Frozen Foods You Shouldn't Buy At Sam's Club, According To Customers

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Serious budget-minded shoppers know that Costco isn't the only chain that sells quality products at reasonable prices. Sure, between Costco and Sam's Club, Costco may have the better meat department, but products worth buying at Sam's Club over Costco include cakes, coffee, and frozen shrimp. In short, a Sam's Club membership can be a valuable investment, even for existing Costco members seeking the best each store has to offer.

Just like at Costco, however, not everything on Sam's Club shelves is a winner. In the freezer department, amidst plenty of great deals on meats, snacks, premade meals, and desserts, are a fair number of outright duds. Determining which items belonged on this list meant combing both customer reviews on the Sam's Club website, and Reddit threads about frozen foods at Sam's Club, for anything that disappointed non-negligible amounts of shoppers. Each of the following, then, is a frozen food that Sam's Club members should avoid, based on feedback from customers online.

Nuggets are plentiful in the Sam's Club freezer aisle. Available brands range from the health-oriented Real Good Foods to child-friendly Yummy Dino Buddies. Even just Sam's Club's proprietary Member's Mark brand produces both flavored Southern-Style Chicken Bites and more standard Homestyle Boneless Chicken Bites. That latter product happens to be polarizing, with plenty of Sam's Club shoppers encouraging their fellow members to opt for one of the numerous alternatives in its place.

On Reddit, for instance, one user started a thread dedicated to the superiority of the Just Bare brand's chicken strips over the Member's Mark Homestyle Boneless Chicken Bites, which they described as fatty and tough. A number of users agreed with that assessment. Others shared that they particularly enjoy the Southern-Style Chicken Bites, suggesting that's the superior Member's Mark chicken nugget product. 

"I usually buy the Southern-Style bites, which I love. I decided to try these as there is an extra pound in the package for about the same price. Found them to have a thick, mealy breading and barely any chicken inside, despite the size of the nugget," reads a two-star review on the Sam's Club website. "The outside was overly dry and hard. Overall, I won't by these again, but will go back to the Members Mark Southern-Style."

It's safe to say the two most prominent kinds of pre-made entrees in any grocery store's freezer aisle are chicken nuggets and frozen pizzas. For what it's worth, Sam's Club does carry some quality frozen pizzas. DiGiorno Rising Crust Pepperoni Pizza is, for example, among a selection of frozen foods beloved by Sam's Club shoppers. Harshly criticized by Sam's Club shoppers, meanwhile, is Rich's Detroit-Style Deep Dish Double Pepperoni Pizza.

On the Sam's Club website, customers have rated Rich's Detroit-Style Deep Dish Double Pepperoni Pizza three stars out of five, based on more than 400 ratings. Common criticisms include a cardboard-like crust, the pizza cooking unevenly, and a general lack of flavor. 

One Reddit poster even described it as the worst frozen pizza they've ever eaten. "As a Detroiter, I found this pizza to be offensive. You can't just make any old square deep-dish pizza and call it Detroit-style because you mention caramelization on the box!" replied another Reddit user in that same thread. "It's an overly sweet-tasting biscuit-like dough with part-skim cheese. No brick cheese. Not even Muenster. No cheese blend at all. Sauce? Bland. The pepperoni? Decent, I guess."

While raw meats, such as chicken and pork, are typically better off procured from a store's refrigerated cases, it sometimes makes more sense to buy seafood frozen. One high-end seafood item that can be found at Sam's Club for under $30 is a package of frozen scallops — a type of seafood sold frozen with regularity. Also at Sam's Club, Member's Mark frozen Wild Caught Snow Crab Legs and Claws provide members with an affordable way to enjoy snow crab meat at home. However, before taking advantage of the product's value, it's worth taking into account a decidedly mixed reception to the product's quality.

Customers have left positive and negative reviews alike for the Member's Mark Wild Caught Snow Crab Legs and Claws on the Sam's Club website, with some reviews praising, for instance, the quantity of crab meat in one bag. Contradicting that sentiment are numerous negative reviews recounting a skimpy quantity of crab meat. Some reviewers have even claimed that, as of 2026, its quality wasn't up to par with past year's product. 

So, at best, the Sam's Club frozen snow crab is a gamble, and at worst it's an item that may have gone downhill across the board. "These crab legs were ok. Just ok," reads a three-star review on the Sam's Club website from January 2026. "Tiny legs and hard to get any meat out."

Jimmy Dean is among the most recognizable brands in the premade breakfasts section of the freezer aisle. Some premade Jimmy Dean breakfast items are well regarded by customers — its Sausage, Egg, and Cheese Croissant Sandwiches, for example, hold a 4.7-star rating (out of five) on the Sam's Club website based on nearly 6,000 reviews. Jimmy Dean Sausage Breakfast Burritos, however, are a different story.

A far cry from the croissant sandwiches, the Jimmy Dean Sausage Breakfast Burritos are rated 3.5 stars. Most negative reviews describe them as simply not tasting good, with a couple highlighting excessive salt content. On the Mashed list of frozen breakfast burritos ranked from worst to best, the Jimmy Dean Sausage Breakfast Burritos landed in the 14th spot of 15, largely thanks to a subpar texture. 

On Reddit, too, opinions about the breakfast burritos are predominately negative. "The inside is very ... wet and very homogeneous. The different ingredients are indistinguishable. It's like a sausage-egg-cheese paste. It tastes fine I guess. Vaguely like all those ingredients," wrote one Reddit poster. "The tortilla dries out in [the] microwave and is bland and too thick for the breakfast paste inside."

In addition to everything offered in-store, Sam's Club members have access to a number of online exclusives. Among the frozen food offerings sold on the Sam's Club website are a handful of bulk meal kits, containing easy-to-prepare dishes that split the difference between premade and home cooking. Turns out, customers aren't all that receptive to the Sam's Club meal kit concept — a Valentine's Day 2026 steak dinner box, for example, earned a 2.7-star rating (out of five) based on a majority of negative reviews. Holding an even lower rating is a Shrimp and Cheese Grits Meal Kit.

For what it's worth, only five customers have reviewed the Shrimp and Cheese Grits Meal Kit so far. Nevertheless, those reviews are noteworthy because every single one rated the product just one star, leaving it with the lowest rating possible on the Sam's Club website. Those reviews complained not only about the quality of the food, but faulty packaging, too, resulting in both leakage and freezer burn. 

"Seems like a good idea, the grits were very bland, the collared greens weren't that great but were okayish, the shrimp tasted like bland cocktail shrimp," wrote one reviewer on the Sam's Club website. "We threw the rest of it away."

Tapatío is safely among the most iconic hot sauces on grocery store shelves, the sombrero-clad man on its label instantly evoking its signature salty, peppery flavor. In addition to its base hot sauce, the Tapatío brand sometimes lends its likeness to other sorts of grocery store products. For instance, Costco fans were loving Tapatío-seasoned nuts when they hit store shelves in 2021. Available in the Sam's Club freezer aisle are Tapatío-branded chicken enchiladas. Unfortunately for connoisseurs of the irreplicable Tapatío flavor, customers who tried them have largely expressed that they did not enjoy their Tapatío enchiladas all that much.

Mixed reviews on the Sam's Club website earned the Tapatío Chicken Enchiladas a 3.6-star rating out of five. Common complaints include a lack of flavor and insufficient chicken content. On Reddit, at least two different users started threads on the dedicated Frozen Dinners board to share their disappointment with the product. The opening post in one thread complained about excessive tortilla, not enough chicken, and too much sodium. Plenty of commenters agreed with that assessment. 

"The sauce tastes like 60% Tapatío and 40% tomato paste — a total letdown. It definitely wasn't enchilada sauce. Then, my first bite was met with these tough, hard-as-nails tortillas. The filling was this mushy chicken paste that might or might not have had cheese in it; I couldn't taste anything distinct," reads the opening post in another Reddit thread. "Overall, a huge fail."

The Authentic Asia brand produces a wide variety of premade Asian and Asian-American foods, ranging from orange chicken to jajangmyeon-inspired Korean noodles. Among its specialties are shrimp wontons, available at Costco in a tom yum soup, for example, in addition to a handful of other distinct preparations at other stores. Sam's Club sells Authentic Asia shrimp wontons in a simple savory broth. Whereas a solid number of Costco customers enjoy the Authentic Asia Shrimp Wonton Tom Yum Soup, the comparatively simpler Shrimp Wonton Soup has garnered a decidedly mixed reception from Sam's Club shoppers.

On the Sam's Club website, the product holds a 3.4-star rating (out of five) based on more than 200 reviews, which stands out in a sea of frozen foods predominately rated at least four stars. The negative reviews bringing down that rating cite issues such as the use of shrimp flavoring in place of real shrimp meat, unsatisfyingly small portions, a mushy consistency, and a general lack of flavor. 

"Not good. I should have listened to the reviews because I wasted my money," reads a one-star review on the Sam's Club website. "Mushy inside, doesn't taste like shrimp, and a really watery broth that's carried by the green onions. Will not buy again."

Sure, there are more kinds of Oreos in the cookie aisle than most people will ever try in a lifetime. Beyond those variations on the standard Oreo cookie is a pretty wide range of Oreo ice cream products available in the freezer aisles of various grocery stores. Bars, cones, and dessert cups are some of the frozen treats bearing the iconic Oreo brand. In just the ice cream sandwich category, even, are a few different Oreo products. At Sam's Club, it's not standard-sized Oreo ice cream sandwiches, but their miniature variants that have disappointed a fair number of customers.

For what it's worth, opinions on the regular Oreo ice cream sandwiches are mixed, the chief complaint among their detractors being that they're technically categorized as frozen dairy dessert as opposed to real ice cream. A low, 2.6-star rating for the Oreo Mini Dessert Sandwiches on the Sam's Club website suggests that any existing issues with their standard variants are compounded when they're shrunken down in size. Among their negative reviews are complaints about the frozen dairy dessert designation, in addition to critiques of their price point, and multiple accounts of fans of the larger sandwiches simply not enjoying them as much miniaturized. 

"Why do you constantly get rid of things? Go back to the big cookies!" wrote one reviewer on the Sam's Club website. "My kids loved the big ones and hate these."

The two primary resources used to determine frozen foods poorly received by Sam's Club customers were the Sam's Club website and Reddit. For the former, anything with around a 3.5-star rating or lower stood out as a poorly reviewed product. Opinions from Reddit, meanwhile, helped provide further insight into some of these low ratings.

Every product that made the final list stood out in one manner or another for its poor reviews. One product was only reviewed by five customers on the Sam's Club website, for example, and was rated one star, distinctions held by no other item. Others may have earned mixed ratings, but a sizable volume of scathing reviews, rather than a preponderance of middling reviews, likewise landed them on this list.