The Best And Worst Frozen Dinner Rolls You Can Buy

There is something magical about the scent of baking bread. It conjures up happy memories of holidays, family, being well-fed and well-loved. It is powerful, too, as it can trigger your appetite, something grocery stores exploit by placing the bakery section at the front of the store to trick customers into spending more money.

While making bread from scratch is what I'd call an expert-level skill, homemade rolls are more approachable. If you'd love to tempt your teens to stick around for dinner or impress dinner guests with the alluring aroma of hot rolls, but don't have the time or skill to make rolls from scratch, frozen dinner rolls offer a shortcut that still fills your kitchen with the magical smell of baking bread, but with so much less effort.

You'll find a wide variety of frozen rolls in your store's freezer case, which are either thaw-rise-bake or warm-and-serve varieties. The first category includes frozen dough shaped into rolls, which require a few hours or even overnight to thaw and rise before they can be baked. Warm and serve varieties are rolls that have been partially baked and then frozen, so they only need to be baked to reheat and finish baking. Many of the frozen rolls available are delicious, just like grandma used to make, but some come out of the oven with the sour flavor of disappointment. We compiled a list of the best and worst frozen rolls to identify which rolls will rise to your expectations and which are a waste of dough.

To determine which brands belonged on the best or worst list of frozen dinner rolls, I selected 11 kinds of frozen rolls available at my local grocery stores. I packed them tightly into my freezer drawer and then rolled up my sleeves and got to work.

For four days straight, my house smelled like a bakery as I baked the rolls and sampled them. I tasted them all, then tasted them again. The rolls were initially sampled fresh out of the oven (I have the burned fingers to prove it) without butter so as not to unfairly influence the results with my fancy European dairy.

Rolls were judged on aroma, appearance, flavor, texture of the crust, texture of the interior (or crumb), size, shape, ease of preparation, price, and whether they delivered on any promises stated on the packaging.

Rhodes Artisan French Rolls are a foolproof shortcut to fresh bakery-quality rolls and one of my favorite entries on this list. First of all, these rolls look upscale. They have the markings of a professional baker with bread scoring on top, which lets the bread bloom as it rises. But all that is already done for you. Right out of the bag, they are already nicely raised, shaped, and browned. They develop an even deeper golden hue during the 12 to 14-minute baking time. I liked that the bag of 12 was resealable, so it's easy to heat up just one or two at a time. 

These rolls are on the bigger side and have an appealing appearance that makes any dinner feel like a special occasion. Hot out of the oven, the crust on these is firm and pleasantly chewy, and the interior is a surprisingly moist, chewy, carb-tastic treat, rich with sweet and malty flavors. It may sound odd to describe a roll's flavor as malty, but it's not a surprise if you understand that the smell and flavor compounds which are created through the Maillard reaction and yeast fermentation are responsible for bread's rich aroma and beautifully browned crust, and that many of these compounds can also be found in roasted malt.

You'll want to roll out the welcome mat (and the baking mat) for Great Value Yeast Dinner Rolls. They are delicious, with a rich, sweet taste and a soft, chewy texture akin to a ciabatta roll or pizza crust. 

These have what is called an open crumb because there are large air pockets inside, which are formed when the yeast releases gas bubbles that become trapped in the dough's glutinous web. There's an occasional cavernous pocket in these rolls, the result of minimal kneading. A large cavity in your dinner roll is no problem if you are just using it as a vehicle for butter, but possibly not quite as appealing if a large hole is hiding a glob of mayo inside a ham and cheese slider.

These Walmart-brand warm-and-serve style rolls are easy to bake. They only take five to 10 minutes to warm up. Just be aware that the square-shaped rolls are sometimes a little misshapen and also vary in size. However, it's not their appearance that earned Great Value Yeast Dinner Rolls a top spot on my list of best frozen rolls. I can overlook the inconsistencies in appearance thanks to their superior taste and texture, which I can't stop thinking about.

These frozen rolls fill the role of "convenient complement to dinner" and "easy upgrade for an ordinary weeknight dinner," but not the role of "most delicious rolls!" I like the idea that since these are partially baked, the rolls are already full-sized, shaped, and slightly browned right out of the bag. And I don't have to plan ahead to allow hours for them to thaw and rise. I can decide 12 to 14 minutes before I want to eat that I'm going to make hot, fresh rolls with minimal effort. The warm-and-serve rolls also come in a convenient zip-top bag, which is easy for when I only want to bake a few at a time.

Baking these rolls still filled my kitchen with the bready smell of a bakery. Sadly, these paled in comparison to the traditional thaw-rise-bake Rhodes frozen rolls. Here's what you can expect: A crisp, dark brown crust and a soft interior densely packed with small air pockets. They cook up small and dense, and have a strong, almost sour, yeasty flavor. There is a hint of sweetness, but, unfortunately, this is overshadowed by an unpleasant chemical aftertaste. If I could roll back the clock on this roll, I would have made a different purchase.

Sister Schubert's Frozen Dinner Yeast Rolls offer the best of chewy and fluffy textures, all rolled into one. The chewy, flavorful crust that develops as the rolls bake offers a delightful contrast to the soft and buttery interior that fluffs up in the heat of the oven. The strongest aroma compounds develop in the crust as bread browns, so it's no surprise the roll's exterior is richly flavorful. The interior of the roll, known as the crumb, is buttery and mildly yeasty.

This is a warm-and-serve type of frozen roll, which is partially baked and then frozen. It doesn't require thawing or time to rise. The rolls go straight from the freezer into the oven. The rolls are small to begin with and didn't increase in size in the oven. Instead, they remained rather flat and pale. Even when butter was brushed on the top before baking, they never turned golden brown. I suspect it had to do with the suggested five to 10 minutes of baking time. That's a wide range, and I always err on the side of undercooked rather than burned, dry, and hard.

These rolls lost some points for appearance and taste (although the slight chemical taste I detected could have been due to underbaking), but that was not enough to keep Sister Schubert's Frozen Dinner Yeast Rolls off the honor roll.

Rhodes Rolls (a name which just rolls off the tongue) is almost synonymous with frozen dinner rolls. Rhodes has been selling frozen bread dough since 1958 and frozen yeast dinner rolls since the 1970s. They are the hassle-free upgrade to a weeknight meal and the shortcut for making monkey bread.

Of all the rolls I sampled, these baked up the most round and golden once they'd been left out to thaw and rise for a few hours. They rose higher than the partially baked, warm-and-serve Rhodes Rolls, and were also softer and less dense. Their fluffiness reminded me of white sandwich bread. The classic taste and smell of Rhodes Rolls is yeasty and sweet. However, compared to other brands, these rolls are milder in taste and texture.

I'm going to take a moment here to air my complaints about the packaging. The "tear here" notch rips the bag through a line of instructions, which is mildly inconvenient. Also, since I didn't bake all 36 rolls at once, I had to find something to secure the bag closed. Instead of designing a better bag, Rhodes suggests storing unused frozen rolls in an airtight zip-top bag before putting them back in the coldest part of the freezer.

Texas Roadhouse is famous for its dinner rolls served hot with honey cinnamon butter. But what if you have a craving for them at home? You could try to reheat leftover rolls, or you could try Texas Roadhouse Mini Rolls with Honey Cinnamon Glaze from the supermarket. But before you rush out to buy several bags, slow your roll. These aren't the rolls you are looking for. The bag clearly states that these mini rolls are merely "inspired" by the restaurant's made-from-scratch bread. Without that information or the restaurant logos on the packaging, I would never have guessed these small, dense rolls were supposed to remind me of Texas Roadhouse's legendary fluffy round rolls.

The square-shaped rolls are bunched together in three rows of four in a disposable aluminum baking pan. They bake for a long 27 to 30 minutes, but don't smell like the restaurant that bakes a fresh batch of rolls every five minutes. The rolls taste sweet, just like the restaurant rolls, even before the glaze is squeezed on. Unfortunately, the sweet and spicy glaze is missing the whipped texture and decadent buttery taste that make the restaurant's rolls so memorable.

So, if you want Texas Roadhouse rolls with honey cinnamon butter, you'll have to roll up to an actual restaurant and buy them. However, if you just want a sweet, cinnamon-flavored snack or dessert, these mini rolls would be fine. Be sure to eat them immediately because they harden fairly quickly once they cool.

This is one of four varieties of Rhodes frozen rolls I tasted. (There are even more varieties available, but I ran out of room in my freezer.) I included this variety because they are labeled "gourmet" and "Texan." Turns out that just means they're big, so they look fancy. These are 50% bigger than regular Rhodes rolls, making them ideal as a hamburger bun, a mini pizza crust, or just a socially acceptable way to eat lots of butter.

These Texas rolls are visibly bigger, but they don't take any more time or effort to bake than the regular-sized rolls. In fact, they take the same amount of time to thaw and rise. However, if you notice that they aren't rising as expected, they may be past their expiration date, or ice crystals may have formed in the dough because they have been thawed and then refrozen. These Texas-sized dinner rolls even bake for the same amount of time as the regular-sized rolls. They basically have all the same characteristics that are present in the original Rhodes Rolls. Aroma? Here. They smell fresh and yeasty. Appearance? Here. They puff up big and beautifully browned. Taste and texture? Here. Soft and bready. Size? Definitely here.

Terrel's Country Bakery Rolls & Scone Dough isn't just a marketing tactic to give the brand a small-town vibe. The rolls are actually made in the 2.9-square-mile town of Mt. Pleasant, Utah, population 3,805, and sold in grocery stores throughout the West, where scones are what other regions of the country call fry bread or elephant ears.

It's a shame not everyone can access these pillowy-soft rolls with their delicate and tender crumb. They rise into fluffy, oblong rolls and bake to a pale golden brown color with a deliciously sweet, rich flavor. They don't form a firm crust. Instead, they are soft all the way through.

These frozen rolls — which come in a 3-pound bag — are one of my new favorite discoveries. In fact, I'd like to send a message to Terrel or whoever is responsible for these rolls: I just wanna tell you how I'm feeling. Gotta make you understand. Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna run around and desert you! Yep, you just got rickrolled by a dinner roll testimonial. But seriously, I'm never going to stop buying these rolls. However, unlike Rick Astley, I may end up dessert-ing them — like using them to make shortcut beignets.

While they are placed alongside name-brand frozen rolls in the freezer case, these Kroger-brand frozen dinner rolls are not on the same level. This is not one of those generic brands that compares to the name-brand alternative. After tasting so many delicious rolls available, I would not settle for the disappointing quality and flavor of these copycat rolls.

Kroger Original Yeast Dinner Rolls are smaller than other brands and don't rise much during the proofing stage. If you're hoping for a light and fluffy roll, tough luck — it'll be a tough puck. Perhaps another proofing method would yield softer, fluffier rolls. The package, which at least comes with a convenient resealable zip-top, suggested a four to six-hour room temperature method, an overnight fridge method, and a two-hour speed method. I used the room temperature method, as I did with all other brands.

Of all the rolls I sampled, these were the worst-tasting. You smell the chemicals before you taste them — a strong aroma of sour yeast which permeates the nostrils and lingers on the tongue. The packaging says the dough is enriched, but they have the type of unpleasant artificial chemical taste you'd expect from canned rolls.

Right out of the bag, these rolls have something the other frozen rolls don't: layers. The dough is structured like a jelly roll, and when it is baked, those layers create innards that pull apart with a gluten-ous stretch. They are fun to tear apart, even if I wish those layers were full of butter — but hey, that's a different type of dinner roll than we're talking about.

Instructions say to let the frozen dough thaw and rise for four hours and then bake for 14 to 17 minutes. The rolls come out of the oven with a small crumb that is dense but soft. I liked the texture, but the yeast flavor was a little stronger than I prefer when they were hot, but mellowed into a deliciously rich flavor the next day. The taste may have been improved if I'd used the recommended overnight method — a slower proof can often result in better-flavored bread. The Beehive Bread & Pastry Co brand is another one exclusive to the western United States.

When I realized this brand was gluten-free, I decided to roll the dice and hope for a good gluten-free experience. I ignored my misgivings about their grayish-brown hue and baked a few rolls in the oven. The rolls smell and taste strongly of herbs, garlic, and olive oil, in which they appear to be generously soaked. They are oddly firm on the outside but airy on the inside. However, the stiff structure surrounding the air pockets is oddly rough, like a scratchy focaccia.

I tried both the oven and microwave methods suggested on the package. I was surprised that the microwave method was the one recommended for softer rolls because, in my experience, microwaving bread is almost always a bad idea. As I suspected, the microwave produced rock-hard rolls. I tried two different times, reducing the cook time by half on my second attempt, but it still required a knife to cut into the roll. (Full disclosure, I did not follow the preparation instructions exactly. No, I did not "don a fancy apron" or arrange the rolls "in the shape of a heart or smiley face" as was recommended by the playful instructions on the packaging.)

These Italian rolls had the potential to be a great alternative to garlic bread. However, as they harden so easily, I would advise you not to bankroll a dozen of these rolls.