Frozen Mozzarella Stick Brands Ranked Worst To Best

When it's your turn to buy apps for the table, what's your finger food of choice? Are you a chips and queso kind of friend, or do you opt for a bolder choice like chicken wings? Do you cater to the indecisive with a sample platter of the best fried goods? One restaurant appetizer you can't go wrong with is mozzarella sticks — who doesn't love a boatload of gooey, melty cheese and some tasty marinara to go with it?

Unfortunately, mozzarella sticks are one of those foods that are almost always better at restaurants, since that's where they're most often deep-fried for maximum melty, crispy goodness. The same taste and crunch just can't be achieved in a home oven — or can it? 

Frozen grocery store mozzarella sticks made at home might not be as good as a platter of them from Applebee's, but some brands are worthwhile enough to be served at your next home game night or football Sunday. We tested 13 frozen mozzarella stick brands, all baked in the oven, to find out which ones make the tastiest appetizers at home.

Cole's mozzarella cheese sticks are soft, bready, and loaded with garlic. They're also imposters and should be ashamed. Despite being marketed as mozzarella sticks on our local grocery store mobile app and being among the other mozzarella stick brands in the freezer section, these cheese-filled breadsticks — while delicious — are literally that, cheese-filled breadsticks. They're not sticks of mozzarella, rolled in a bread crumb coating or batter, like the other brands, and they're not the kind of thing you'd order six of as an appetizer. These full-fledged breadsticks are the sort of thing you'd get as a side to spaghetti or lasagna — and it's unclear why they're classified as a mozzarella stick. 

So while the bread of this breadstick in disguise is fluffy and soft and the garlicky-herb flavor is fantastic, there isn't nearly enough cheese to qualify this brand as a cheese stick. Cole's narrowly avoids disqualification by simply being put in last place instead.

Any finger food that relies on a good cheese copycat to disguise its veganness is already fighting an uphill battle. It may be unfair to crack down on this vegan brand of mozzarella stick for its discrepancies in the cheesy filling, so we will start with what we liked about this brand: The mozzarella sticks come in handy miniature sizes, which makes serving the sticks at parties and eating a whole stick before the cheese has gone cold and hard more feasible. This is also one of the few brands in our testing that included marinara packets in the box. 

The breading is really very good; it has a nice flavor, but mostly the crumbs offer a nice, snappy crunch when bitten into. Sadly, we struggled to see the vegan mozzarella cheese in a positive light. There was no flavor whatsoever, and the texture achieved a bizarre state of duality where it was so watery and thin that it spilled out of the bread casing when broke in half, but it also congealed into something like a hot Elmer's Glue once slightly cooled. We aren't vegan snack food experts, but surely there must be better options than Wholly Veggie for our plant-based friends out there.

The best part of these TGI Fridays sticks is definitely the breading. When you first sink your teeth into one of these sticks, you're met with bright flavors of garlic, black pepper, and onion in the breading. And while the outer layer does get beautifully golden with an exquisite crispness, the TGI Fridays sticks are more prone to splitting open than any other brand we tested. It could be because of these sticks' shape and size, or the thinner coat of breading. 

The cheese was unfortunately less impressive. As seen in the pictured sample, this brand's mozzarella never really achieved that melty, gooey texture, remaining quite clumpy even after being fully cooked. The taste was alright — not fully bland and flavorless, but certainly not as creamy and fresh as other brands included — but not memorable. And without that silky, melty stretch of mozzarella you're supposed to experience when biting into a cheese stick, we couldn't move TGI Fridays up any further on the roster. 

Trader Joe's is a great destination for all things snacky foods, whether that be boxed products, baked goods, or freezer aisle gems. The Trader Joe's brand mozzarella sticks were supremely tasty, but not quite an all-time favorite TJ's find. The bread crumb outer shell was super flavorful, but it lacked any sort of satisfying crunch needed to flatter the stretchy, stringy cheese, instead taking on an anticlimactic sogginess. We followed the oven directions exactly for this TJ's product to preserve the integrity of our testing, but if we were enjoying these in different circumstances, the sticks would definitely need to be cooked in an air fryer or even a home fryer to get some crunch into the breading.

These sticks' mozzarella filling had a great taste and texture, and stretched nicely when the sticks were pulled apart, but we couldn't ignore the breading layer where T-Joe's fell short.

The Saz's mozzarella stick brand offers a unique approach to the classic food: The mozzarella core is wrapped in egg roll wrappers, rather than a bread crumb coating or batter. The resulting mozzarella can be best described as puzzling; what is the reason for this thinner, less crispy, less flavorful wrap? We had troubles with the Saz's sticks from the start, when the oven instructions called for the sticks to be flipped halfway through cooking but the egg roll wraps were stuck on the parchment paper. They were so stuck that flipping the sticks would have been ripping them apart, so instead we ended up with a golden-crispness on one side and pale sogginess on the other.

The wrap, also, doesn't really taste like anything, unlike the seasoned breading on other brands. Saz's redemption comes from its cheese, which was some of the best in this ranking. It tasted fresh, salty, and creamy, with a great stretchy texture. We'd have expected nothing less of the fresh Wisconsin cheese Saz's says its sticks are made with. 

Feel Good Foods' gluten-free egg rolls were included in the roundup of frozen grocery store egg rolls that we taste-tested. We weren't all that impressed with those egg rolls, but Feel Good Foods definitely redeems itself with these mozzarella sticks. The cheese is delicious, with a perfect picturesque stretch when pulled apart, and there was no spillage in cooking or eating. 

The real star of the show here is the breading. Feel Good Foods' mozzarella stick breading is beautifully flavored with a spice and herb blend — so tasty that marinara isn't even needed. Despite being a gluten-friendly breading, there was no compromise in the texture of the bread crumbs; the outer layer got golden and toasty, and structurally, the breading held up very well and didn't split or crack in the oven. And when biting into one of the Feel Good Foods mozzarella sticks, there is a very satisfying crunch. Even being perfectly tolerant of gluten, we'd happily eat these cheesy sticks again. 

Appetitos mozzarella cheese sticks can be found at Aldi, and you should absolutely swoop these up next time you're shopping at the German bargain grocery store. Despite being just a humble private label brand, Appetitos was a quick favorite in this ranking. Simplicity is at the forefront with these cheese sticks. The breading is not as intensely flavored with herbs and spice as other brands, but its buttery goldenness more than made up for that. Appetitos' bread crumb coating also stayed fully intact while baking, so no precious mozzarella was lost. 

And speaking of the cheese, this brand packed its sticks to nearly bursting, so you get tons of mozzarella in every bite. This cheese was perfectly textured for mozzarella sticks: Smooth, creamy, and elastic. And its flavor was simple and fresh, good enough to be enjoyed even without dunking in marinara sauce. We wished these sticks were just a little bit bigger, but the classic flavor is enough to push Appetitos to the top of the ranks. Aldi for the win!