Ranking the Top 6 Frozen Mozzarella Stick Brands From Worst to Best

The frozen food aisle at my local grocery store seemingly beckons me every time I walk by — and who am I to say no? From a variety of frozen pizzas that give even the best delivery joints a run for their money to a seemingly endless array of popular ice creams in every shape, size, color, and flavor that you could imagine, there’s no denying that the aisle is a treasure trove for eaters of all ages. While I have no problem filling my cart with these items, and a couple bags of frozen meatless meatballs too, there is one item that I will admit I have never bought from the frozen aisle: mozzarella sticks.

You might be scratching your head after reading the title of this piece, then reading this shocking admission. Now, I grew up eating mozzarella sticks in the elementary school cafeteria and snuck a few off a friend’s plate at a dive bar from time to time (so yes, I have had a mozzarella stick before), but I have never felt compelled to add a box of frozen sticks to my cart. I was always under the impression that it’s impossible to replicate that ooey, gooey cheese pull and perfect ratio of cheese to breading in a frozen product — so why even try? 

In an effort to learn whether I’ve just been in the dark the past 20-plus years or to confirm that my intuition was indeed correct, I rounded up as many store-bought frozen mozzarella stick brands as I could find — which meant traveling to three stores — and prepared them, before ranking them from worst to best based on their quality, cheese pull, flavor, and the like. Life’s too short for bad mozzarella sticks, and freezer space is too hard to come by to add items to your cart that are not the absolute best. 

The Snapps product comes in a very small package, but that wasn’t the only thing I considered when I ranked this mozzarella stick brand at the bottom of the list. Rather, the product ended up here because it was mediocre at best. It was the only mozzarella stick I prepared for this ranking that split along the seams when I baked it. This could be the result of several causes, be it poor construction, an off-kilter ratio of cheese to breading, or something else. 

After sampling these sticks, I assume that the likely culprit for the splitting was the cheese inside. While the other brands that I sampled had a clear distinction between the cheese and the crust coating, this one kind of fused together. Rather than keeping its stick shape, the mozzarella oozed out and was almost mucusy — not unlike the vegan cheese I spent many years of my life eating. Even after I had given these sticks enough time to cool down, the cheese snapped in half, rather than offering the same cheese pull I got from the sticks when they were fresh out of the oven. 

The bread coating itself doesn’t have enough seasoning, salt or otherwise, which doesn’t do the lackluster filling any favors. It’s clearly not fried, as it has a breadcrumb texture to it. Unfortunately, I found that the coating got soggier and soggier the longer it was left to sit on the baking sheet. Snapps mozzarella sticks seem to have problem after problem, and honestly, they didn’t give me high hopes for the other brands I sampled in this ranking. They’re like the mozzarella sticks of my nightmares — and the reason I was hesitant to do this ranking in the first place. 

Great Value’s products, on a good day, are passable. I don’t think I’ve ever had a product from Walmart’s in-house brand that’s truly wowed me — and I have far more run-ins with its objectively bad offerings (including its pound cake). But I wanted to see whether Great Value’s mozzarella sticks could turn a new leaf and change my perception of the brand. 

Great Value fell short of this promise. The reality is that these mozzarella sticks are flat-out boring. The coating was mealy and fish stick-like, which didn’t help out the ample amount of cheese in the center. While the initial cheese pull was average compared to the other brands on this list, it dissipated entirely within a few minutes. The mozzarella inside was oddly chewy and snapped back like an elastic band when I went to break one open. While I do appreciate that these sticks have an impressive amount of cheese and very little gap between the coating and the cheese filling, I can’t say that either component was particularly memorable. 

Great Value’s mozzarella sticks come in a slightly larger package than some of the other brands, which can make them more suitable for a party. And I think that if you feed them to their intended audience (children under 10), you won’t get any complaints. Perhaps a flavorful sauce could lend a hand here and make these Great Value sticks a little more exciting. But as it stands, they’re lackluster mozz sticks that I wouldn’t recommend adding to your cart.

Aldi’s Appetitos brand was the first one that I sampled for this ranking. Each box of eight mozzarella sticks comes with sauce. Unfortunately, I don’t think eight mozzarella sticks will feed a gaggle of hungry kids, so you may be better off opting for one of the more highly ranked and larger-portioned brands on this list if you need to feed a crowd. 

Initially, I was impressed by these sticks’ cheese pull. The cheese itself is firm and well-shaped, and it doesn’t turn into mozzarella-flavored mush like the Snapps brand did. The coating on the exterior of the sticks is adequate at best. It’s not particularly crunchy, nor did it stave off sogginess completely. After a couple minutes out of the oven, the coating more and more took the form of a cheap, cafeteria mozzarella stick — which I don’t think is necessarily a bad thing. There’s no herby coating or flavor on the exterior of the sticks, aside from some green specks of what I assume is supposed to be parsley freckling each one of them. There’s virtually no flavor to them, though their texture is reliable and more consistent compared to the lower-ranked brands. 

However, the nail in the coffin for this Aldi spinoff was the sauce — that poor, poor sauce. It was more akin to baby food than a good marinara sauce. The color is slightly orange-ish, which didn’t help its case. It’s so sweet — yet still tomatoey — which ruined the bite entirely. If you do end up adding these to your cart, take my word of advice and toss the sauce.

Stop & Shop’s mozzarella sticks, the other store-brand that I tried for this ranking, were quite a bit more expensive than the Great Value ones. However, I didn’t really take price into account for this ranking, seeing as how the serving size and actual size of the mozzarella stick vary so much among the brands. 

First, the pros. These mozzarella sticks came with a ton of soft, well-structured cheese that held its shape in the casing. It was well-salted, compared to brands like Great Value and Appetitos, which both could have used a little more salt in their breading and/or cheese. However, where Stop & Shop’s problems arise is in its breading. Even as soon as these sticks came out of the oven and I took a bite, I noticed that they were quite mealy — almost like I was eating something baked that should have really been fried. They weren’t oily, greasy, and indulgent like my top picks, and there wasn’t enough flavor in the breading itself to make it stand out among the rest. After two bites, I tossed the rest to the side. 

I think that with a sauce, these sticks would be passable. But when you have some products with on-point seasoning like my top two picks in this ranking, it’s all the more clear that Stop & Shop needs to get its act together. I’m after more than cafeteria-quality mozzarella sticks here, and the higher-ranked selections proved that this dream is indeed achievable.

Farm Rich appears to have a monopoly on the mozzarella stick section at my local Walmart. I picked up the smallest box of mozzarella sticks that I could find, but I was surprised to see that the store also carried a party-sized 48-ounce box and an even more party-sized 66-ounce box. And I can assure you that after trying these mozzarella sticks, you’re going to want to get your hands on the biggest box that you can find — because they’re that good. 

I didn’t realize that all of the other mozzarella sticks I tried in this ranking were under-salted until I tasted Farm Rich’s sticks. The brand nailed exactly what I was looking for in this ranking: an indulgent mozzarella stick that would make my eyes roll back in my head if I ate it at a dive bar. While I think it’s well-seasoned in terms of its saltiness, I don’t think it’s well-seasoned in terms of actual seasoning, though. Some garlic or herbs would have pepped it up a little bit more and pushed it to the top spot on this list. 

Another thing that would push this one to the top? That’s an easy question: sauce. An herby marinara could have made up for the coating’s shortcomings. However, I will say that if you need mozzarella sticks that are reliable and can be paired with almost any sauce, it would certainly be these. I wouldn’t refuse them at a party, and I would be more inclined to buy them if they came with a sauce, like my top pick did. 

TGI Fridays is one of those nostalgia-inducing brands. I remember going to one of its restaurants once — and only once — and receiving such bad service that my family decided to never go back there again. But that’s a now non-issue, seeing as how I can pick up a box of its mozzarella sticks from my local Walmart. “Sticks” is a bit of a misnomer here, as these crust-coated cheese sticks are more rectangular than they are log-shaped. It makes them far more conducive to dipping, whether you prefer a classic marinara sauce (which is included in the box) or a creamy Alfredo from one of the top brands. 

This appetizer giant knows what it’s doing when it comes to mozzarella sticks. TGI Fridays’ approach to boldly season both the sticks and the sauce really paid off. First, let’s chat about the rectangles. The cheese inside of them is plentiful, and it would appear that there is some sort of garlicky or onion seasoning in the coating. The brand also paid attention to the texture of the coating. While some of the lower-ranked brands offered that classic cafeteria quality to their breading — meaning that I could peel it off with my fingers like tear-away pants, this one actually stuck to the cheese itself. There was no way that you were getting a bite of the stick without the seasoned breading. 

I also have to mention the sauce — which I would recommend TGI Fridays to bottle up and sell separately. It’s dark red in color, which clues you in to the fresh tomato flavor that radiates from it. It’s sweet, almost smoky, and perfectly salty. I don’t think this McDreamy mozzarella stick needed a McSteamy sauce to go with it, but TGI Fridays absolutely went there.

I prepared each of these brands of mozzarella sticks in a conventional oven according to the package directions. Since mozz sticks are best served hot, I prepared these in batches so that no single brand was left sitting out for too long. The first thing I did was crack each stick open to assess the cheese pull — I was looking for something gooey and stringy, almost like it just walked off the scene of a mozzarella stick commercial. I also examined the inside of the mozzarella stick to see how its cheese-to-breading ratio was. Cheese should be the most important ingredient in the stick, and there should not be too large of a space between the breading and the stick. 

The flavor of the breading was also important in this ranking, as it should be just seasoned enough not to conflict with the cheese inside or the sauce it’s served with. Some of these brands came with marinara sauce while others did not, so in order to standardize this ranking, I ate the stick and tasted the sauce separately. If there was a sauce in the box, its flavor had to elevate the mozzarella stick, rather distract from it. 

It’s important to note that these are not the only mozzarella stick brands on the market. I selected items from three local grocery stores — Aldi, Stop & Shop, and Walmart — but select grocers, like Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods, may carry them as well; these stores were out of my geographic area and thus were excluded from this list.