Our Favorite Store-Bought Frozen Pancake Brand Left Eggo In The Dust

Putting together a satisfying breakfast is rarely effortless. Sure, you only need three ingredients to whip up pancakes from scratch, but we all know mixing them is only half the battle. An easier breakfast routine involves looking to the frozen aisle for store-bought pancake brands that best approximate that home-cooked taste. Eggo is arguably the most iconic breakfast name in the game, and as such, one might assume it sells the most outstanding grocery store flapjacks money can buy. Yet, according to The Takeout's ranking of frozen pancake brands, they can't hold a candle to the fluffy pleasure that is Trader Joe's Organic Silver Dollar Pancakes.

TJ's contribution to the breakfast table impressed with a delightfully balanced profile that other frozen pancake brands didn't match. While they lacked the creamy buttermilk flavor exhibited in Eggo's Buttermilk Pancakes, each chewy bite featured just enough sweetness to up the allure. They can be a little tricky to microwave, as using full power will leave you with flapjacks that bear a cracker-like texture. But that's what's truly impressive about these bite-sized gems — even in cracker form, our tester said they were still delicious enough to continue scarfing them down.

One notable difference between Eggo's Buttermilk Pancakes and Trader Joe's Organic Silver Dollar Pancakes is that folks are getting a bit more flapjack for their money with the former. TJ's product has more fluffy discs overall at 30 compared to Eggo's 12, but the TJ's package weighs about 3 ounces less. 

Still, the upgraded flavor is the primary appeal, and the list of ingredients on each product reveals why Trader Joe's frozen pancakes are tough to beat in that department. Nearly all of the ingredients in Trader Joe's brand are organic, whereas Eggo can't say the same for any of its mix-ins. Some people wouldn't consider that a dealbreaker, but folks who are concerned about whether high-fructose corn syrup is worse than sugar may be put off by Eggo's use of the controversial ingredient to sweeten its product. The balanced sweetness in Trader Joe's frozen pancakes comes from organic cane sugar.

Customers who are more concerned about nutrition than flavor can also get behind TJ's product. Each serving contains 2 grams more of fiber and 1 gram more of protein than Eggo, and they have considerably less sodium. With 6 grams per serving, the frozen silver dollar pancakes don't come close to matching the protein content of Premier Protein's Mini Protein Pancakes at 15 grams, which placed in the top five in our ranking of frozen flapjacks. Yet they also don't leave an unappealing aftertaste like our tester thought PP's product did. Overall, our favorite frozen pancake brand successfully balanced flavor and nutrition better than its rivals so that people get the best of both worlds as they sit down to a tasty breakfast.