One Of The Best Store-Bakery Chocolate Chip Cookies Easily Outshines Walmart And Publix

Some say the test of a good bakery is how well they make a chocolate chip cookie. Indeed, a chocolate chip cookie is one of the most ubiquitous bakery desserts in existence. And you can buy them by the dozen in those classic plastic clamshells at most national grocery chain bakeries. We sampled 10 grocery store bakery chocolate chip cookies to see which ones are worth picking up, and Walmart and Publix were at the bottom of our ranking. The store-bakery chocolate chip cookie that outshines both Walmart and Publix by a long shot is our second-place winner, Costco's Kirkland Signature gourmet chocolate chunk cookies. 

Walmart cookies were flavorless with an almost raw play-dough consistency, while Publix chocolate chip cookies were marginally better but were very expensive and still tasted generic and forgettable. In contrast, Kirkland's chocolate chunk cookies stood out in flavor, texture, price, and packaging. They come in a whopping 24-pack, and, despite the low price tag, are filled with high-quality ingredients. The chocolate chunks were plentiful, rich, and all but melted in your mouth, for a luxuriously gooey texture. The cookie crumb is dense and soft with a golden exterior. 

While Publix and Walmart offer two types of chocolate chip cookies at different price points, neither of them compared to Costco's food court chocolate chunk cookie. Essentially a large version of the bakery cookie, Costco's food court cookie tastes like it's been made with real butter, providing toasted caramelized flavors, a crunchy exterior, and a dreamy, gooey, almost molten center.

Customers find the chocolate chunk cookies irresistible, as one Redditor proclaims, "I swear I say I'm gonna only eat like 2-3 but I end [up] finishing the whole box in 1 day." A Redditor complimented the quality of the chocolate chunk cookies' ingredients by saying, "Costco doesn't hold back on the good stuff when making cookies." Customers on Facebook were equally complimentary, with one stating that the chocolate chunk cookies are "one of the best cookies I have had," while another said that they are both "great quality [and] great price." Customers love how many chocolate chunks each cookie contains and describe the cookie crumb itself as "sweet and brown sugary." One Facebook review recommends microwaving them for 6 seconds to make them especially warm and gooey. 

You can warm up your cookie in the microwave and dunk it in an ice-cold glass of milk for nostalgia's sake. If you want a more adult accompaniment, you can balance the sweetness of chocolate chunk cookies with a cup of one of Kirkland Signature's line of coffees. You can also use two cookies to create an ice cream sandwich with Kirkland Signature's vanilla ice cream, which is on Tasting Table's list of the best frozen dessert finds at Costco. As for the Food Court cookie, many Redditors consider it the cream of the crop of grocery store cookies. One Redditor recommends getting the cookie with vanilla soft serve for the ultimate dessert combo.