11 Grocery Store Frozen Pies Ranked Worst To Best

Jenny Kellerhals Keogh/Mashed

Pies might get the most attention around Thanksgiving, but the truth is, they can (and should) be enjoyed year-round. Even if your preference is just classic apple or pumpkin, you can find what you're looking for in the grocery store's frozen dessert section whenever the mood strikes. And if you're looking to branch out — or enjoy something that isn't entirely in-season — there are plenty of options for just about every pie palate.

Some might think that a grocery store frozen pie is the effortless alternative to making a pie from scratch, but that's only partially true. Sure, you don't have to collect ingredients, make pie dough, or mix any fillings together. However, many frozen pies still have to be baked before they can be enjoyed. This can take up to an hour in the oven, plus several more to cool and set enough to serve. Flavors such as chocolate satin, banana cream, and key lime come fully prepared, but still need time to thaw before serving — which can also take several hours depending on the type of pie you've chosen.

To help choose your next favorite pie, we tasted 11 different grocery store frozen pies from five widely available nationwide brands. After sampling pies filled with fruit, cream, and custard, here's how they all ranked from worst to best. Read until the end to learn about our full pie-judging process.

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I firmly believe that a dessert doesn't need to look good to taste good, so you can rest assured that Mrs. Smith's Original Flaky Crust Apple Pie didn't rank last based on looks alone. That said, it didn't win any extra points in the presentation department, considering that most people like to serve an attractive dessert when hosting friends and family. First off, the top crust of the pie came out of the box partially shattered. This can happen to any frozen pie crust — especially double-crust versions — but it was still somewhat disappointing. I was able to gently pinch the top crust back together before placing it in the oven, but the result was more "rustic" than professionally made.

The crust is made with real butter, flour, palm and soybean oils, dextrose (sugar), salt, and yeast (likely for a little extra flavor and flaky lift). The filling is made with apples that keep their texture throughout the baking process, sugar, corn starch, corn syrup, brown sugar, salt, spice, and xanthan gum. Even though it isn't pretty, the flaky crust is the best part of the pie. It has a noticeably buttery flavor and a good ratio of crust to filling. The filling itself falls a little flat without an acidic element to make it shine, nor does it offer any excitingly bold apple flavors.

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It might be controversial to rank Edward's Frozen Cookies and Crème Pie so low among this particular lineup, but hear me out. While the pie is exciting to look at, it tastes like little more than Cool Whip and crushed Oreo cookies in a chocolate cookie crust, with even more whipped cream on top. That sounds fine in theory, but the end result is so whipped and fluffy that it almost has no texture aside from the crunchy cookie crust. There's so much creaminess that the ratio of cookies to cream feels a little imbalanced.

This particular pie takes about an hour to an hour and a half to thaw whole in the refrigerator, or 30 to 45 minutes to thaw if sliced into pieces first. Edward's Frozen Cookies and Crème Pie usually sells for $10.99, although it can sometimes be found on sale for around $7.99. As a cookies and cream fan, I'd rather try out one of the many recipes for making Oreos even better, such as grabbing a tub of cookies and cream ice cream, an Oreo cookie crust, and a can of Reddi-Wip to assemble an even tastier cookies and ice cream pie on my own. This homemade version would set up in the freezer in about the same amount of time it takes for this store-bought pie to thaw out.

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For the impressively low price of $1.58, I couldn't not try Banquet's single-serving Peach Pie. At this price, you could conceivably pick up a Banquet Chicken Pot Pie (which costs about $2.20), a peach pie, and some vanilla ice cream for a hot, comforting meal under $10. Aside from boasting one of the best deals in the frozen dessert section, this is the only pie in the lineup with a microwave heating option. For consistency's sake, it was baked in the oven like the rest of these selections, but the microwave option is nice for anyone ready for dessert ASAP.

The diced yellow peaches inside this pie have the texture of canned peaches, but they're swimming in plenty of gooey peach filling and don't turn to mush while baking. The double crust bakes up nice and crisp, with a decent ratio of crust to filling. Notably, this crust is made with lard, also known as pork fat, instead of butter or vegetable oils. Banquet also offers single-serve Apple and Cherry Berry Pies, which might be worth a try for the convenience alone.

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Of all the pies selected for this list, Edward's Frozen Turtle Crème Pie was one I was looking forward to the most. This caramel cream filling is injected with even more caramel sauce, and then topped with chocolate chunks and pecans. It sounds like a dream, and I couldn't wait to indulge. At first bite, all of the turtle flavors came together exactly how I expected them to. After a few more bites however, an out-of-place, almost vegetal flavor that was both confusing and off-putting settled on the back of my tongue.

Thawing this Turtle Crème Pie whole takes anywhere from two to three hours in the refrigerator, although individual slices reach the thawed point in roughly 30 to 40 minutes. Once this pie hit optimal temperature, the filling was just as fluffy and weightless as the Edward's Cookies and Crème Pie, but with a bit more flavor from the caramel and chocolate. The odd steamed-broccoli aftertaste is most apparent at this temperature, but much less so when the pie is a bit more on the frozen side. Not only does this offering taste better mostly frozen, but the firmer texture of the filling is more appealing as well. Additionally, it's worth crumbling a few extra pecans on top of this pie for even more nutty turtle flavor.

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Pumpkin lovers will likely be just as satisfied with Mrs. Smith's Original Flaky Crust Pumpkin Pie as they would be with a non-frozen pumpkin pie from the bakery, because they taste almost identical. The traditional ingredients and extra step of baking this pie yourself also lends it a homemade appeal.

The biggest brag for this pie is that it's made with the same buttery crust that you'll find in Mrs. Smith's Original Flaky Crust Apple Pie. The filling is made with pumpkin, sugar, milk, eggs, nonfat milk, corn syrup, food starch, spices, salt, and a couple of familiar stabilizers. The pie itself doesn't taste overly sweet, which is a welcome break from many of the sweeter pies in this roundup. However, the flavor also isn't very bold. The baking spices are mild, and while the individual spices aren't listed, it tastes a little lighter on the cinnamon and stronger on the nutmeg or allspice.

It takes this pumpkin pie about 70 minutes to bake. This is the longest of any pie in this taste test, but it's easy to tell when it's set and looks great when it's done. After a few hours of cooling, it slices cleanly without the need to chill, and should definitely be enjoyed at room temperature or slightly warmed.

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Banana cream pie is one of those pies that can be enjoyed at any time of year, and practically any occasion. Unlike the previous cream pies, Marie Callender's Banana Cream Pie filling is made with a pastry cream-style custard filling, instead of a whipped cream filling. This offers more of an authentic, handmade pastry texture to the pie. Marie Callender's also offers custard-based Lemon Meringue Pies and Coconut Cream Pies for those who prefer pudding-style pie options over whipped cream.

This banana custard filling is made with actual banana puree and tastes like real bananas, as opposed to synthetic candy-like banana flavor. The taste is subtle, like a light banana-flavored pudding without the addition of fresh banana slices or vanilla wafer cookies. I'd highly recommend topping this pie with both just before serving, as they take this pie to the next level.

To thaw this banana cream pie in the refrigerator, move it out of the freezer the evening before you want to serve it and defrost overnight. A special shout-out must also be given to the box that this pie comes in: It's been thoughtfully designed to open on three sides like a bakery-style pastry box, and can be neatly used to store any leftover pie.

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Sara Lee has been a household name for generations, making pies, cakes, and pastries which you've likely tasted, or maybe seen in an episode of "Mad Men." The famous baked goods brand currently produces about 15 different flavors of pie, ranging from baked fruit to chilled cream pies. In contrast to the double-crust apple pie produced by Mrs. Smith's, Sara Lee offers a Dutch Apple Pie that features a crumble topping instead of another sheet of pie dough.

During baking, the entire kitchen filled with a heavy scent of cinnamon and baked apples, which will excite just about anyone who smells it. The pie is pre-topped with a generous amount of crumble topping — so much that you can hardly see any apple filling before the pie goes into the oven. You might wonder if it's perhaps too much crumble ... but trust the process. The delightful, crunchy crumble topping and large slices of apple in the filling are the highlights of what this pie has to offer.

Don't be fooled by the gorgeous slice on the front of the box though. Like most crumble-topped Dutch Apple pies, this dessert is easier to serve with a large spoon than by the slice. However, that's par for the course. Grab a bowl and embrace the mess.

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The chocolate lover in me couldn't wait to get a bite of Marie Callender's Chocolate Satin Pie, and was thrilled to find that it only takes about 45 minutes for individual slices to thaw in the fridge, or about two hours for the whole pie to temper. I was expecting a rich and thick chocolate pie; topped with airy whipped cream. I got exactly that and more. Perhaps it should have been obvious, but I wasn't quite prepared for just how sweet this pie tastes.

The chocolate filling is somehow both fluffy and dense at the same time. That said, it's not quite as custardy as a chocolate cream pie, nor as mousse-like as a French silk pie. Texturally, it's somewhere between the two. Interestingly, the packaging proposes a serving size of 1/6th of the pie, while every other pie I tested suggests 1/8th of a pie per serving. I'm here to tell you that even someone with a mouthful of sweet teeth will be completely satisfied with a 1/8th slice serving of this Chocolate Satin Pie.

Like several of the prior pies, the texture of this offering presents itself best when thawed, but still ever-so-slightly still frozen. Consider defrosting it in the coldest part of your refrigerator, or flashing it back in the freezer for five to ten minutes before slicing and serving.

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Marie Callender's currently produces eight cream pies, 10 fruit and seasonal pies, and two cobbler-style desserts. Suffice to say, narrowing down the pies to sample was especially challenging. Like many other brands, Marie Callender's offers a selection of apple, pumpkin, and peach pies, but also includes a few unique berry crumble pies: This Cherry Crunch Pie, and a Strawberry Rhubarb Streusel Pie for example. While not personally a huge fan of cherry pies, the offering was too unique to pass up, and I was pleasantly surprised by the results.

Unlike other preassembled crumble-style pies, the Cherry Crunch Pie comes with a separate package of frozen crumble topping that is added after the base pie bakes for 40 minutes. The crumble is then added, and the pie is returned to the oven for another 10 to 15 minutes. The cherry pie filling does bubble up onto the crust somewhat while cooking, and this is the only pie that required me to wrap the edges in aluminum foil to keep it from browning too much. However, all that just added to the homemade appeal of the pie.

What was most impressive about this pie was how real and fresh the cherry filling tasted. I was expecting an overly sweet, maraschino cherry-like canned pie filling, and was instead greeted by plump cherries with both texture and big flavor that made me reassess my entire opinion on cherry pies.

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It might be an unpopular opinion, but I think that the two least appetizing dishes on a Thanksgiving table are the pumpkin pie and the sweet potato casserole. Pumpkin pies tend to resemble bland baby food, while sweet potato casseroles get clobbered with overly-sweet toppings and too few spices. Sweet Potato Pie, on the other hand, takes the best of each dish and creates the ideal version to replace both. Sara Lee's Sweet Potato Pie is a fantastic version of this seasonal and highly underrated pie.

Since sweet potatoes have a bit more density than pumpkin puree, this pie has a custardy texture and more sweet potato flavor packed into each bite. The spices work with the more intense flavor instead of against it, and the overall flavor is delightfully balanced without the need for any additional toppings. If you're a fan of whipped cream, it certainly won't overpower this pie. A sprinkle of toasted pecans or walnuts would also be a nice addition.

Since this is one of Sara Lee's seasonal pie flavors, it might be difficult to find it in stock after the bulk of the holiday season has passed. Do yourself a favor and stock up before they're gone, so you can enjoy one once the glow of the holidays is gone and you don't have to share.

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Edwards currently offers 11 different whole pie flavors, including four whipped cheesecake pies and a handful of whipped cream-based pies. The brand's Key Lime Pie is one of the more unique offerings in the pie collection. It's made with many of the same ingredients as a traditional Key lime pie: Sweetened condensed milk, Key West lime juice, and egg yolks mixed to set in a graham cracker-style crust.

Many Key lime pies can be too sweet if the citrus flavors aren't strong enough, if the filling is weakly set, or if they're topped with too much whipped cream or meringue to make up for too little filling. Edwards Key Lime Pie doesn't suffer from any of these pie injustices. It offers a puckeringly bright and sweet lime flavor, with a soft but solid filling that hardly even needs the whipped cream.

The pie's citrus flavor comes mostly from the Key West lime juice, but is boosted with lemon juice concentrate, lemon pulp, and lemon oil. Slices of the pie can thaw in the refrigerator for about 45 minutes if you prefer a softer texture, but don't be shy about trying a slice straight out of the freezer too.

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While browsing the selection of pies available in the grocery store's freezer aisle, I was impressed by the wide variety of options. Brands like Sara Lee and Marie Callender's are widely known for their frozen pies and desserts, but the number of options that each brand offers are still surprising. There's a pie for pretty much every season, holiday, event, and appetite.

To choose which pies to taste for this ranking, we first narrowed the selection down to dessert pies only, and left savory pies in their own category. Frozen cheesecakes were intentionally left out of the lineup, since they can also generally be considered their own type of dessert. Finally, we chose pies from each brand that are widely available, and — when possible — include flavors and ingredients specific to a particular brand's lineup of pies. Even though most of the pie flavors are different, we paid special attention to common attributes that would apply to many of the pies from each brand. This included crust texture, flavor, crumble toppings, filling consistency, and toppings, as these give a general idea of what to expect from similar pies of the same brand.