Frozen Quiche

Test date: July 2010

Tester: Michele

Products for this test purchased at Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, and Albertsons.

MICHELE'S OPINION: The thing that most surprised me about this test was that there were only three choices! I also looked for frozen quiche at at Fred Meyer and QFC also (both Kroger stores), with no luck. And I thought that quiche was such a popular party appetizer choice. Read on for more details on price, nutrition, taste, and the taste test winner:

PRICE COMPARISON FOR 6OZ OF QUICHE:
$4.24 Whole Foods Whole Kitchen Mini Quiche Trio
$2.99 Albertson's Nancy's Quiche Lorraine
$1.89 Trader Joe's Spinach and Mushroom Quiche

1. Whole Kitchen Mini Quiche Trio: This is defintely a product for a party, whereas the other two are individual quiches for, say, lunch for one person. The crust is nice but the filling tastes a little undercooked, or maybe just too creamy, even though I cooked them a little bit longer than package directions. They don't have a ton of flavor aside from the crust and creamyness.

2. Trader Joe's Spinach and Mushroom Quiche: The product is very flavorful, with a light crisp crust and just the right amount of spinach to cheese ratio. This has a good level of egg taste to it. I feel like this product tastes just a bit saltier than Nancy's, but in looking at the nutritional information, there is only a 10mg sodium difference, and this product is the lower one!

3. Nancy's Quiche Lorraine: This product looks EXACTLY like the Trader Joe's quiche. So much so that I looked on the packages to see if they are made by the same distributor. But that doesn't seem to be the case. This product has a nice lorraine flavor, a thick crust, and a creamy texture. This also has a good level of egg taste.

NUTRITIONAL NOTES: These products are hard to compare because of their different sizes and various ingredients. The mini quiche product has three different flavors of quiche, with between 290 and 350 calories per 100g. They have between 19g and 24g of fat per serving (5 mini quiches for 100g) and 200mg to 340mg of sodium. Gram for gram, the Nancy's and Trader Joe's products have fewer calories, with Trader Joe's winning with 270 calories per 100g. However, both of the personal quiche products have 170g of weight each. At that serving size, Nancy's is a little bit higher in most nutritional aspects, including calories (490 versus 460), sodium (740mg versus 730mg) and protein (23g versus 20g). The two products are similar in fat content, with 26g.

TASTE WINNER: Either Nancy's or Trader Joe's; the Whole Kitchen product is bland.