6 Frozen Breakfast Sandwiches Worth Your Money And 5 To Avoid

When you roll out of bed in the morning to face the new day, nothing quite fills that hole in your stomach like an old-fashioned breakfast sandwich. No, we're not talking about canned beans on toast. We're talking sausage, we're talking bacon, we're talking eggs and cheese. And we're talking about slapping all of those goodies onto whatever breadlike surface is handy. Muffins, biscuits, croissants, flapjacks: If you can hold it, and it can hold fillings, then down the hatch it goes.

But what do you do when you don't have time to hit up a McDonald's for a McMuffin or drop by Wendy's for a Honey Buddy Chicken Biscuit? Simple: plan ahead. In the freezer section of your local grocery store is a breakfast sandwich paradise waiting to be discovered, filled with every combination of bread and protein you can imagine. Pop one in the microwave while you're toweling off and you've got a head start on the new day.

There are so many options, though, that it can be a challenge to figure out which frozen breakfast sandwiches are worth your precious time and which belong in the back of the freezer. Don't worry, though. That's where I come in. I've pitched a shopping cart full of breakfast sandwiches down my gullet to determine which frozen breakfast sandwiches are worth your money, and which you should avoid to ensure your morning starts off the right way. So up and at 'em, champ. It's time for breakfast.

Jimmy Dean the man was a country music icon, but Jimmy Dean the brand is known for its breakfast sausages. But I've got surprising news for you: The star of this show is actually the blueberry pancakes. I got a sneak preview of what was to come while this was still in the microwave, as the faint scent of blueberries — not sausage! — filled my kitchen.

The taste also filled my mouth when I bit into the Jimmy Dean Blueberry Griddle Cake Sausage, Egg and Cheese Sandwich. That first hit of blueberry flavor transitioned into a broader pancake experience, but just as I was wondering if I had eaten the wrong sandwich, the spicy sting of sausage abruptly cut through. The contrast of sweet and spicy made for a nicely complex bite, set off by a lingering note of blueberry that hit again right at the end. For a moment, I thought I had died and gone to the blueberry haven of Maine.

If I had to nitpick, I'd point out that the blueberry-sausage axis of flavor didn't leave any room at the negotiating table for either the cheese or the egg. But I didn't miss them. I also didn't mind that at 12 grams of protein, the sandwich had the least protein of any of the options I tried. Even with those minor blips, this is a sandwich I can heartily recommend. You've done it again, Jimmy Dean!

Aldi is known for its affordable off-brand food products, many of which can win over even the most skeptical shopper. But while there are some good things about the chain's Breakfast Best Sausage, Egg, and Cheese Croissant, the overall experience is one I'd sadly recommend avoiding.

Just taking it out of the box told me that things clearly went awry with this sandwich during the production process. Each sandwich came individually wrapped, which is nice, but inside those plastic wrappers, I could see that every sandwich was in disarray. One of them had fallen apart so thoroughly that the slice of cheese was completely separate from the rest of the sandwich, free-floating inside the bag in frozen slivers like fragments of a shattered mirror. Puzzles are fun, but I don't want my breakfast to require reconstruction by a forensic scientist.

You might also need CSI to find the sausage, as the patty was much smaller than the croissant. It was all too easy to get a full bite with no sausage at all. While the croissant itself was fine, if a bit hard on the bottom, what sausage there was also lacked flavor. This did allow the cheese to come through, which I suppose was a small saving grace, but not enough to make up for the rest of the sandwich. Sorry, Aldi: I'll save the quarter for the shopping cart and put it towards a different breakfast sandwich.

Greenfield Natural Meat Co. doesn't beat around the bush with its bacon sandwich. Yes, there's an English muffin, along with egg and cheese. But Greenfield knows that bacon people just care about the bacon, so why even list all that other stuff in the name? That kind of simple approach extends to how the company actually makes the sandwich: by piling up a bunch of bacon. Done and done.

As I said, it sounds simple. Yet despite the fact that this was just one of several "bacon" sandwiches I tried, it's the only one that truly showcased the bacon. Many bacon sandwiches from Greenfield's competitors might as well have not even had bacon on them for all it mattered, so biting into a load of bacon and tasting that bacon-y goodness was a breath of fresh air blown straight from America's heartland into my grateful lungs.

The English muffin was also good, I eventually realized after coming down from my bacon high, and there's a pleasant cheesy note that cuts through right at the end. For the health-conscious, I should note that the ingredients include cultured celery extract, which is used as a loophole to include "natural" nitrites in meat; as Greenfield's Bacon Sandwich was the most expensive of the frozen breakfast sandwiches I tried, presumably because of the natural ingredients, it's worth flagging. Still, it's a whole lot more bacon-y than the competition.

I'm a big fan of ciabatta. What can I say, I like me a bread with a firm crust and an airy interior. Now that I've finally gotten this confession off my chest, I can also reveal that despite this fact, I think you should probably just skip the Jimmy Dean Delights Turkey Sausage, Egg White and Cheese Ciabatta Sandwiches.

Jimmy Dean Delights is a sub-brand of the famous sausage company that emphasizes high-protein breakfast offerings. So paired with this cube of ciabatta, the egg includes only the whites, and the sausage is turkey sausage instead of the classic Jimmy Dean pork and chicken sausage.

Though I don't have synesthesia, the result is a sandwich that tastes a lot like I imagine the color beige would taste. The primary flavor with my first bite was egg white, which really set the tone. While the flavor of the ciabatta was fine, it's decidedly mild, and the lightly seasoned turkey sausage offers almost nothing. It's great to be health-conscious, and on that front this sandwich delivers, as going with egg whites means this sandwich had notably lower cholesterol (30 milligrams) than the other sandwiches I tried. But even with this mix of ingredients, I would expect more flavor from a Jimmy Dean sausage than this delivers. It can do better, and so can you.

Crav'n is one of those off-brands that's secretly a brand itself. Appearing in grocery stores across the country as an off-brand alternative to Big Food, it offers up frozen breakfast sandwiches at a discount. But even at a lower price, is it worth your money?

Bacon says yes. Though the Crav'n Bacon, Egg, and Cheese Croissant sandwich doesn't pack quite as much bacon as the Greenfield Bacon Sandwich, it still delivers a clear bacon flavor that cuts through the sweetness of the croissant to build a satisfyingly complex bite. Yes, the croissant itself is just a touch on the firm side. And you should also heed the warning on the side of the box that the sandwich will be hot; even after waiting the directed minute to eat, it was nearly too hot to bite into without burning myself.

But the contrast of flavors, which also includes a nice dollop of unctuousness from the cheddar cheese, makes this one a winner, especially at a lower price point. Crav'n indeed.

Kodiak is a breakfast brand that has made its bones on protein. These days, it seems like everybody is adding protein to everything, but while that's just a fad to some, Kodiak has been a pioneer in the protein-packing game for over 40 years. And since protein is the name of the game for breakfast, you might be tempted to try one of the company's frozen sandwiches to start your day.

Well, maybe think twice. Oh, you'll get protein, all right. At 20 grams of protein, Kodiak's sandwiches did indeed have more protein than many competitor brands. But that difference was slight, as sandwiches from other brands I tried ranged from 12 grams to 18 at the high end. Whatever you eat, you'll get your protein anyway.

And for that tiny edge, it's not really worth skimping on the flavor. The English muffin itself actually has the strongest flavor profile, which says a lot about how bland the rest of the ingredients taste. Only the barest hint of spice at the end of the bite suggests the presence of sausage, and the cheese is mainly notable for being hot and melty enough to burn your fingers and mouth if you're not careful. The cheese also should have been in the middle of the sandwich rather than the bottom. Without it there to hold things together, the sausage and egg just slide off each other, making this a real (but frustrating) adventure to eat. Pass.

One of the frequent downfalls of a subpar breakfast sandwich is skimpy meat. Too many breakfast sandwiches just don't have enough bacon or sausage to be satisfying. Filling your belly with egg just isn't the same as biting into a well-balanced sandwich with an appropriate amount of meat. We don't want your skinny little patties. We want that sausage to be thick.

Well, Trader Joe's has heard our cries. The Trader Joe's English Muffin Breakfast Sandwich with sausage, egg, and cheese has a sausage patty that in the real world would be considered regular-sized, but in the realm of frozen breakfast sandwiches, qualifies as truly titanic. Before you even cook it, this patty helps make the sandwich just look more appealing than most. Then it backs this up with flavor: for once, the sausage isn't drowned out by bread; it's the primary flavor, front and center.

I was also pleasantly surprised not just by the fact that I could taste the cheese, which is also often sadly underrepresented, but by an unexpected note of sweetness at the end of the bite. It all adds up to a top breakfast sandwich experience. Funny, the amount of joy a little bit of sausage can bring in this mixed-up world.

What's that, you ask? A breadless sandwich? Is that even possible? Well, the Trader Joe's Eggwich Breadless Sandwich proves that it is indeed possible. It's less convincing, however, on the question of whether it's a good idea. Trader Joe's breakfast scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could that they didn't stop to think if they should.

The way it works is this: two pucks of cooked egg replace the bread. Then, between the egg comes your usual little sausage and cheese rounds. That's it. Among the breakfast sandwich options I sampled, this was the only one that was gluten-free, on account of the fact that there was no bread. If you have celiac disease or are otherwise avoiding gluten, that's a big positive. Otherwise, eating this eggwich is akin to biting into a light and airy sponge. It's springy, bouncy, and chewy. It's also very egg-forward, meaning you not only get a prevalence of egg flavor, but you also get moist egg residue all over your hands. Plus, thanks to all that egg, one sandwich delivers 88% of your recommended daily value for cholesterol.

As for the sausage and cheese, they are visibly present, but your sense of sight will be better sated than your sense of taste. You can see the cheese right there, so why can't you taste it? Another pressing question the Trader Joe's food scientists should take back to the lab next time.

Ah, Canadian bacon. The flavorful ham of the Great White North (although Canadians don't actually call it "Canadian bacon"). Jimmy Dean Delights Honey Wheat English Muffin sandwich comes with egg whites and cheese, but it also features a round of Canadian bacon to give the sandwich a little bit of much-needed pizzazz. And thanks to the sandwich's construction, it doesn't disappoint. Bite through the English muffin, and the first flavor note you get is Canadian bacon, cutting through like an Arctic wind.

The muffin itself is also good, with the classic English muffin taste, though there is maybe just a little more muffin than necessary. If that proportion is slightly off, the cheese makes up for it. Often strangely missing from the flavor profile of other frozen breakfast sandwiches, here you get a nice kicker of cheese flavor at the end that nicely rounds out each bite. And on the nutrition side, the egg whites provide a lower cholesterol count than regular eggs, while the wheat muffin makes this one of the only frozen breakfast sandwiches on this list to include any noticeable amount of dietary fiber. Sure, it's still only 2 grams, but every little helps.

I'm a sucker for a good flapjack, so I approached the Kodiak Maple Pancake Uncured Bacon, Egg & Colby Jack Cheese Sandwich with hope in my heart. And the pancake didn't disappoint. Sweet but not too sweet, it had a suitably fluffy texture that belied the signature Kodiak protein additives.

But where this sandwich lets itself down is the bacon. What you want from a maple pancake bacon sandwich is the tantalizing interplay of sweet and savory. But sadly, the bacon is completely lost here. The microwaving process makes the bacon limp and almost soggy, so there's no textural contrast to speak of either. Instead, the primary flavor and texture of the sandwich is, unexpectedly, the egg. Sure, there's a little hint of cheese at the end of the bite, but egg is usually the background note in a sandwich like this. It's the fourth oboe, not the lead violin. In this breakfast symphony, the conductors at Kodiak just get it wrong.

Then there's the experience of actually eating it. The whole sandwich is unusually damp, so if you do try one of these, make sure you have plenty of paper towels because your hands are going to get wet. Because of this excess moisture, the ingredients are also surprisingly slippery; holding the sandwich together is a bit of a challenge. All in all, this sandwich is just more trouble than it's worth.

I'm giving the Best Yet Bacon, Egg, and Cheese Biscuit a "buy" recommendation, but with an important caveat: This sandwich is made with biscuit. Sure, that should be obvious from the name, but I wanted to single it out because in my experience, there are two kinds of people in this world: those who like biscuit sandwiches, and those who don't. Biscuits, after all, are often dense and can easily take over a dish. For biscuit people, that's a feature, not a bug.

So, if you're a biscuit person, this will hit the spot because the biscuit is good and there's a whole lot of it. If you're not a biscuit person, well, just keep on truckin' because this will not change your mind. But biscuit biases aside, the sandwich is good. Once you get through the biscuit, each bite has a nice pop of both bacon and cheese. Would it be a little better if each bite were more consistent instead of dominated by biscuit? Maybe. But if that were the case, it wouldn't be a biscuit sandwich, would it?

It should be noted that while the primary method of preparation for almost all of these frozen breakfast sandwiches is microwaving, some include directions for other methods of preparation, such as a toaster oven or air fryer. In each instance, I used the microwave so the comparisons would be like-for-like. It's also important to note that though most of the directions were calibrated for a 1100-watt microwave (which mine is), outliers included directions assuming a 1000- or 1200-watt microwave. In these cases, I calibrated the cooking time to adjust for the wattage.

I then sampled each sandwich in turn, scoring each on a number of axes, including taste, texture, mouthfeel, and nutrition. I also factored in how well-cooked the sandwich was by following the exact directions, and how easy and pleasant they were to eat: some were too hot, others too cold. I then tallied each of these individual subscores to derive an overall score for every sandwich. Sandwiches with scores above the median received a "buy" tag, and those below received an "avoid" tag, with Best Yet being an outlier due to the inscrutable nature of biscuits.