This Is The Pizza Chain With The Hands-Down Best Cheesy Bread

At the end of a long week, or just a busy day, there's nothing better than ordering a pizza. And while pizza is great on its own, we all know that it's better with a few sides — cheesy bread chief among these. With its soft bread, loads of melty cheese, and maybe a cup of marinara sauce to dip it in, it's the perfect appetizer for pizza while also being a bit like eating a deconstructed pizza. But this favorite starter does vary quite a bit in quality from chain to chain, so Tasting Table's Selena Aiyla set out to determine the best pizza chain cheesy bread. In the end, the result was not surprising to Aiyla, but it may be to you: Domino's held down the number one spot with its stuffed cheesy bread.

According to Aiyla, "It was wonderfully flavorful, with butter and garlic at the forefront." A richly flavored cheesy bread is always going to rank near the top, but what really pushed it over the top for her was that the ingredients felt like they worked together. The bread "was chewy, soft, and, most importantly, never burnt, stiff, or difficult to chew." Between the chewy bread, the ample cheese both in the center and on top, and the chain's signature garlic oil, it's no wonder this cheesy bread from Domino's — America's best-selling pizza chain — was described as a "perfect sensory balance."

There are a few tricks to Domino's cheesy bread that make it stand out against the competition. For starters, it is stuffed. It's made with the same dough as the brand's hand-tossed pizzas, with a handful of cheese tossed into the middle, and plenty more melted over the top. In addition to the multiple layers of cheese, Domino's also uses both its pizza cheese and cheddar for a multi-faceted tasting experience that was notably absent in other chains' offerings. The final touch to Domino's cheesy bread is the garlic oil drizzle, which ensures that every bite is not just chewy and cheesy, but also full of garlicky richness.

In general, the internet agrees with Tasting Table's assessment and loves Domino's stuffed cheesy bread. There are plenty of copycat recipes out there, as well as folks on Reddit discussing the ins and outs of the chain's various stuffed-bread offerings, including which extras — such as pepperoni, bacon, and jalapeños — are the best.

Despite the fact that Domino's hopes to make the most delicious food on the market, not everyone is enamored with this extra cheesy dish. The most common complaint seems to be that the garlic oil makes this cheesy bread too greasy. Melted cheese is already very fatty, so if the garlic drizzle is heavy-handed, it can be quite oily. There are also some longtime customers who pine for the old days, before the Domino's cheesy bread had cheese on the inside. But, for the most part, customers are happy with the product. For a business as widespread as Domino's, it's impossible to please everyone. And for us at Tasting Table, this cheesy bread deserves its spot at the top.