Store-Bought Cookie Dough Ranked Worst To Best

If you want fresh-from-the-oven cookies without the hassle of mixing up your own dough, store-bought cookie dough is the perfect solution. You can use it as-is to make a tasty cookie or get creative with a cookie pizza or cup to hold ice cream, fruit, or other sweet treats. You can even use it to add a delicious option to your holiday cookie tray without the hassle of another homemade recipe. There are plenty of brands that have nailed the secret to soft, delicious cookies right from the refrigerator case, but not all store-bought dough is worth the dough you'll spend for this convenience.

We tried the most popular and widely available brands to see which took the cake (or rather, the cookie) and which we'd just as soon skip. While there are plenty of flavor options out there, we stuck with classic chocolate chip so that we could make an equal comparison between all of the choices we found. Some had chocolate chips which melted and provided little bursts of sweet flavor. Others were full of large chocolate chunks. You may choose to keep the dough as it comes like we did or upgrade store-bought dough to make it taste more unique and homemade. These are the best brands and styles of cookie dough you can get at the store.

Cappello's Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough is one of the most expensive out there and the only option from our taste test that we wouldn't buy again. It's made with almond flour and a lot of organic ingredients, although it can't be labeled as an organic dough. This dough was very grainy and the baked cookies were brittle enough that they cracked when we lifted them off the baking sheet. It was even difficult to keep the raw dough together when we rolled them into cookies. Because this comes in a log-style dough, it would be easier to upgrade with an extra sugar edge, one of Alex Guarnaschelli's tricks to make store-bought dough more memorable.

It has semi-sweet chocolate chips and is sweetened with maple syrup, giving it a less intense flavor overall. But it was the texture that got us and moved this option to the bottom of our list. Given its higher price tag and less-than-great texture and taste, this is a dough that we'd skip. We enjoyed the other gluten-free options better, since they were closer replicas to the flavor and feel of traditional chocolate chip cookies. The Capello's website lists a brown butter sugar cookie dough as well as a sea salt variety of the chocolate chip that might have a richer flavor, but we didn't see either at the store.

Miss Jones Baking Company has a good selection of almond flour cookie doughs, including monster cookie dough with chocolate candies and chips, and we went with the chocolate chip variety. This gluten-free option is made with almond flour, which works for those who are gluten-free but does alter the texture of the cookie. It wasn't as grainy as the Cappello's dough, which is also made with almond flour, but was still noticeably rougher than traditional dough.

Because it has chocolate chips rather than chunks, they melt very quickly and evenly, which helped keep the dough a bit more gooey and soft than it would be otherwise. There are also more chocolate chips than other options from the same brand. Even with the melted chocolate, the cookie was a bit grainy and brittle after baking. It also didn't have the rich flavor that we hoped for from a chocolate chip cookie.

This is one of the pricier options, costing over $10 for a 12-ounce package. These were also very large cookies and each package only makes six giant cookies if you don't portion them out yourself into smaller pieces. Unless you are specifically looking for a gluten-free and dairy-free cookie, we recommend trying something else. Not only is it more expensive, but it didn't have as rich of a flavor or as soft of a texture as other options.

The Eat Pastry Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough comes in a tub, which was a bit different than the pre-portioned doughs that most other brands offer. This did let us customize how big of a cookie that we made, but also made it a bit harder to judge how long to let them bake. Watch the oven closely because these ended up getting overcooked when we put them in for the same amount of time as other brands. You can eat this cookie dough raw, making it a nice option for ice cream or other desserts. We'd even mix it into a sweet dip to bring in some extra texture. The flavor was much richer when eaten raw compared to the final baked cookie. These cookies did keep their shape well, however, and had minimal spreading as they baked.

There weren't as many chocolate chips in this dough as most of the others that we tried. While you can always mix in extra chips or other add-ins like orange zest to boost the cookie's flavor, but that adds to the cost. It is already a bit pricey and comes in a small 14-ounce tub. It is vegan and non-GMO, so if this is an important factor, for you it might be worth spending a bit more on Eat Pastry. But for us, the average taste didn't justify the higher cost. 

You can still enjoy sweet cookies even without the gluten if you go with Sweet Loren's Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough. This dough uses oat and tapioca flour, plus potato starch, to replicate a traditional cookie texture. This gave the dough a much closer texture to standard cookies compared to the brands that used almond flour. Sweet Loren's had the largest selection of styles, including unexpected options like gingerbread and oatmeal cranberry, all of them gluten- and dairy-free.

Even though we didn't like these as much as those made with traditional flour, it was our favorite gluten-free version. If we didn't know if was gluten-free, we'd have a hard time distinguishing it from regular chocolate chip cookies. It was chewy rather than brittle, which we didn't see from other gluten-free doughs. It's made with chocolate chunks, so had a more chocolate flavor overall than some of the other options we tried. The large chunks of chocolate in the dough were our favorite part of this style.

It's a bit on the expensive side, which isn't surprising for a specialty dough. It only makes 12 cookies if you keep them in the pre-portioned sizes, but they are quite large. If we made these again, we'd portion them into smaller pieces. Be ready to adjust the cooking time, whether you keep them as-is or not. To keep them soft, we had to cut the recommended time short by a full two minutes. 

Puff Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough is different than any of the others that we tried, so it was a little bit harder to compare. Rather than flattening into soft cookies as it baked, this dough stayed in small balls, living up to its name as a puffy-style cookie. The outside was a bit crispier but the inside was super soft and light. The brand promises that the cookies will "melt in your mouth" and that's exactly what they did. They got top marks from us for texture, since we love a super airy and soft cookie. However, if you like your chocolate chip cookies a bit denser, the texture of this dough wouldn't work for you. These definitely ended up higher on our list because of personal preference for a melty cookie.

They're not as sweet as some other types we tried, which was the main reason they fell down a few rankings. If they were even a bit sweeter, Puff cookies would have skyrocketed to the top. But as-is, the flavor was just average for a chocolate chip cookie. Puff also makes a confetti cookie, which might be better suited to this style. The cost of this 12-ounce package also fell in the middle of the options. Overall, if you like a light cookie, this one is worth trying and you'll probably end up eating more than just one. Just don't expect the same rich, chocolatey taste that most people want in a chocolate chip cookie.

With massive pieces of chocolate, the Trader Joe's Chocolate Chunk Cookie Dough is rich and delicious. They are loaded with a lot of chocolate but also have a sprinkling of sea salt, which helps bring out the sweet flavor. This was one of brands with the richest taste and would be at the top of our list if we were judging on that alone. 

There aren't a lot of flavor options but Trader Joe's does offer a gluten-free version that is also full of chocolate chunks. We stuck with the recommended baking time, which was just right. They maintained their shape and didn't spread as much as some other doughs that we tried. You should still give them an inch or two around each, but they aren't likely to merge together into a cookie blob as they bake. They came out soft in the middle and firm on the edges, making them easy to eat, especially when dunked in milk.

While we loved both the taste and texture, it would be hard to justify a special trip to Trader Joe's for this dough when it is so similar to other options. They're delicious and a good value, but ended up slightly lower on our list just because they're not as easy to pick up as brands carried at multiple grocery stores. We'd happily buy them when at Trader Joe's, but wouldn't go out of our way to get this particular brand.

Pillsbury has plenty of ready-to-bake doughs in the store's refrigerator case, but one of the best is their cookie dough. We went with the chocolate chip, but we also enjoyed the sugar cookie and Reese's peanut butter flavors. You can eat this cookie dough raw without worrying about food safety, making it a great mix-in for ice cream. The 16-ounce package is around $5.50, but you can find deals at some stores by using your store loyalty card. Because Pillsbury is carried so widely, it's worth checking ahead of time at a variety of stores to find the best deal.

It comes in small circular pucks, which maintain their shape well when you peel them off the tray. They are a bit smaller than some other pre-made cookie dough, but you can easily roll two together to create a larger cookie. You can also flatten the cookie a bit when you put it on the tray if you prefer a thin cookie, but we didn't find that necessary. The chocolate chips melted evenly and were gooey when we pulled them out of the oven. We liked the smaller size because they cooked faster and were more portable. We recommend taking them out a minute earlier than recommended for a softer cookie. Watch for the edges to begin turning golden brown rather than trusting the timer. When we left them in for the time listed by Pillsbury, our cookies came out a bit burnt. 

Surprisingly, we did not find a lot of store-brand chocolate chip cookie dough choices. Giant was one of the few that offered an alternative to the name brands and it was very similar to Pillsbury or Toll House. The 16-ounce package made 12 cookies and these ended up being some of the largest of the options that we tried when we kept them portioned as-is. Next time, we'd split them into smaller pieces to speed up the process, although we'd adjust the baking time as well to accommodate. The recommended amount of time resulted in a cookie with edges that were just a bit too crispy for our liking. Adjusting the baking by just a minute or two would fix this problem.

These cookies also spread out a bit more than other brands, so make sure to give plenty of room around each portion on the baking sheet. If you put them closer together, you might end up with one giant cookie instead of the smaller individual portions that you planned.

At just $4, this was the most budget-friendly option. These were very close to the name brands that ended up at the top of our list, coming in second just because they were slightly less rich than our top choice. This is still a dough that we'd happily make again and we'd probably even be able to pass it off as homemade.

Nestlé Toll House is our go-to favorite for chocolate chips to make our own homemade cookies, so we were excited to try the ready-to-bake chocolate chip cookie dough. As we hoped, the chocolate chips were the standout part of this dough, which was stayed super soft when baked. It also had a strong vanilla flavor that makes it extra rich. It had that super decadent flavor that we love about chocolate chip cookies.

Nestlé Toll House Chocolate Chip Lovers Cookie Dough was comparable to Giant's store brand and Pillsbury for both cost and flavor, although the cookies were quite a bit larger. They were a bit harder to get off the base because they were so soft and we ended up need to reshape them as we put them on the tray. Putting them in the freezer to chill for a few minutes would help alleviate this. 

Rather than get the pre-portioned cookie pucks, next time we'd go with the tub of the same chocolate chip cookie dough so that we could scoop out our own portions. Not only does this give us more control over the size, but it is also a bit cheaper per ounce. For taste and texture, however, this cookie dough gets top marks. It was a close race between our top three choices but in the end, the rich vanilla-y flavor of this brand gave it a slight edge over the other two.

To find out which store-bought cookie doughs were the best, we brought home a number of the most popular choices and got to baking. We stuck with chocolate chip or chocolate chunk so that we could compare similar flavors, although we also noted which options have a lineup that we'd consider for other flavors in the future. We made a few of each cookie, keeping them in the pre-portioned sizes when they came on a tray. We tried to keep to the recommended baking time, but we had to take a few trays out early to keep them from burning. We used the traditional oven baking method on the back of the packaging, but you could also try using the air fryer if you like crispier cookies.

When trying the cookies, we considered taste and texture first. In our book, the perfect chocolate chip cookie is soft and rich, with gooey chocolate in every bite. We also looked at cost and availability, making note of which options we'd make a special trip to get and which we'd only buy if we were already at that store. Our favorites combined sweet, rich taste and soft texture at a good price point. There were plenty of tasty options to choose from and the race was close among our top choices. The ultimate ranking came down to the combination of the richest flavor with just a hint of vanilla, plus chocolate that melts evenly and a soft but firm texture.