The Freezer Meal Frenzy staff hasn’t been blown away by the 365 Everyday Value meals we’ve tried. Although their meals haven’t been exceptional, they’ve always been at least passable. All that has changed now that we’ve tried their Vegan Lasagna. In fact, this lasagna has the dubious honor of being the only frozen meal our staffers have actually spit out.
We knew this meal was a dud as soon as we took it out of the microwave. It has a strange, pungent odor that made us feel a little nauseous. It looked less like lasagna and more like something that had tomato soup spilled all over it. Against all odds, this meal somehow manages to taste worse than it looks.
This soupy mess lacks any of the flavors you might expect from lasagna. The tomato sauce borders on flavorless, and the vegetables taste like they came from a can. The faux cheese, however, is overpowering and disgusting. It tastes a little like spoiled milk, and there are no seasonings to cover it up.
The quality of this lasagna is absolutely unacceptable. There’s no excuse for releasing a meal that tastes as bad as this one, especially under the 365 Everyday Value line, a Whole Foods brand. While making a vegan lasagna can be challenging, they had plenty of options that didn’t involve rancid-tasting fake cheese. Why not use tofu or cauliflower in place of the ricotta? Why not use higher-quality veggies? Even the lasagna noodles taste cheap. This meal is a failure on every level.
To make matters worse, the plastic is glued onto the tray so tightly we had to wrestle with it for several minutes to get it open. It’s not worth that effort.
We’re hard-pressed to think of a frozen meal that tastes as bad as the 365 Everyday Value Vegan Lasagna, and this comes from a staff that was recently exposed to the Eat! Bim Bap Orange Chicken. This meal is bad enough that we’re hesitant about trying any 365 Everyday Value meals in the future. We hope that Whole Foods improves their quality control and starts releasing better-tasting meals, because we’re very close to giving up on the line altogether.
For more information about this dish’s ingredients and nutritional content, check out our package scans below.
