Take it from Garfield: there are few things that compare to biting into a delicious chunk of hot lasagna. So of course we’re going to take any excuse we can get to eat the stuff. And today we’ve got a really, really good excuse: we picked up a box of Trader Joe’s Family Style Meat Lasagna, and we need to eat it so we can write a thorough review.
While you can certainly cook this in the microwave, we felt like this was a pan of lasagna that deserved the full oven treatment. Thankfully, both the microwave and oven cooking methods are supported, and both have instructions on the box. If you want to see the full cooking instructions, check out the package scan at the bottom of this review. Keep in mind that no matter how you cook this, it will take quite a bit of time. We spent more than an hour heating this thing up.
This is part of the Trader Giotto’s line, which means Trader Joe’s wants us to take this frozen meal as seriously as we’d take an authentic Italian dish — or at least a meal from Olive Garden. So how does it hold up against those standards?
Well, first off, the cheese here is amazing.
Wait a second, let’s step back. The cheese on top of the lasagna is amazing. It tastes great, it’s thick and stretchy, and it gets wonderfully crisp around the edges. The cheese on the inside isn’t quite as good. It’s a ricotta, but it ends up being a little dry and gravelly, which is not the ideal consistency for ricotta cheese. It’s not terrible, mind you, but we’ve definitely had better ricotta inside frozen lasagnas before.
The sauce is pretty great. It’s not a sweeter tomato sauce — it’s a savory, meaty sauce that actually works pretty well here. It’s filled with a very generous portion of ground beef, which makes it great for meat-lovers. The beef is seasoned well, so the flavor is quite good.
Trader Joe’s considers a tray to be four servings, and we’ve photographed a single serving (shown above) so you can see just how much food that is. If you stick to that recommendation, you’ll end up eating 350 calories (130 from fat) and 920 mg of sodium. While that’s not so bad in the calorie department, the sodium level is through the roof. An we probably don’t need to mention that if you eat more than 1/4 of a pan, these numbers will only get bigger.
The Trader Joe’s Family Style Meat Lasagna is not perfect, but it’s a pretty decent frozen lasagna for the price point. Of course, we’d have to say that Stouffer’s has Trader Joe’s beat in the frozen lasagna department. If you don’t believe us, check out the Stouffer’s Family Size Lasagna Italiano for yourself and compare it against Trader Joe’s offering. We think you’ll agree that Stouffer’s has the edge here.
To learn more about the nutrition content, ingredients, or cooking instructions for this Trader Joe’s frozen lasagna, check out our package scan below.
My grandma and I had the lasagna last night it was a delicious little bit spicy. but recommended to everyone to trying the lasagna.
Does anyone know if TJ changed their lasagna recipe? It was out of stock for about 45 days here in Southern California, and when it became available again, it seems to taste different. Less sweet, less spicy, and less ricotta. If anyone knows please respond.
Still the best frozen lasagna out there, though!
Just tried this tonight. I won’t buy it again. I agree the cheese on top is good but there is so very little of it! They went way overboard with the ricotta in the filling though. Since I am not a fan of ricotta I ate around it as well as I could. The sauce, just ok; could have used more in my opinion. The meat mixture was also just ok. I would rate this a 3 on a scale of 1-10. In comparison I would rate Stouffer’s Lasagna a 3 also. I have to say it again… way too much ricotta!
The ricotta cheese is one of the things I liked about their lasagna.
You either like ricotta or you don’t.
My favorite thing about TJs lasagna was the very thin lasagna noodles. Just like home made noodles. Lots of meat sauce, ricotta & cheese … thin noodles. The light, thin noodles were a very pleasant surprise.
With so many frozen lasagna, all you taste are the thick, gummy noodles.
This isn’t good. The meat was rubbery, the spices are sharp and hard and I don’t mean that metaphorically. Shards of dried spices are literally sharp and hard and get leftover in your mouth after you chew and swallow everything else. That’s gross. I had to spit out things like sharp, hard fennel (and/or anise?) seeds, tiny rubbery meat globules that wouldn’t break down and other dried, hard things. It is not a pleasant experience.