Store-Bought Beef Stock, Ranked Worst To Best

Using an amazing beef stock will elevate gravies, sauces, stews, and more, but people don't always have the time to make it at home, so they head to the store to grab a carton. Not all cartons or brands of beef stock are the same, though — there's an incredible difference between their tastes and ingredients. 

Here, we'll describe nine different grocery store stocks to show which are the best to use in your home cooking. More intense, flavorful stocks made it to the top of this list. These stocks tasted beefy, but most had some vegetable flavor to them as well. Saltiness and sweetness needed to balance each other out. Blander stocks with softer flavors fell into the middle of the ranking, and at the bottom, you'll find a few products that simply tasted unpleasant. 

I'll describe the ingredients companies included in each stock — a couple, like potato flour and mushroom juice, may surprise you because they surprised me. Finally, I'll give an approximate cost for each product, but this did not impact ratings since the price range was fairly small, between $1.50 and $3.50. I usually don't mind spending a couple of dollars more for a superior product.

Meijer's store brand beef stock has a strong, unpleasant caramelized onion taste. This stock would not improve the flavor of most sauces or risottos, but rather would likely make these dishes taste worse. It could, however, work in some vegetable beef stews, especially if the recipe calls for cabbage and tomato.

Of all the stocks, this is one of the lightest in color. It smells beefy, but the taste was not what I would have expected from the scent. Bitter, caramelized onion was the most outstanding flavor when I taste-tested this stock, almost like the taste of an onion that's about to spoil. It also had sweet and acidic qualities, but not in a good way. It left an unpleasant taste in my mouth long after I tried it.

It's disappointing that I disliked the flavor so much because the ingredient list on this stock is easy to understand; it's short and attractive. There are no complicated-to-pronounce additives or preservatives. I wonder, though, if the unpleasant flavor was because this stock includes onion puree.

At just under $3 for a carton of this stock, its price falls midrange for grocery store stocks.

Simple Truth Organic beef stock is low down in this ranking because it tasted tinny instead of beefy. The flavor was less off-putting than Meijer's stock only because it was softer. This stock would detract from most recipes unless they had strong flavors like a wine reduction sauce.

The color of this product was the darkest of all — a deep brown. It is so dark that it might add color to some dishes, and that's something to have in mind if the visual aspect is important to you. When I took a sip, sweetness was the first thing I noticed, then slightly burnt caramel, followed by a bitter bite. It also had an offensive metallic nuance to it. I struggled to detect any hint of veggie or beef flavor.

As noted on the label, all of the ingredients in this stock are organic, and these include carrots, celery, onions, and tomato paste. Unfortunately, the taste does not reflect the high quality of the components used to make it.

The price sticker on this product was just under $3.

Kitchen Basics is near the bottom of this list because it tastes too much like vegetables and not enough like meat, and its scent is unappetizing. It's a better product than Meijer or Simple Truth because it doesn't have any one overwhelming flavor and would work perfectly in recipes with lots of veggies like tater tot shepherd's pie.

When I first opened the carton and poured some of this stock into a bowl, the smell was pungent, making me wary of trying it. But when I did take a sip, the flavor was not what I would have expected from the aroma. I was surprised by the nice vegetable flavor. It leaned toward a sweeter profile and seemed lightly salted, probably because it has a lower sodium content as noted on the carton. The main disappointment was that it didn't taste much like beef.

The manufacturers included vegetable stock as well as mushroom juice concentrate in this product. This explains the flavor that tends more toward vegetable and less toward meat, even though the main ingredient is beef stock. The sweet taste is explained by how it contains both honey and caramelized sugar syrup.

This stock costs around $3, putting it in the middle of the price range for beef stocks.

The simplicity and understated flavor of Full Circle is what left it fairly close to the bottom of this ranking, even though it was adequately beefy. This stock had a much more pleasant taste than Meijer or Simple Truth and had a more traditional meaty flavor than Kitchen Basics. The subtle flavor means it would work in most dishes that call for beef stock, including risotto recipes, but it might not add as much nuance as other higher-rank products that are more flavorful.

The first thing I noticed about Full Circle was the scent — it was very beefy, almost like the smell when you first place raw meat in a hot pan. The taste was extremely salty, and as the aroma indicated, quite beefy. This stock did not taste sweet, bitter, acidic, or like vegetables, and was more straightforward.

The ingredient list on this carton includes "organic beef flavor," which explains the scent and taste. The simplicity of its taste is explained by the lack of vegetables — not a single one is named on the ingredient list.

This stock was one of the most expensive at around $3.50.

Our Family beef stock ended up in the middle of this ranking due to its generally bland flavor. It just didn't taste like much. The flavors that did show up were nicely balanced, which made it slightly more appealing than beefy, salty Full Circle. The subtle flavor means I would happily use Our Family in most recipes, especially for braising veggies like Brussels sprouts.

Most of the stocks I tried were clear, which made Our Family stand out because it was cloudy. It didn't have a strong smell when I poured it out of the carton. A sip revealed that it tasted a bit like beef and a bit like veggies with a lightly bitter flavor. Overall, though, the flavors in this stock were weaker than in those that are higher on this list. After taking a sip of one of the stronger-tasting ones and then comparing it to Our Family, it was difficult to detect any taste in this one.

The list of ingredients may reveal why this stock looks cloudier than the others — it includes potato flour, which made it stand out from the other products.

This stock costs around $3.50, making it one of the more expensive options in this review.

Kroger's beef stock ended up in the middle of this ranking because it's a good, solid product, but lacks the balance of the highest-ranked stocks. It's much more flavorful and intense than Our Family. I far prefer cooking with this stock to that one and think it would work well with a delicious French onion soup.

This stock had a more complex taste and a lot of flavor. A sip revealed beefiness, sweetness, saltiness, and acidity. One of the reasons I liked this stock more than some lower down on the list is that it isn't bitter, and it doesn't have too much of a caramelized taste. I think that makes it a superior product, but I would like the sweetness and saltiness in this stock to be slightly more balanced out. I'd also like more veggie taste.

Based on the ingredient list, there aren't any vegetables or any vegetable juice concentrate in this stock. There isn't any garlic or onion powder either. I think that explains why this stock tastes good, but not great.

At around $2.50, this stock is on the cheaper end of the price range.

Swanson beef stock is a solid choice for making most recipes, but it lacks the fullness of flavor of the top two stocks. When compared to Kroger, it has a sweeter, more pleasant taste. It would be one of my top picks for preparing vegetable beef stew because that's what it already smells like.

Of all the stocks, this one was the lightest in color and just slightly cloudy. The flavor is mostly beefy with a hint of tomato, which made it pleasantly acidic. I was glad it didn't taste as caramelized as some of the other stocks in this list, and not bitter at all. The worst thing about it was that it left a weird aftertaste in my mouth. That, however, was easily remedied with a quick bite of chocolate and a sip of coffee when I was done with the taste test.

Swanson had the best ingredient list of all the stocks because it included the most vegetables — onions, carrots, cabbage, celery, tomato, and parsley — and used honey rather than sugar for sweetening. I bet including all those veggies is what makes it smell so much like vegetable beef stew.

This stock was one of the more expensive products at around $3.50, but well worth the price.

Chef's Cupboard, one of Aldi's store brands, makes a delicious stock. It's better than Swanson's because it tastes more intensely flavorful and saltier, but it didn't make it to the very top of this list because the flavors could be more balanced — I thought this stock was a smidge too sweet and acidic, especially when compared to my favorite one. I would love to try making beef bourguignon using this product, though.

I thought this stock had a nice balance between beef and vegetable flavors. There was a slight taste of tomato as well. I didn't like how sweet it was because I prefer using more savory stocks.

I noticed that the ingredient list included celery, which was something all of my favorite stocks had in common.

At just under $2, you could almost buy two of these cartons for the price of the most expensive stocks reviewed in this article. This brand provides great quality at a fantastic value.

Good & Gather, Target's store brand, makes an incredible beef stock. It has a balanced flavor while still including all of the tastes that define beef stock. I liked it better than Chef's Cupboard because it wasn't as sweet and its acidity was less highlighted. I think that using this stock would improve the flavor of every dish a cook might choose to use it in, from risottos to stews to sauces and hot dishes.

When I tried Good & Gather, I noticed every flavor that I love about beef stock — saltiness, sweetness, a minimal hint of caramel, onion, celery, veggies, and a bit of tomato. The flavor was complex and yet balanced. It didn't leave a nasty aftertaste in my mouth.

The carton lists carrot juice, celery concentrate, onion juice, and tomato paste. It also shows that honey, rather than sugar, was used as a sweetener. I think that these ingredients are the ones that contribute so much amazing flavor to this stock.

At just over $2, this stock is one of the cheapest on this list.

I make vegetable stew once a week because my kids love it, and I know exactly what I expect from the stock that I use in it. I want it to have all of the traditional ingredients — beef, vegetables, tomato, celery, onion, and salt, with some sweetness and acidity. As such, these were the tastes I was looking for when I tested the stocks. As I was trying them, I realized that I particularly disliked any that tasted too caramelized or bitter. I preferred salty stocks to sweet ones. I had an aversion to products that included cabbage in the ingredients because it added bitterness. Instead, my favorites tended to have carrot and celery on their ingredient lists.

I performed the taste test twice, two days apart. Both times, I heated a little stock in a bowl and sipped it on its own to detect all the flavors I could. Then, I went through and compared it to all of the other stocks I had already tried, from my least favorite upward. Once I found a stock that tasted better than the current sample, I stopped. That way, I knew which place each product should occupy. For both taste tests, my favorites and least favorites remained the same, but there was a bit of difference for the stocks in the middle of the ranking.