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Food

18 Frozen Food Classics that Are Way Better Homemade

You deserve better than a plate of soggy-ass waffles.
18 Frozen Food Classics that Are Way Better Homemade
Photo by Heami Lee. 

As you can imagine, we here at MUNCHIES are no strangers to the siren call of the frozen food aisle at the grocery store. If we're being honest, a bunch of our favorite foods can be found in the frozen food aisle. But as much as we are champions of a weeknight dinner pulled from the freezer because sometimes that’s just all you can muster up—we willingly admit that the homemade version of those things are sort of undeniably always better. In fact, there are a whole bunch of things that we realized we’ve probably only ever eaten as frozen foods before??? That seems wrong, and like a cosmic affront we’ll have to atone for at some point. So we’ve pulled together a compendium of our favorite foods and dishes that are very popular in the freezer aisle, or that you didn’t even know you could make on your own. Before you know it, we’ll have made your microwave completely obsolete.

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Perfect Waffles Recipe

Leggo my Eggo MY ASS. Homemade waffles will always make for a better breakfast than frozen ones.

Look, here’s the thing—you can make this stupid-easy recipe as highbrow or as lowbrow as you want it to be, but either way, it’s still gonna be better than frozen breakfast scrambles of indeterminate origins. Sub prosciutto for the bologna and Gruyere for the Kraft singles if you need to feel bougie.

You are flat-out lying to yourself if you think one of those sad frozen gas station breakfast burritos is sufficient to satisfy you in any state—hungover or stone cold sober. Make the damn thing yourself and enjoy a world of difference.

Frozen pizza is a feat of modern technology that we admit we would be lost without. HOWEVER. We do not commit ourselves fully to saying that the frozen pizza— while lovely in its own weird and mass-produced right is a perfect object. It… can be improved upon. We suggest you start with an easy, very-hard-to-screw-up dough, and build from there.

Biscuit-Topped Chicken Pot Pie

Marie Callender’s frozen chicken pot pie for one has nothing on this super easy faux-pot-pie of ours, especially because flaky, buttery biscuits are always going to be better to soak up all that good chicken pie filling. And certainly Marie Callender isn’t giving you a vegan option like we are.

If you’ve ever indulged in a White Castle slider, you know you’re not above buying a box of the frozen version for the most base impulse drunk microwaving you’ll ever submit to. No matter how tipsy you are, non-frozen beef and buns will always be tastier.

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Unlike a lot of frozen foods that probably have a non-frozen counterpart that we’re equally familiar with, we’ve probably… never really experienced a freshly made mozz stick. Until our culinary director Farideh Sadeghin decided to take on the challenge of improving upon what we thought was a fully realized snack. ENJOY.

Pizza Bagel Bites Recipe

Bagel bites follow a similar pattern. Who out there is crazy enough to attempt the DIY, artisanal bagel bite—to improve upon this unicorn of a nostalgia snack? Well, we are, friends. And we say give it a go.

There’s probably a pretty small venn diagram of people who understand and like n’duja and who are interested in making their own pizza pockets, but for those people who find themselves in that rarified space—we’re here for you.

It’s certainly not unheard of to order just an egg roll or a dozen from your local Chinese takeout spot. But if you’re looking for enough of these to serve as an app at your next party, why not try making them on your own this time around?

Beef Lasagna Recipe

A Stouffer’s lasagna has been the go-to freezer aisle meal for busy families in America for decades. Freeze your own damn lasagna (in individual portions even!) for a meal that is tasty, wholesome, and cheap.

The same goes with frozen baked mac and cheese—you’re hardly saving much time by buying the frozen version, and you’re certainly cutting waaaaay back on the flavor situation, here.

YOU KNOW YOUR ABUELITA WOULD DISOWN YOU IF YOU TRIED TO PASS OFF FROZEN TAMALES AS HOMEMADE AT YOUR NEXT FAMILY GATHERING, SO DON’T EVEN TRY IT, MIJA.

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Who knows what sort of chemical processing has to go on to get frozen raw potatoes to crisp up in your oven so that they even slightly resemble a French fry. Commit to a few cups of canola oil to fry some fresh-cut potatoes, and you won’t be sorry.

Homemade Chicken Nuggets Recipe

We are not too proud to admit that we have, on more than one occasion, purchased an entire 50 piece bag of frozen dino nuggets from the grocery store with no intention of sharing any of them with anyone under the age of 10, as is only appropriate. But if you want some really good nugs, make ‘em yourself.

If you do not come from a dumpling-making culture (in which case: sorry) you’ll quickly learn how truly magical it is to have some pre-made, uncooked dumplings like these guys hanging out en masse in your freezer for one of the easiest weeknight meals you could possibly whip up.

Cheesy Artichoke Dip

Frozen versions of already-melted cheeses are just… always disappointing? We’re not sure of the science behind why that is a universal truth, but we can assure you that the chain-restaurant-branded frozen version of this dip doesn’t hold a candle to this one.

Buffalo-Style Chicken Wings Recipe

Fact: no bone-in frozen chicken product is ever good. Ever. If you’re going to make wings, they gotta be fresh.

TV Dinner Meatloaf Recipe

Make enough of this TV-dinner style meat loaf for a crowd, and then gather around the tube for a night of wholesome family fun. (Hey, Matty says so.)

Power Potatoes Recipe

Loaded baked potatoes—the appetizer that swept the nation for some inexplicable reason in the early aughts—are really not an item built to be mass produced and frozen.