So with the hectic nature of modern life, sometimes you can't cook a reasonable dinner. Or maybe you just can't cook a lick, no judgments here. The classic frozen "tv dinner" can sometimes be a solution.

What frozen dinners do y'all like? I've been eating a lot of Marie Callender's dinners lately. They've been on sale for 2 dollars lately, and that's a steal for how good they are and how much food you get. They're all around 400-500 calories, roughly speaking. And they've always got decent servings and decent sides. The same can't be said of the Lean Cuisines in my experience. Yes, the LC will be 300 calories, but they barely give you any food. LIterally low content!

Here are my Marie Callender faves:
Roasted Garlic Chicken
Grilled Chicken Alfredo Bake
Salisbury Steak
Boneless Pork

Another type of frozen dinner I like are the Stouffer's lasagnas. You get a whole lotta food for $2.8x in the large size. The Lasagna Italiano and the regular Meat Lasagna are the best imo. And they each only have around 600 calories. Hell, I make 2 meals out of them. And they taste great too.

So what are some frozen foods you use? I'd be especially interested in Trader Joe's products since they've recently arrived here in San Antonio. I've heard great things about them.

Not sure how you can title a thread Relatively Healthy Frozen Dinners and then spend most of your OP talking about Marie Calender. When you look at the nutrition labels for calorie content, do you look at anything else? The reason you like MC so much is because it is loaded with sodium. In fact, they have quite a bit more sodium than any "relatively healthy" frozen dinner.

My father practically lives on frozen dinners and the Marie Calender brand was his favorite. At least until he developed congested heart failure and had to start watching his sodium intake. When I shop for him now, I go through all the dinners in the frozen food aisle trying to find something that doesn't use up most of his daily sodium allotment (1500mg) in one item. I've had to eliminate all of the MC varieties because they are significantly higher than other brands. For example, that Grilled Chicken Alfredo Bake has 900mg; Roasted Garlic Chicken has 950mg; Salisbury Steak has 1,100mg, and Boneless Pork has 1,030. That's simply atrocious and about as far removed from relatively healthy has one could get.

Yeah, frozen dinners are sodium bombs, and often cholesterol. I sometimes can find Trader Joe's frozen meals that are a little lower in these two areas.

I used to love Hungry Man until I realized what was in it.

Birds Eye Voila is the best I've found. The garlic chicken and chicken alfredo are both very good. They're pricey, so wait til they're buy one/get one or at least on sale, but they're outstanding. They're also made for two people, but the leftovers reheat nicely on medium level in microwave. The sodium issue is there, but once in a while they're a nice convenience.

Stouffer's Vegetable Lasagna. If it kills me, I'll die happy.

Most of the MC dinners are around 800-1000 sodium, that's not the end of the world. But yeah, a doctrinaire health nit might not be into the frozen dinner scene. To each his own, as they say.

Trader joe's frozen Indian food is pretty good. Chicken tikka Marsala and butter chicken are good for like $3 a pop.

not exactly a frozen dinner but if you buy a bag of frozen chicken + bags of the microwave steamable vegetables/sides its a large, healthy meal. season chicken, put it in your cuisnart/ george foreman grill, microwave the steamables, apply hot sauce or prune juice (or w/e you olds use) and enjoy

haha, I'll probably skip the prune juice.

Never read the ingredients list. You will damage your soul. Save that reading time for something better, like Ambrose Bierce.

Ethnic Gourmet's Chicken Tikka Masala is legit.



And aside from calcium chloride and xanthan gum, doesn't contain anything I wouldn't eat/use on it's own. There's also Amy's frozen dinners. Organic vegetarian meals that I assume are healthy because they say "Minimally Processed" on them.

All about Amy's, but the portions are pretty dang small.

Some of the frou-frou microwavable meals from Ethnic Gourmet and Amy's are pretty solid. A fine balance between quality and convenience.

Green Giant makes single-serving microwavable veggie packs that I've been using as healthy side dishes.

The Hungry Man classic fried chicken, the gold standard of Hungry Man dinners, has 970 calories and 59 grams of fat. It's like 2-3 dinners in one.

I'm not a TV dinners guy, but I am a sucker for quick frozen Mexican stuff that is awful for u but I love the taste anyways. My faves are Jose Ole Chicken Chimichangas (buy a bunch of them when they go on sale for $1/ea) and El Monterrey Chicken Tacquitos. anyone else got any recommends for frozen Mexican stuff?

speaking of TV Dinners, going back to my childhood this is always the first thing that pops to mind when I hear that phrase:

I'm partial to the Boston Market chicken parmesan & Michael Angelo's cheese ravioli

Michael Angelo's vegetable lasagna. 380 cal, 700mg sodium, no listed weird ingredients. Pretty tasty for a frozen dinner.

Only a re-creation as Youtube didn't have original but I loved this scene from Stranger Than Paradise

Haven't had them in years but Marie Callender's chicken pot pies (and turkey and beef) used to be my standards.

loved that movie

one of my all-time favorite endings

One of my favorites also, but they seem to have changed the recipe somewhat. The last time I had the chicken, it seemed like it had imitation bacon bits in it. Haven't bought them since.

I had this today, very tasty and only $2.30 or so. Will buy again.

I used to get the MC pot pies but they're up around 1000 calories each, the 16 oz. ones. Also I noticed that they often have a higher crust-to-gravy ratio than I'd like.

I've had the Healthy Choice Asian Steamers...under 300 cals - 16g protein. Not bad at all...several different flavors.

None of these are healthy. Some, however, could be healthful.

Had the Boston Market chicken fried steak recently, wasn't bad at all. Plenty of gravy and mashed potaahtoes. Amazed those Yankees got it right.

That little ol' band from Texas: