Not Nestlé Toll House, Not Ghirardelli: These Are The Best Milk Chocolate Baking Chips By Far

A truly great chocolate chip cookie depends on more than just a well-tested recipe. The chocolate chips that you choose matter, too — and swapping out the usual bag of Nestlé Toll House or Ghirardelli for Guittard Milk Chocolate Chips may be one of the easiest ways to improve your next batch. 

In our taste-test ranking the best milk chocolate baking chips, Guittard took the top spot, earning praise for its creamy texture, rich chocolate flavor, and well-balanced sweetness. For bakers who consider chocolate the star of the show (and who doesn't?), it's reason enough to keep these chips stocked in your pantry. While this chocolatier might not be as well-known as Nestlé or Ghirardelli, Guittard is a family-owned company with a long history. The Gold Rush origins of Guittard chocolate are rooted in San Francisco. In 1868, Frenchman Etienne Guittard headed west to California, where he found that selling French chocolate was more lucrative than digging for gold. The company has since built its reputation on making supreme chocolate for baking and confectionery experts, and today it offers everything from bars to wafers to cocoa powder.

Milk chocolate is naturally sweeter and milder than semisweet or dark chocolate, so the challenge with chips is finding a version that's creamy without veering into cloyingly sweet. Guittard's rounded cocoa flavor achieves this with more depth than the modestly sized chips suggest. That quality matters in a chocolate chip cookie, where those chips have to hold their own against delights like brown sugar, butter, vanilla, and toasted dough — and Guittard more than delivers. 

Perhaps most importantly, the chips are good enough to eat straight from the bag, in case you don't have the patience to whip up cookies from scratch. When it comes to comparing Guittard to other popular brands, Nestlé Toll House certainly has nostalgia on its side, as the Toll House cookie goes back to the Great Depression. However, Nestlé's milk chocolate chips aren't necessarily the most exciting choice for bakers who want outstanding chocolate taste. 

Of course, Ghirardelli is a tougher competitor. That brand is also based in San Francisco, and was founded by an Italian immigrant in the mid-19th century, so its chocolate roots run deep, too. We've previously ranked Ghirardelli as the best grocery store baking chocolate brand for its super-rich flavor and unmatched meltability. But in this particular comparison of milk chocolate chips, Guittard came out ahead — and its reputation extends far beyond professional taste tests. In a baking forum on Reddit, one fan made it clear: "Hands down always Guittard. I buy nothing else."

Now, there's one drawback to this brand, and that's the price. Guittard will most likely cost more than conventional supermarket brands, and it's not as readily available as the Ghirardelli brand. But while it's not the cheapest bag on the shelf, you do get what you pay for — and with Guittard, you're getting creamy texture, balanced sweetness, and high-quality chocolate. So, if you're ready to graduate beyond the usual baking-aisle staples at your local grocery, this is a worthy, and delicious, place to start.