8 Store-Bought Frozen Breakfast Sandwiches, Ranked From Worst To Best

Everyone's heard some variation of the phrase "a good day begins with a good breakfast" at some point. While it's nice to boost your energy levels early in the day, it's sometimes easier said than done. Most of us would love to visit the best breakfast spot in our area and ease into the day with a hot cup of coffee and a plate piled high, but the reality is that most weekday mornings are more of a mad rush out the door than a leisurely wake-up period. When timing gets tight and you're looking for more than a granola bar, a frozen breakfast sandwich might be the best option.

The freezer aisle at your local grocery store is most likely brimming with frozen breakfast sandwiches, featuring everything from English muffins and croissants to pancakes and biscuits. There are lower-carb options, too, which is where this piece kicked off as Red's All Natural sent me a package of its new Egg'wich Turkey Sausage, Egg, and Cheese frozen sandwiches. I wanted to see how this unique sandwich stacked up to the rest, so I purchased seven other sausage-based breakfast sandwiches and tasted them all.

From differences in cooking instructions to some clear winners and losers in the egg department, these sandwiches provided plenty of variety, but one stood above the rest. Read on to find out which frozen breakfast sandwich should earn a spot in your morning routine.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with a lower-carb sandwich. In fact, a breakfast sandwich that's only egg, sausage, and cheese is basically a handheld omelet, which sounds amazing. For its part, Red's All Natural has created two different Egg'wich options: one with turkey sausage and another featuring chicken maple sausage. I chose turkey sausage for the review, given that several of the other sandwiches on this list use the same protein, but unfortunately, it's the weakest link in this otherwise very promising breakfast.

Red's cooking instructions are beautifully simple: remove from the plastic wrapper, wrap in a damp paper towel, and microwave for 50 seconds on both sides. Not all of the options on this list offer the same level of convenience, so that's a definite plus for Red's. The egg patties are also well done. Both egg patties were soft, fluffy, and well seasoned, a trait missing from nearly every other option on the list. The cheese itself was nothing special, but it served its purpose. The issue was the sausage, which was extremely dense and not terribly flavorful. In a sandwich with only three components, having a dud is hard to overcome, and a lackluster sausage patty was enough to push Red's down the list.

A single sandwich contains 190 calories, 12 grams of fat (5 grams of which are saturated fat), 590 milligrams of sodium, 17 grams of protein, and just 3 grams of carbohydrates. If you're searching for a low-carb frozen breakfast sandwich, this isn't a bad choice, but it could definitely be better.

Swaggerty's Farm is a Tennessee-based pork producer specializing in sausage. In addition to a variety of sausage products, Swaggerty's also sells a wide variety of frozen breakfast sandwiches and kolaches (pastry-wrapped sausages).

This was the only sandwich I sampled that offered cooking instructions for both frozen and thawed states, but I was cooking from frozen, so I had to open one end of the plastic wrap, microwave at 30% power for a minute, then at high power for another minute. I'll be honest and admit that I had never altered the power on a microwave before. While it's easy, this isn't exactly the simplest cooking method — but it's also not uncommon, as we'll see later.

Cooking instructions aside, this sandwich is so close to being really good. Not surprisingly, the sausage is the star of the show. Real pork that drips real grease was a nice treat here, though it is significantly smaller than an oversized egg patty. The egg itself is neither overly exciting nor underwhelming, and the same can be said about the cheese, but the real miss is the buttermilk biscuit. Microwaving any type of bread product is a dicey proposition. Swaggerty's suffers from a biscuit that was dry and, after only a few minutes out of the microwave, hard. At 370 calories, 23 grams of fat (including 9 grams of saturated fat), 1,180 milligrams of sodium, 13 grams of protein, and 31 grams of carbohydrates, this sandwich is so close to being good, but a bad biscuit is more than a good sausage patty can save.

Obviously, breakfast sandwiches can be built with a wide variety of bread options. From toast and bagels to croissants and even pancakes, there are tons of carbs ready to saddle up with some eggs and sausage, but in my book, the standard is the English muffin. Crav'n Flavor is the first of several English muffin sandwiches on this list, most of which share one common issue: They can't quite nail the muffin.

With another funky cook time that requires two different microwave settings, at least Crav'n Flavor ditches the plastic wrap for a paper towel swaddle. The eggs are soft but a little too fluffy, bordering on spongy, while the cheese — American, like the first few on the list — is present if not terribly exciting. The best part of this sandwich is the sausage patty, which brings a peppery, almost spicy flavor I enjoyed, but it's far too thin. Had Crav'n Flavor doubled the sausage, this sandwich would have shot up the rankings.

With 290 calories, 13 grams of fat (4 grams of saturated fat), 720 milligrams of sodium, 14 grams of protein, and 27 grams of carbohydrates, the Crav'n Flavor Sausage Egg and Cheese Muffin edges out its Swaggerty's Farm counterpart in every nutritional value, but the muffin is an issue. While it's soft and fluffy in the center, the outer layer is especially chewy. Rather than slicing through, each bite seemed to squish the sandwich, creating a potential mess that is less than ideal for an on-the-go breakfast.

Jimmy Dean absolutely dominates the breakfast sandwich market. Pretty much any freezer aisle you come across contains a wall of red boxes with all manner of Jimmy Dean breakfast options. With such a large market share, it would feel safe to assume that Jimmy Dean must offer the best sandwich on the market, right? Unfortunately, I came away underwhelmed.

There's nothing inherently wrong with this sausage, egg, and cheese English muffin, but there's also nothing all that great about it, either. Another 30% zap, this one wrapped in a paper towel, makes this sandwich one of several that are just a little more complicated to prepare than the rest. Like the Crav'n option, the muffin has a chewier exterior that contrasts with a fluffy center. The eggs are spongy and a bit wet, while the sausage lacks personality, a real disappointment for a brand that's all about sausage. A single sandwich contains 350 calories, 20 grams of fat (including 8 grams of saturated fat), 760 milligrams of sodium, and 14 grams of protein. It's a fairly standard sandwich that doesn't do anything terribly, but also doesn't do anything all that well, either, which earns Jimmy Dean a spot squarely in the middle of the list.

Great Value is Walmart's primary in-house brand. I've reviewed a number of Great Value items, ranging from chocolate chip cookies to other frozen breakfast sandwich varieties, and I've always come away happy with the products. Its Sausage, Egg & Cheese Biscuit Sandwich is no exception.

This is another sandwich that requires a defrost cycle and cooks in the plastic wrap, which is a bummer. I don't particularly enjoy microwaving plastic — on top of being a bit inconvenient, it always feels like a mild health risk. Toss in the fact that just about every slice of cheese I encountered melted and oozed from the sandwich during the cooking process, and now you're stuck pulling melted American from a piece of plastic before you can eat. It's not ideal, but it's not totally out of the norm, either.

As for the finished product, Great Value is a lot like Jimmy Dean in that nothing is spectacular, but at least it has a better carb. The biscuit simply microwaves better than the English muffin, and it's enough to slot Great Value into the top half of the list. The eggs are rather bland, though quite large relative to the rest of the ingredients. The sausage is fairly thin, but the biscuit, while perhaps a touch denser than I'd prefer, is soft and steamy. A Great Value Sausage, Egg & Cheese Biscuit Sandwich contains 380 calories, 24 grams of fat (11 grams of which are saturated fat), 1,100 milligrams of sodium, 13 grams of protein, and 28 grams of carbohydrates. This sandwich didn't blow me away, but it also has no major faults, making it a safe, steady option.

From one store brand to another, Kroger's take on the Sausage, Egg & Cheese Biscuit just edges out its Great Value counterpart. For one thing, this is as simple as cooking instructions come: Remove the sandwich from the plastic, wrap it loosely in a paper towel, and microwave for 60 to 90 seconds. No plastic, no appliance alterations, just unwrap, zap, and go.

The biscuit is really the highlight of this sandwich. It's soft and fluffy, but still structurally sound. The eggs are a lovely texture and actually taste like eggs, while the sausage has some solid flavor, even if it's not the most memorable. Once again, the cheese is there, but it's nothing special. Honestly, only one entry on this list had cheese that stood out for the better. It seems like an easy spot to upgrade a sandwich, but nearly every brand I came across uses the same kind of cheese. It's not bad, and it's not great. It's just totally, completely average.

While tasty, the Kroger Sausage, Egg & Cheese Biscuit is hardly a health food. A sandwich contains 400 calories, 26 grams of fat (11 grams are saturated fat), 940 milligrams of sodium, 13 grams of protein, and 28 grams of carbohydrates. The calorie and fat totals are the highest of any I sampled, but if you're more concerned with flavor, then a few extra calories are worth it for one of the best sandwiches on the board.

Since the first sandwich on this list featured double the eggs and minimal carbs, it felt only fair to flip the script with a sandwich that skips the eggs in favor of only sausage and biscuits. The Tennessee Pride Sausage Buttermilk Biscuits are mini-sandwiches that come individually wrapped in two-packs. A two-sandwich serving contains 330 calories, 23 grams of fat (including 10 grams of saturated fat), 800 milligrams of sodium, 9 grams of protein, and 22 grams of carbohydrates. Wrapped in a paper towel and microwaved for only 40 seconds from frozen — 25 seconds if they've been refrigerated — this is the fastest and easiest prep on the list. It's also one of the tastiest sandwiches I sampled.

All of these breakfast sandwiches are simple, but Tennessee Pride strips it down to just some soft, fluffy biscuits and a slightly greasy, very tasty sausage. I wanted a side of pepper gravy to round this out, but these sandwiches work well as a standalone dish. For a full meal, I may need to up the number to four, but I quite like the option of a smaller portion to pair with another item, such as a smoothie, for a more balanced breakfast. They're simple, but really good — and at breakfast, that's all I'm looking for.

I'm a big fan of Kodiak's Protein Pancake Mix, but it really should exist in its own category. After all, a focus on protein often means sacrificing some flavor, which I'm generally okay with. However, when it specifically comes to breakfast sandwiches, Kodiak seems to have found a perfect balance.

Despite this ranking's affinity for biscuits, Kodiak's sandwich features an English muffin done to perfection. Maybe it's because it's whole grain, but this is the single softest English muffin I think I've ever had, and the flavor is excellent, too. The eggs remind me of a McMuffin with the yolk and white separated. The turkey sausage has some personality and is thick enough to avoid being a disappointment. And the cheese! This is real cheddar cheese that adds actual flavor to the sandwich.

With 270 calories, 10 grams of fat (4 grams of saturated fat), 810 milligrams of sodium, 20 grams of protein, and 26 grams of carbohydrates, this sandwich is designed as a lighter option but also manages to be the best-tasting sandwich I tried. While it boasts one of the more involved cooking processes — requiring 40 to 50 seconds on high before flipping to cook the other side — it cooks while wrapped in a paper towel, not plastic. The ingredients all feel elevated in comparison to the others, which makes Kodiak the frozen breakfast sandwich winner in my book.

Red's All Natural sent me a package of its new Egg'wich Turkey Sausage, Egg, and Cheese frozen sandwiches, and from there, I visited a variety of stores to purchase the rest of the options. I stuck to sausage sandwiches for consistency, with the carb portion being either an English muffin or a biscuit. After warming each sandwich according to the package instructions, I snapped some photos and got down to tasting.

I first took a full bite of each sandwich, then broke them down into their individual elements: eggs, carbs, sausage, and cheese. My evaluations were based on flavor, texture, and overall cohesiveness. Some recommendations are based on first-hand impressions of promotional materials and products provided by the manufacturer or distributor.