The 10 Best Store-Bought Chocolate Chip Cookies In America

Who doesn't love chocolate chip cookies? Soft or crunchy, fresh-baked or store-bought, they're among the most delicious foods on earth. There's no shortage of packaged crunchy chocolate chip cookies at the supermarket, but some are definitely superior to others. To prove it, we taste-tested ten of the most popular brands. 

Breaktime, from Dare Foods, was the least expensive of the bunch, at $1.25 per 8.8-ounce box, and unfortunately you get what you pay for. Oddly dry and far too crunchy, these were severely lacking in chocolate chips, and had a flavor that more resembled that of a graham cracker than a cookie. 

This brand also didn't win any fans; the only thing it had going for it is the fact that you get nearly 20 decent-sized cookies for $2.50. But their texture was oddly stale, chalky, and cardboard-y, and several tasters complained of an "artificial" flavor. 

Whole Foods' $3.99 offering fared surprisingly poorly. Though they're made with organic wheat flour and organic chocolate, our tasters found these cookies to be bland, dull, and sorely lacking in chocolate chips. They were also too crumbly and dry. 

Supermarket chain Key Food's store-brand offering, which sells for $1.99 for a 14-ounce package, were pale and pallid, and undoubtedly bland, dry, and crumbly. They weren't lacking in chocolate chips, however, and one taster remarked that they "taste like childhood."

The cookies that made talent agent Wally Amos a legend, which come in a 12.4-ounce box for $4.19, haven't held up very well. They were dry and hard as a rock, most tasters agreed, and their flavor was bland and not what they look for in a chocolate chip cookie. They struck many tasters as "classic," however, and there were plenty of chocolate chips to go around. 

These cookies, which sell eight to a pack for $3.49, had some depth of flavor that our tasters picked up on — a hint of salt and butter and big dark chocolate chunks — but the texture, which was overly dry, hard, and crumbly, was difficult to overlook. 

This big plastic tub of tiny cookies from Trader Joe's sells for $3.99, and our tasters generally found them to be pretty enjoyable. They were light and crispy, and the fact that they were bite-size made it easy to eat too many of them. They didn't have much of a "pop," however, and were lacking in chocolate chip flavor. 

The cookies in the famous blue package sell for $5.19 for a package of about 45. They had a pronounced vanilla flavor and no shortage of chocolate chips, but our tasters found that they looked better than they tasted, and the chocolate chips didn't appear to be of a high quality. 

Keebler's offering, which sells for $4.19 for a package of about 24, fared far better than Chips Ahoy. Their texture was pleasantly crunchy instead of dry and crumbly, and there were plenty of high-quality chocolate chips evenly distributed throughout. The pronounced flavor of molasses and a hint of salt also came through. 

Tate's, which sells for $5.99 for a package of about 14 cookies, was the clear champion. These were thin and crispy, not hard or dry, and had a distinct homemade flavor, with plenty of butter, brown sugar, and vanilla. There were also lots of high-quality chocolate chips evenly distributed throughout. If you're looking for a top-notch store-bought chocolate chip cookie, Tate's is it.