11 Canned Peaches, Ranked Worst To Best

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Canned peaches are a low-cost, tried-and-true treat. Not only are they one of the canned fruits you should always keep in your pantry, but they're good for making desserts and cooking in general. In an apples-to-apples comparison — or in this case, a peaches-to-peaches one — my family likes them better than either fresh or frozen, with the only exception being a really good Southern peach, straight from the tree at the height of its ripeness. If you don't happen to find yourself in Georgia in summer, however, canned is the way to go.

Knowledge is power, though, and we always want to know which canned fruits to buy and which to avoid, which led us to ask: what about peaches? Accordingly, my family of four (the husband, small boy, small girl, and myself) sat down to find out and report back.

If ever there were going to be a homogeneous ranking, you'd think it would be a roundup of mayonnaise products — yet in that case, my taste test team and I found a surprising amount of variety in the taste, texture, and creaminess of the mayo, but the same cannot be said for our peach taste test. We found the products to be pretty similar in most cases, and we have our doubts about whether you'd really notice a difference — minus a few notable standouts — if you weren't eating them side by side as we did. That said, there are definitely differences, and if you want the best canned peaches, we've done the legwork for you below.

When gathering up our peach prospects, we were puzzled to come across more than one spiced variety, the first being Amish Wedding Spiced Peach Halves. We assumed it must hail from some culinary tradition of which my family and I are not a part, and we were right: recipes for spiced canned peaches go back 150 years or more. However, if you didn't grow up on this tradition, I'm afraid you might not like it very much — and here we must apologize to all the spiced peach fans, because we found them truly disgusting. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200. Right to jail.

As for which spices, you wonder? Well, the ingredient label doesn't specify; it just says "spices," to which the husband's response was an immediate, "Sketch." We assume there's a lot of cinnamon in there, both because the scent and flavor reeked of it and because it's called for in spiced peach recipes. While we're all cinnamon fans, this was a bad mix. To the extent that we appreciate natural foods, there are very few ingredients in the recipe: peach halves, sugar, and water with the aforementioned spices — and that's its only redeeming value.

These were relatively expensive at $14.25. The jar is 32 ounces rather than the standard 15 ounces seen in most of the other options on this list. If you do the math, that still means you're paying $6.68 for 15 ounces' worth. It's not what we'd call a deal, especially given the lingering taste of cinnamon breath mints.

Shortly after tasting these peaches, the husband launched into a long explanation of "The Wheel of Time" and the nefarious Gray men who've sold their souls and now live in service to darkness. I will spare you the full tale, but this has a point: the husband compared these to what Gray Men would eat. Tasteless. Soulless. Emptiness in a can. The only reason they ranked higher than the Amish Wedding Spiced Peach Halves is because they lacked the overwhelming cinnamon flavor.

Basically, these peaches tasted like they were picked when rock hard. They have the more solid consistency of canned pears, except without being delicious. It's not even that they tasted bad, they just tasted like nothing. Like wet nothing, which isn't what you want for a snack, a dessert, or a recipe. They're under-ripe, sliced unevenly, doused in a sickly version of pear juice, and totally uncommendable.

Moreover, these are such an off-brand kind of off-brand that you can't get them online. We found them at our neighborhood discount food store, Grocery Outlet, for $1.48. That's the sole factor in its favor, but you should only buy them if you're going to disguise the flavor well — very, very well.

As if we hadn't suffered enough, we tried the Green Jay Gourmet Spiced Peaches shortly after the Amish Wedding Spiced Peach Halves. These were, at least, less overwhelming than the Amish Wedding variety, but not by much. It was too bad, too, because the texture of the peaches was alright, but they still tasted like they'd been marinated in Red Hots. The husband labeled them succinctly by calling them "a good peach ruined." The small girl used my famously despised vegetable soup to "wash it down," for what it's worth.

I will say that I didn't hate it as much as the rest of my family. Although the spices in this one — cinnamon oil, the label says — were pretty overwhelming, I can see these being good in a peach turnover. The addition of vinegar gave it a bit of complexity and the fructose and sugar sweetened it enough that the peach halves are likely savable in a recipe.

While not the most disgusting item on this list, Green Jay Gourmet Spiced Peaches were the most outlandishly expensive at $14.99 for only 17 ounces, and they were still almost the grossest to boot.

At only $1.69, we honestly didn't expect much from the Amazon Fresh Yellow Cling Sliced Peaches, and we didn't get it. These taste like lumps of indistinguishable, waterlogged fruit floating in peach-flavored water. The syrup isn't that syrupy, and although this brand was frankly a relief after the spiced peaches, it was tremendously boring. Furthermore, the slices were a little bit sour.

That may partly be due to the limited ingredients list, as these contained no sugar, which is impressive for a low-cost brand. Rather, the slices were sweetened only by pear juice and peach juice. Still, they were tasteless and sour enough that I can't imagine putting them in anything other than a smoothie — buried by better fruits, and only then for the fiber value.

During our peanut butter taste test, we learned that Essential Everyday is not a good brand. Thus, even though we bought it this time in the interest of impartiality, we did not expect much. However, we were pleasantly surprised when it didn't end up at the bottom of this ranking.

With an ingredient list of peaches, water, corn syrup, high-fructose corn syrup, and sugar, we expected it to be a much sweeter variety than some of the others, and indeed it was. No surprise, since it has 25 grams of sugar — compared to, say, Native Forest's 11 grams of sugar, which is fairly representative of many of the less-sweet varieties. Thus, these were slightly easier to eat on their own, but the peaches themselves were probably the worst of all of them. The halves tasted like they'd been harvested completely unripe and then the sweeteners were trying to compensate for it, so you just ended up with peach-shaped sugar.

You can't find Essential Everyday Peach Slices on Amazon. As they were $2.99 at our neighborhood grocery store, though, they probably won't be hard to find out in the world.

We had higher hopes for the Wild Harvest Organic Sliced Yellow Cling Peaches than we did for some of the others, as it's a brand we trust. Still, if there's anything our many taste tests have taught us, it's that you can never assume. These ended up being kind of a mixed bag. The peaches themselves were absolutely beautiful: smooth, tender, bright orange-yellow, and seemingly ripe.

However, they were too sour, which was odd, since they didn't have a lower sugar content than many of the other cans. They also used organic pear juice concentrate to sweeten the slices, which is typically pretty sweet. Some mysteries may never be solved, but the bottom line is, these aren't the best.

While not available online, Wild Harvest Organic Sliced Yellow Cling Peaches were available both at Whole Foods and at my neighborhood grocery store for $3.99, so you shouldn't have trouble finding them. That said, a number of better options were also readily available, so I wouldn't seek this out unless you care about the organic option. Even then, as shortly discussed, we thought Native Forest was better.

These were again well-textured, but too sour. Our family expects canned peaches to be sweet, so the fact that so many of them weren't is kind of bizarre to us. It could be due to early picking, a desire to market them as a healthier option, or simply the fact that any peach that isn't picked off a Georgia tree in summertime is not that good. Still, given the higher-ranked items on our list were delicious and sweet enough, even all of the above explanations don't completely explain the mystery.

Again, we think the problem is that they were trying to sweeten these without using actual sweeteners, relying instead on peach pulp and pear juice concentrate. If you were to mix it in with fruit cocktail or make it into a pie, these might work, but for a somewhat healthy after-dinner treat, they didn't really do the trick.

You can buy 365 by Whole Foods Market Organic Yellow Cling Peaches online in a package of four for $11.96, which breaks down to $2.99 a can. However, Whole Foods had them for a little bit cheaper at $2.79 each, so if you don't want extras on hand and don't live far from a Whole Foods, skip the shipping.

Typically, we find that Trader Joe's has reliable items. They often have too much packaging, but the recipes are tasty, and the peaches are no exception — with the added bonus of the halves coming in a recyclable glass jar. The peaches from TJs have a lot of their own flavor, for one thing, which was a nice change. The texture wasn't quite as smooth and slippery as some of the other brands, but the juices were very tasty, and we would enjoy them in a drink or smoothie. Turns out white grape juice is a good sweetener if you're going to avoid sugar.

Note that while you can buy the Trader Joe's Yellow Cling Peach Halves online if you really want, it costs about three times more online than it does at the store. There it was a very reasonable $4.79, so it's better to drive.

Dole Diced Peaches were the only peach product we tried that came in cups. We endeavored to avoid this formula where we could, both because the packaging is so wasteful and because we felt the dicing led to a less-standardized comparison to the other peaches, which were either halved or sliced. Still, we couldn't find it in any other preparation method, and we wanted to make sure this common canned fruit brand was represented.

As for why they're ranked so highly, the Dole variety was delicious. They had a strong peach flavor, the peaches themselves were ripe and smooth, and the juice was good as well. They were a bit on the sour side, but not in a bad way. Like the Trader Joe's Yellow Cling Peach Halves, the recipe used white grape juice and a bit of lemon juice, which gave them a zingy flavor. The label also says they're a product of Greece, which made us wonder if Greeks know something about growing peaches that we don't. Whatever the case, they're good.

For $7.98, you get 12 cups of the Dole Diced Peaches, which is a decent deal. However, if you can find it in store, you'll definitely avoid some waste.

The Del Monte Canned Sliced Peaches taste like the fruit cocktail we ate when I was little. We didn't have a lot of money when I was small and my mom was raising us on her own, so she had to find affordable treats, and the fruit cocktail did the trick. It contains peaches along with a mix of other fruits, and aside from the cherries, they were always my favorite.

As it happens, they're good on their own as well. The peaches are tasty and soft, smooth and flavorful. The syrup is tasty, probably a product of the sugar content being higher and the inclusion of high-fructose corn syrup. That's not ideal, but then again, these tasted so good that we almost couldn't object. If you want to try the Del Monte Canned Sliced Peaches for yourself, you can get them online for $2.99. While they weren't at Whole Foods or our neighborhood grocery store, you may be able to find them out in the world.

And now, our winner! The Native Forest Organic Yellow Cling Peach Slices were firm but soft, smooth, flavorful, and sweet without being too sweet. The small boy thought they were a tad too sour, but the rest of us loved them. As the small girl said accurately, "Your teeth sink into it perfectly." Seriously, if you were to describe the canned peaches they have in heaven, they would probably taste like this. Sweetened with pear and peach juice, the slices were the perfect choice for an afternoon snack or on ice cream (That just occurred to me, be right back). But for real, if you're going to eat canned peaches for dessert, this is our top choice.

While not exactly the same version as the one we tried, because it uses apple juice rather than peach and pear juice, the Native Forest Organic Sliced Peaches are $5.29 online. Given their good reviews, you can feel pretty confident that these would do the trick, too. Since our version was easy to find at the store, there's really no need to order them online unless you live in a remote area.

As our deciding factors for ranking canned peaches, we used texture, ripeness, flavor, and the desirability of the juice as a drink or an ingredient (Seriously, if you've never tried the leftover syrup in a sparkling soda or canned peach juice bellini, you're missing out). We tried brands in turn and made notes about each of these determinants, and then discussed where each lay in the ranking compared to the others. Our goal was to give you an idea of which you'd want to buy and eat plain as a snack or a dessert, rather than use as an ingredient.

Now for a few notes on what we didn't use as factors. First, all the cans we tried had non-BPA linings, so that didn't weigh in. Second, while we did take a look at the number of ingredients as we always do (since the amount sometimes varies widely, as in our coffee creamer taste test), they were pretty restrained here. In the case of canned peaches, the recipe just doesn't change that much from brand to brand, but we did note the ingredients in each section where relevant.