Stouffer’s Pub Classics BBQ Recipe Burger with Bacon Review

If you’re anything like us, when you hear the term “burger,” you probably picture something that comes on a bun. Well, Stouffer’s is attempting to change that perception with their Pub Classics BBQ Recipe Burger with Bacon. This is a frozen meal that contains a burger patty with mashed potatoes and no bun to speak of.

We’ve tried a whole lot of Stouffer’s meals in the past, and we know they have the chops to pull something like this off, so we’re rooting for them. We are on Team Stouffer’s more often than not… So we have high hopes.

Before we taste this, of course, we need to cook it. Now, we’ve complained about Stouffer’s long cook times in the past, and we’re going to do it again here. This takes a total of eight minutes to cook in the microwave (there are no oven instructions, but if there were, they would be even longer than this). Do you know how much stuff we could get done in eight minutes? Probably a lot! And instead of doing those things, we’re waiting for our food to cook.

Okay, so that’s probably not the worst thing in the world. We were perhaps being a little melodramatic. We also took the opportunity to scroll through our social feeds, which isn’t exactly time well-spent, but we also weren’t bored. Either way, if you want to read the full cooking instructions straight off the box, you can scroll down to the bottom of this review and check out those package scans.

We should point out right away that the extra-long cook time was mostly to ensure the burger cooks all the way through. It’s a pretty hefty thing, and you certainly don’t want to eat undercooked meat. However, that also means the mashed potatoes end up overcooked. As you can see in the image above, these potatoes come out looking all pockmarked. What you can’t see is the edges turn into a rubbery goop with the consistency of one of those latex Halloween masks. It’s unfortunate, because these garlic mashed potatoes are otherwise pretty decent-tasting.

But we’re guessing you’re probably not here for the mashed potatoes. The main event is the burger patty, so let’s talk about that.

Well, this thing is thick. In fact, we’d call this a meatloaf instead of a burger, as it really is just a loaf of meat, despite the circular burger shape. It’s made up of ground beef mixed with catsup and onions — that’s meatloaf, right? Now, as far as beef goes, this stuff ain’t bad. No, it’s not the best we’ve ever had, and it gets a little dry on the outside (probably because of the eight-minute cook time), but the inside is juicy and flavorful.

There is a BBQ sauce here, but it’s honestly kind of weak-tasting. It tastes more ketchup-y than BBQ-y, and there isn’t a whole lot of it here. The beef is so flavorful that the beefiness cuts through the BBQ sauce, even when you really dab on that sauce real good.

This actually has fewer calories than we were expecting (we’ve got Devour on the brain!) This entire meal contains 390 calories. Of course, it also includes an absolute wallop of sodium, at 1,370 mg. So calorie-counters will probably enjoy these, while sodium-watchers will want to avoid this meal altogether.

The Stouffer’s Pub Classics BBQ Recipe Burger with Bacon is certainly not amazing. If we had our way, we’d either make this a meatloaf or slap that burger on a bun. We’d also either remove the mashed potatoes entirely, or create a cooking method that gives the potatoes half the cook time. We admit that this was probably not the easiest meal to put together, but we still think Stouffer’s can do a lot better than this. This meal is certainly not the brand at its best.

To learn more about the nutrition content, ingredients, or cooking instructions for this Stouffer’s frozen meal, check out our package scans below.