10 Store-Bought Cookie Dough Brands, Ranked Worst To Best
Most of us agree that cookies made from homemade dough are best. For those who can spare the time, effort, and ingredients, consider trying our best cookie recipes and cookie recipes your family is going to love. (Don't miss the skillet-baked Giant Chocolate Crinkle Cookie, either –– yum!) But if the stars don't align to allow from-scratch baking, enter the modern-day convenience of store-bought cookie dough. You may be surprised to learn that it can offer that same, oh-so-loved fresh-baked cookie goodness.
To determine our top cookie dough brand contenders, we first scoured the refrigerated and frozen sections of stores near us. After locating 10 worthy cookie dough brands, we recruited a team of product testers to bake and taste a single product selection from each one. Since eating raw cookie dough is a big no-no due to food safety concerns, we sampled all of our doughs in baked form. Finally, we arranged our brand rankings by considering product availability, cookie dough variety, and cookie taste-testing results. Below, we share the ooey-gooey (and sometimes crispy!) details on store-bought cookie dough brands.
10. Great Value
Great Value, one of Walmart's largest store brands, offers only a single type of cookie dough. While it happens to be one of our favorite types –– Chocolate Chip –– Great Value is definitely not one of our favorite cookie dough brands.
In each package, there are 24 pre-cut portions. These resulted in some of the smallest cookies that we baked. To be fair, you could always combine a couple of portions to make a larger treat –– or just eat multiple cookies to satisfy your sweet tooth. The fresh-baked cookies had a soft, chewy texture that initially tasted okay in an overly sweet sort of way, but then led to an unpleasant aftertaste. Once cooled, they reminded us more of a basic store-bought chocolate chip cookie than of anything homemade.
As a cookie dough brand, Great Value would score more points by offering a greater variety of cookie types. But beyond that, it would also rank higher if the cookies tasted better. Like most Great Value products, this cookie dough offers a low price point. However, we would rather pay more for a different brand in the future.
9. Bake House Creations
Caramel lovers out there may want to check out Bake House Creations Sea Salt Caramel Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, found exclusively at Aldi. Similar to our other cookie dough brands, this product is sold in a pre-proportioned, break-and-bake format. In this case, each portion is fairly large (only 12 per package), leading to a decent-sized cookie. Although we can find photos online of Bake House Creations Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough and Bake House Creations Peanut Butter Cookie Dough, we were unable to locate either option on Aldi's website or in its stores.
While baking, we noticed that this cookie dough spread out quite a lot. This would have been fine, except that it caused an awful lot of melted caramel to attach itself to and harden on our pan (make sure to use parchment paper with these). While sampling the baked cookies, we quickly determined that this flavor is a lot more sweet than salty –– and perhaps a little too sweet for some. That said, we thought the caramel added an interesting spin to the classic chocolate chip cookies and enjoyed their pleasing, chewy texture.
Bake House Sea Salt Caramel Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough is a seasonal offering, so if you want to try it, head to your local Aldi store ASAP. And since this appears to be the brand's only flavor at this time, we fail to see Bake House Creations as a major player in the world of cookie dough brands.
8. Simple Truth
Simple Truth, an exclusive store-brand available in Kroger and Kroger-affiliated locations, makes two types of plant-based cookie dough: Chocolate Chip and Oatmeal Raisin. It also offers an Organic Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough. We could only find the plant-based Chocolate Chip variety near us, so we went ahead and sampled that. The package contained 12 large cookie dough portions, which led to relatively large cookies.
Overall, we really liked the texture, which was super chewy inside with a slightly crisp outer layer. We had a hard time telling the difference between this and a non-vegan cookie, but the flavor still tasted a bit off and could've used a buttery flavor boost.
In Simple Truth's defense, we wouldn't be surprised if the non-vegan Organic Oatmeal Chocolate Chip cookie dough is absolutely stellar. But how would we know, when we can't find it? Time to stock your cookie dough shelves, Kroger.
7. Immaculate Baking Co.
Immaculate Baking Company makes refrigerated cinnamon buns, crescent rolls, biscuits, pie crust, and, of course, cookie dough. The brand offers three types of gluten-free cookie doughs, including Double Chocolate, Chocolate Chunk, and Peanut Butter. It also makes an Organic Chocolate Chunk variety, which we would have liked to try but were unable to locate in stores near us. Instead, we opened up our minds (and mouths) to Gluten Free Double Chocolate Cookie Dough.
The Double Chocolate variety does not contain gluten, dairy, bleached flour, artificial flavors, or artificial preservatives, which may be of relevance to folks with dietary or allergy restrictions. After baking the dough, we observed that it remained significantly puffier than other brands, instead of flattening out on the pan. In terms of double chocolatey-ness, we were flat-out disappointed. While the cookies appeared to be very dark and fudgy, we thought they didn't have a whole lot of flavor and mostly tasted like sugar.
To move further up our rankings, we would like to see Immaculate Baking Company offer more cookie dough options, along with greater availability. (We found them at Sprouts.) If you need a dairy or gluten-free cookie, go ahead and give these a try –– perhaps another flavor would be better than Double Chocolate. However, we can't vouch one way or the other for the brand's only cookie dough option containing no gluten.
6. Sweet Loren's
Sweet Loren's gluten-free, vegan cookie dough is made from only clean ingredients –– but what, exactly, does that mean? Per Clean Eating, clean eating is about ingesting food that's as natural, fresh, and unprocessed as possible. Also, clean ingredient lists tend to be short and easy to pronounce. With this in mind, you may not need to feel quite as guilty indulging your sweet tooth when choosing this particular cookie dough brand.
Sweet Loren's offers several varieties of pre-cut cookie dough. These include Chocolate Chunk, Fudgy Brownie, Sugar, Oatmeal Cranberry, and Less Sugar (Chocolate Chunk or Sugar). In keeping up with a growing trend for safe-to-eat, store-bought raw cookie dough, Sweet Loren's also sells tubs of edible cookie and brownie batter. (Note: Even Ben & Jerry's has gotten in on the action by selling bags of its popular cookie dough ice cream mix-ins.)
We sampled Sweet Loren's Chocolate Chunk, which has a soft and gooey texture. We noticed quite a lot of oat flavor, without that typical chunky oatmeal texture found in many other oat-based cookies. Considering these cookies do not have any butter in them, we liked them quite a lot. They don't taste homemade but are a tastier gluten-free option than Immaculate Baking Company's cookie dough. The brand is also much easier to find in stores.
5. Pillsbury
When it comes to refrigerated cookie dough, Pillsbury is one of the most prevalent brands out there. It offers a wide range of ready-to-bake cookie dough products, including Chocolate Chip, Sugar, Reese's Peanut Butter, Reese's Pieces Peanut Butter, Chocolate Chunk & Chip, Birthday Cake, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Pumpkin, Salted Caramel Apple, Lucky Charms, and Oreo. (Has anyone gone into diabetic shock yet?!)
We tried Pillsbury Ready to Bake! Cookie Dough Chocolate Chip, which includes 24 small cookie dough portions. Unlike most other cookie doughs sampled, this one states that it is safe to eat raw –– so of course, we did. After inhaling several globs of raw dough, we baked up the rest before we made ourselves sick. Overall, we thought they were perfectly fine, but nothing spectacular or worth writing home about.
While we may not be completely in love with Pillsbury cookie dough, we can't ignore its widespread availability, flavor variety, and overall commitment to convenience. Although you probably won't go wrong with this brand, we think that you can do even better.
4. Miss Jones Baking Co.
We were pretty excited to include Miss Jones Baking Co. in our rankings. This brand uses high-quality ingredients, without artificial flavors or hydrogenated oils, to produce a range of bakery products including pancake, muffin, and cookie mixes, as well as several cookie dough varieties. On product packaging, brand founder Sarah Jones (a.k.a. Miss Jones) said she wanted to create a brand with products that were both supremely tasty and health-conscious. We hear you loud and clear, Miss Jones.
Miss Jones Baking Co. offers two grain- and gluten-free Keto cookie doughs (Chocolate Chip and Double Chocolate Fudge), along with Whole Grain Monster Ready-to-Bake Cookie Dough. Since our product testers do not follow a Keto diet (obviously!), we opted to try the Monster cookie dough variety. Not only is this product whole grain, gluten-free, and free of synthetic colors and flavors, but reading the ingredient list is an absolute pleasure. In fact, the top four ingredients listed are peanut butter, rolled oats, butter, and brown sugar –– doesn't this sound like something you would bake at home?
In the oven, Monster cookie dough magically morphs into soft, chewy, peanut butter oatmeal cookies that have the added benefit of M&M-like candies. Unlike some other cookie dough brands, this one does not flatten out much on the pan. (If this bothers you, try pushing down on the dough a bit before baking.) Not only do the resulting cookies taste delicious, but they also contain only 5 grams of sugar each.
3. Private Selection
We always appreciate a high-quality store brand, especially one that makes delicious cookie dough. Private Selection, found only in Kroger and Kroger-affiliated stores, absolutely nails it on this one. The brand offers three types of ready-to-bake cookie dough: Sea Salt Caramel Chocolate Chunk, Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip, and Triple Chocolate. While all three sound amazing, we decided to sample Triple Chocolate because, well, we are chocoholics.
Triple Chocolate comes in fairly large portions that spread out a lot while baking. (Be sure to leave plenty of space between them on the pan.) We are not complaining; this baking process leads to wonderfully thin and crispy cookies, which were one of our favorites. Not only do we love the texture of these cookies, but they also offer a rich, decadent, and chocolatey experience. Since our test cookies are long gone, we are already debating whether we should buy more Triple Chocolate cookie dough or try one of the other flavors next time. Oh, who are we kidding? We're totally going to get all three.
2. Nestle Toll House
When it comes to cookies, we think it's fair to say that Nestle Toll House knows what it's doing. To start, Ruth Wakefield, who ran the Toll House restaurant in Whitman, Massachusetts, developed the original chocolate chip cookie back in 1939 (per Nestle). These days, Nestle Toll House offers a wide range of refrigerated cookie dough products, including Chocolate Chip, Chocolate Chip Lovers, Peanut Butter Chip, Oatmeal Raisin, Pecan Turtle Delight, M&M's Minis Chocolate Chip, White Chip Macadamia Nut, Mini Chocolate Chip, Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip, Sugar, Easter Chocolate Chip, and Funfetti. It also sells two stuffed varieties: Double Chocolate Cookie Dough with Salted Caramel Filling and Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough with Fudge Filling.
We sampled the brand's signature cookie dough product, Chocolate Chip, which contained 24 smallish cookies per package. (Not to worry –– you can always eat more than one!) This cookie dough is made with 100% real chocolate chips and the perfect cookie-to-chocolate chip ratio. Once baked, it transforms into soft, chewy, and chocolaty cookies. If you prefer crisper cookies, simply bake them a little longer. Either way, we think you'll have fun getting to know some of the many varieties of Nestle Toll House cookie dough.
1. Trader Joe's
Trader Joe's completely wowed us with Chunky Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough. After baking, these cookies look, feel, and taste exactly like homemade. Seriously, we couldn't tell the difference. And similar to many of its other products, Trader Joe's uses real, easy-to-pronounce ingredients in their cookie dough: wheat flour, chocolate, butter, sugar, brown sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Sound familiar?
Although you may be sorely tempted, you should not eat this cookie dough raw. Instead, bake dough portions for 12 to 14 minutes for chewy cookies or 14 to 16 minutes for crispier ones. We opted for 14 minutes, which gave us a soft, melty middle with a crispy outer layer –– in other words, absolute perfection. We found these to be the ooey-est, gooiest, butteriest, and most wonderful cookies of all.
Each Trader Joe's cookie dough package contains 16 individual portions. While it is a shame that only a single flavor is available, Chunky Chocolate Chip is so good that we are completely disregarding the brand's lack of variety. Bottom line: Head to your local Trader Joe's store for some cookie dough right now. You can thank us later.