally owned specialty pizza shop.

I’m talking apples to apples, oranges to oranges.

Does the supermarket White Castle burger that you buy in the frozen foods section compare to fresh sliders that are hot off the grill and handed to you at the drive-up window?

This video shows a live taste comparison between some popular frozen dinners -vs- fresh served entrees.

You may be surprised with the results.

(I was!)

By the way, don’t trust the calorie counts at restaurants or on the packages of their  frozen dinners!  They’ve been shown to be off by as much as 18%.

And when you’re stocking up on restaurant versions of these frozen dinners, just remember to keep expiration dates in mind.  The longer you keep a product, the more the quality of the food will be adversly affected.

A home chest freezer is a good idea and can save you money, but only when you prevent freezer burn.