7 Popular Pre-Made Meals At Sam's Club, Ranked Worst To Best

It can be difficult to choose the best and worst things to buy at a Sam's Club when heavy-duty hunger pangs hit and you have no idea what to put on the table. But if you head to the pre-made meal section and aim for lunch and dinner selections made onsite, you can choose from a deep stock of heat-and-eat options and cold salads ready to be enjoyed with just a flip of the lid. With selections ranging from sushi to enchiladas, there are plenty of possibilities that keep you from having to round up ingredients and scrounge around the kitchen for an easy recipe.

Figuring out which of the bountiful bubble packs to pick up is entirely a matter of taste, though some options have higher potential for enjoyment than others, according to customer opinion. To find out which of these popular prepared dishes are the cream of the crop, I chose seven popular products and put them to the test. I went with a mix of hot, hearty meals and cool dinner-style salads, and found a blend of vegetarian and omnivorous choices for a veritable banquet that everyone can enjoy. While they're all suitable for supper, I was able to determine a hierarchy of best and worst bites among the bunch — I'll explain how I ranked them at the end. 

Seeing Sam's Club stuffed peppers in the refrigerator case may be enough to convince you that this is the pre-made meal for you. Each pan contains six medium-large red, orange, and yellow bell peppers that provide a sweeter flavor than the ordinary green bell peppers. They're stuffed to the brim with a traditional mix of ground beef and rice topped with a sprinkling of white cheese. It's easy enough to heat the entire aluminum pan straight away if you need all six peppers for a meal or cook them individually for single meals throughout the week.

Stuffed peppers were a childhood classic in my home, so I have a baseline for what a proper pepper filling should taste like. Rather than being bold with the seasoning, Sam's opts for a milder take on what should be the centerpiece of the dish, leaving most of the heavy lifting to the pepper itself. I was hoping for something more flavorful, but other shoppers without preconceived notions about stuffed peppers may find this pan thoroughly enjoyable. I found myself wanting to add more seasoning, which isn't a good sign in a pre-made meal. So though there's nothing at all wrong with this option — other than their not living up to my preferred stuffed peppers recipe – there's nothing overly compelling about them, either.

The bright orange color of Sam's Club macaroni and cheese is eye-catching enough to draw you into its hypnotic hue without you realizing what's happening. The pan is stacked deep with elbow mac coated in cheddar sauce, with a sprinkling of fresh grated cheddar on top for good measure. There's enough to serve as a feast on its own for a family, as well as making a perfect party platter in its own heat and share serving tray. But you can also scoop out one or two servings depending on what your needs are and stash the rest in the fridge or freezer for later use. So really, this ends up being multiple meals in one.

Though the vibrant color and familiarity of macaroni and cheese is a huge plus for this creation, the finished product is a bit disappointing. There's no question that it's creamy and cheesy; the blend of tossed-around sauce and sprinkled-on cheese gives plenty of authentic flavor that bests the blue Kraft box any day of the week. What's missing is a bit of warmer spice; adding a sprinkle of paprika or garlic powder is needed to add dimension to what might be the only dish on the menu. But adding something to a ready-made meal defeats the purpose, even if it would be easy enough to open the spice cabinet and find something suitable. This pan gets bonus points for the cheese factor but a lower ranking for a lack of flavor variety.

Having a four-pack of these overstuffed potatoes that have been baked once and refrigerated with fresh cheese piled high on top can solve a lot of problems when the dinner hour rolls around. Rather than adding all of the decorative elements like bacon, crumbles and sour cream into the potatoes themselves, this Sam's Club prepared meal department includes them in little condiment cups to keep them fresh until you're ready to enjoy them. It's a clever touch that lets everyone customize their own potato. With only four halved potatoes in the package, you may have difficulty serving one package to a larger family, though these spuds are so sizable, splitting them in half might be the way to go.

I was impressed with how smooth the potato filling turned out to be. I only heated my sample until the cheese had melted, though if I'd been more patient I could have allowed it to brown a little. Despite the silky texture, the lack of zesty flavor in the mix prevented these potatoes from being a more premium pick. Even with the bacon and sour cream, I found myself wanting chives or onion powder — something to turn up the perky flavors on the otherwise-perfectly tasty potato base. A single potato is perfectly filling as a standalone meal, if you don't mind adding a dash of flavor enhancement.

Sam's Club pulls a fast one with its large cranberry crunch salad. Though there appear to be plenty of toppings through the lid, it becomes clear once you open the salad that there is far more spinach than anything. This isn't necessarily bad; it's a spinach salad, after all. But the ratio of greens to toppings could be better, especially considering how the name calls out the cranberries and crunch while skipping the spinach part. Either the name could use a change, or the balance of elements should improve a little.  

Nitpicking the name aside, the flavorful mix of walnuts, dried, cranberries, blueberries, and feta cheese spread around a spinach nest makes a tasty combination. It's one of the more refreshing pre-made salads I've encountered, much better than the bagged versions that sometimes arrive home wilted and wet. This salad was clean and crisp, and even better than the tangy cranberry raisins were the giant blueberries. If only there were more of them all to go around. Two packets of poppyseed vinaigrette is plenty to add a sweet honey essence that makes the salad feel like a Panera creation. It's a refreshing and healthy dinner-style salad that lets lighter eaters skip the kitchen and head straight for the dining room. Just know that you'll have to toss it carefully or be prepared to dig for the buried berry treasures hidden below the surface.

You may only think of sun-dried tomato chicken pinwheels from Sam's Club as something to lay out on a platter when guests are on their way, but they're good as a meal on their own merit. The limited color of the chicken, flour tortilla, and cream cheese spread makes these spiral sandwiches appear a little bland. Only the sun-dried tomatoes peeking through the layers to tell you that there's something flavorful beneath the plastic lid. You get eight modestly-sized circles stuffed with enough filling to make up for their contained forms, allowing each pinwheel to feel like much more of a meal than smaller versions of this party food you may be used to. They're as perfect for an easy dinner idea as they are for tossing in a lunch bag for a midday meal at school or work.

Being a visual eater, I was convinced that the tomatoes would contribute the only element worth tasting. But the blend of cream cheese with a touch of herbs and thin slices of deli chicken layered with greens in a soft tortilla make for quite a tasty small bite sandwich. If it weren't for the overabundance of cream cheese spread making the texture a bit mushy, I would have ranked this even higher. Still, these tasty rounds are a great way to have pre-made sandwiches that feel a bit special, ready without any work required on your part beyond snapping off the lid.

Italian fans will be happy to know that Sam's Club rises to the occasion with its prepared cheese manicotti. There are six overly large pieces in this pan, with herbed ricotta filling spilling out of both ends and covered with classic red sauce and coated with even more cheese. Even the visual impact of the dish is something special, with the manicotti appearing to be arranged on a platter, even though they're in a disposable aluminum pan with a plastic top. It's encouraging enough to picture them at a dinner party or at the center of a family-style dinner.

On its own, this manicotti (not to be confused with cannelloni) is a spectacular selection that rivals chain Italian restaurants at the very least and replaces any attempt at homemade pasta at the very most. The shell was tender, the filling was fluffy and nicely flavored, and the sauce was perfectly composed. This purchase serves as a simpler supper dish that could be spruced up with some store-bought Italian bread, sliced and toasted with a bit of garlic butter. But really, that's just an extra. If you choose to do the manicotti on its own, you'll have more than enough rich dining to satisfy your taste for Old World specialties.

Because it's a cold dish that requires no cooking or even mixing, the Sam's Club Mediterranean kale pasta salad is the most ready-to-go meal you'll find at the Walmart warehouse. It's ready for any eating occasion, and with so much available in the container, there's plenty for seconds or thirds if your family or guests so desire. Based on my own reaction to how flavorful this pre-made creation is, they're going to clean the clam shell without thinking twice.

Hands down, this is a great sweet kale salad option and one of the best salads I've ever had — restaurant salads included. It comes pre-tossed, soaked in delicious balsamic herb dressing with a perfectly balanced mix of orecchiette pasta, bite-size kale, sun-dried tomatoes, and shredded Parmesan, with a crumble of feta sprinkled throughout. The dressing flavors the kale perfectly; the pasta is tender and substantial, much better than the bowties that usually show up in this type of salad. It can be opened and served instantly at a party or for dinner right out of the pan. You could also do what I did, which was tear it open and dig into it for lunch. But be warned: you might be tempted to eat more than your fair share in one sitting. Yes, it's that delicious. And yes, I did eat quite a bit. I regret nothing.

Seven pre-made meals turns out to be a lot of food to sample, even on a hungry day. I thought I'd eat a few over the course of the week, but once I had them in the house, I chose to make two meals in one day instead, starting with the salads for lunch, since they were ready to roll without any prep work, and moving to the heat-and-serve dishes for dinner. It turned out to be the perfect way to make a greater meal array out of seven items that could just as easily be eaten on their own.

I started with a pinwheel sandwich paired with the kale salad, and then I kept with the kale salad until I'd eaten a fifth of the tray; it was too good to stop any sooner. I contrasted that with the spinach salad, which is a much more traditional salad with separate toss-ins and dressing that let you make it slightly differently each time if you choose. For dinner, I tried half a pepper, a potato, a scoop of macaroni and cheese and a single manicotti. I was ready for it to be a somewhat heavy variety; none of these dishes are what you'd call a light bite, which is by design. A pre-made meal should be satisfying enough on its own to quell hunger, and all of these dishes do. Even with their distinctive personalities, they're all entirely enjoyable and preferable to having to cook.