Every Frozen Veggie Burger at Whole Foods, Ranked

I’ve eaten more frozen veggie burgers than any sane person should cop to in public.

Somewhere around patty number 30, my kitchen reeked like a pea protein refinery and my smoke detector had developed trust issues with me.

Here’s what I took away from the wreckage: the frozen veggie burger aisle at Whole Foods in 2026 bears zero resemblance to what it looked like three years ago.

The old guard is crumbling. The new crop hits on a different frequency.

Some of these taste like food a chef would plate, and some taste like a lab experiment glued together with methylcellulose and wishful thinking.

I bought every frozen veggie burger on the Whole Foods shelf and ranked them worst to best. Here are 9 patties, graded on taste, texture, nutrition, and whether I’d spend my own cash on them twice.

9. Amy’s Sonoma Veggie Burger

Let me be straight with you. This one stings.

Amy’s has been the “safe grab” at Whole Foods for years, and the Sonoma Burger ticks a lot of boxes on paper. Organic quinoa, mushrooms, walnuts, garbanzo bean flour. No soy, no gluten. It reads like a recipe scribbled by your most wellness-obsessed friend.

The trouble is engineering. This patty crumbles if you so much as glance at a grill grate. Pan-frying works, but you’ll burn 10 minutes babysitting it with a spatula like it’s a newborn.

The flavor lands clean and earthy, which is fine. But “fine” doesn’t win rankings.

At $6.49 for two patties and a measly 5g of protein, you’re forking over premium money for a burger that can’t keep itself in one piece.

Respect the mission. Can’t respect the patty.

8. 365 Meatless Traditional

The Whole Foods store brand is the Honda Civic of veggie burgers. Gets you from A to B. Nobody’s bragging about the ride.

At $1.25 per patty, the 365 Traditional is the rock-bottom cheapest pick on this list by a country mile. You pull 10g of protein and 80 calories, which makes it a workhorse for someone eating these three nights a week without a second thought. The taste is acceptable. “Satisfyingly hearty” is what one YouTube reviewer called it, and I think that’s generous but not wrong.

Here’s the deal, though. The ingredient list packs carrageenan and yeast extract, which will spook the clean-label crowd. The texture parks itself in a dead zone between meat mimic and classic veggie burger without picking a lane. Budget pick > flavor pick.

7. MorningStar Farms Garden Veggie

This is the burger your aunt stashed in her freezer in 2009. Except now it’s vegan.

MorningStar overhauled most of their Whole Foods lineup to ditch the eggs and dairy, and the Garden Veggie patty still carries that throwback veggie burger vibe. Water chestnuts lend it a crunch you don’t expect. Carrots and mushrooms anchor the whole thing. At $4.99 for four patties, the math works.

But this one splits the room. The onion powder aftertaste hits hard and lingers. I could still taste it 20 minutes later while brushing my teeth. Some folks worship that old-school flavor profile, and I get the appeal. I’m not 100% certain this deserves the slot above the 365, but that water chestnut snap earned it one rung.

Not gonna lie. Nostalgia play more than quality play.

6. 365 Smoky & Spicy Plant-Based

The bolder sibling of the Traditional, and a visible jump up in class. 20g of protein at $1.50 per patty is the strongest protein-per-dollar number on this whole list.

The smoky kick gives it a personality the Traditional version can’t find. It tastes like somebody in the test kitchen gave a damn. The catch? 16g of fat and 6g of saturated fat shove it into “treat yourself” territory for a veggie burger, and sodium clocks in at 480mg.

For weekly meal prep on a tight wallet, this thing delivers. For anything fancier than a Wednesday night solo dinner, keep scrolling.

5. Gardein Ultimate Plant-Based Burger

Gardein floats under the radar, but the Ultimate burger is the finest budget meat mimic on the Whole Foods shelf. 20g of protein, a textured soy base, and a satisfying “meaty” chew that caught me off guard.

The flavor sits closer to a backyard cookout than a co-op produce section. I know most people name-drop Beyond or Impossible when they want something beefy, but Gardein hauls you 80% of the distance for $3.50 a patty. That’s math you can’t ignore.

The penalty is sodium. At 530mg per patty, it’s the saltiest contender on the shelf. If you’re counting milligrams, that’s a wall. If you’re not, this outperforms its price bracket. Taste > label for this one.

4. Dr. Praeger’s Grillhouse Burger

This is where the ranking starts to get fun. Dr. Praeger’s has stocked Whole Foods shelves for over 30 years, and the Grillhouse line feels like the brand stood up one morning and said “we belong in the protein conversation now.”

20g of protein. 190 calories. 0.5g saturated fat. Those figures are borderline absurd for a veggie burger. The ingredient list reads like groceries you’d recognize: soy protein, canola oil, onions, carrot puree, sweet potato, butternut squash. The Cheddar version folds in real cheese, and the richness it brings is something most competitors can’t manufacture.

A few years back, I grabbed the original California Veggie and found it perfectly forgettable. The Grillhouse is a different product born in a different era of the category. At $3.00 per patty, it owns the best value spot in the top five. Clean ingredients + high protein + low sticker price = a trifecta you almost never see.

3. Impossible Burger

The burger purist’s pick. Still.

Impossible staked its name on one promise: tasting like beef. In 2026, it keeps that promise. The heme drops an iron-rich, almost bloody punch that zero other plant-based brands have figured out how to copy. Close your eyes, load it onto a bun with all the fixings, and you’ll blank on what you’re chewing. I’m not exaggerating.

The trade-off bites back, though. 8g of saturated fat per patty is four times the number on Beyond Meat’s overhauled recipe. The ingredient list runs longer and more processed than half this freezer section. And at $4.25 to $5.00 per patty, you’re paying chophouse prices for something pulled from your icebox.

I still reach for these when I crave a burger that tastes like a burger. But the daylight between Impossible and the pack is thinner than it used to be.

2. Beyond Meat (Avocado Oil Recipe)

The 2026 Beyond Burger is not the 2021 Beyond Burger. That gap matters more than people realize.

The old formula carried a greasy, coconut-oil-soaked mouthfeel that pushed a lot of buyers away. The avocado oil overhaul killed that problem dead. The new version takes a sear better, runs a cleaner fat profile (a mere 2g saturated fat), and packs 21g of protein per patty. It’s also soy-free, gluten-free, and Non-GMO, which ticks boxes Impossible flat out can’t.

Reddit threads describe the texture as “medium-rare.” That might be the highest praise a plant-based patty can collect.

The sole gripe is the register. At $3.75 to $5.00 per patty, you’re still paying a markup. (Though now that I think about it, a decent grass-fed beef patty rings up about the same these days.)

Flavor mimicry + clean label + high protein. That’s the equation, and Beyond solved it on this attempt.

1. Actual Veggies

This is the burger that rewired how I think about what a veggie burger should even attempt.

Actual Veggies doesn’t chase the taste of meat. It doesn’t bother pretending. Every patty wears a color code tied to its primary vegetables, and you can spot the real ingredients in each bite with your bare eyes. Black beans, sweet potato, broccoli, kale, purple carrot, beet. No fillers. No protein isolates. No preservatives.

The Black Bean variety carries a smoky backbone that hangs with patties at double the price. The Chickpea Masala brings 9g of protein with Indian-leaning spices that work on a bun or crumbled across a grain bowl. The Black Bean Cheddar lands at 13g of protein and 8g of fiber, a pairing nobody else on this list can touch.

Will it fool your carnivore buddy? Nope. That’s the whole point.

I remember the first time I threw the Purple Roots patty into my air fryer. The color alone froze me in place. Then the earthy sweetness rolled through, and something clicked. This brand isn’t sparring with Beyond or Impossible. It’s running a different race. And crossing the line first.

At $3.50 per patty, you’re paying for craft. Every cent lands on the plate.

The Bottom Line

The frozen veggie burger aisle at Whole Foods isn’t one category anymore. It’s three distinct lanes. Meat mimics for people who miss ground beef. Veggie-forward patties for people who never wanted beef in the first place. And budget workhorses for people who just need Tuesday night sorted.

The brands that vanished (Engine 2, Hilary’s, Boca after that bolt recall disaster) shared one trait. They stood still while the shelf kept spinning.

Pick the burger that fits how you eat. Not how the internet instructs you to eat.

That’s the whole trick.