In our Taste Test series, BA editors conduct blind comparisons to discover the best supermarket staples (like vanilla ice cream or frozen pizza). Today, which supermarket bagel is worth buying? And if you’re wondering which not-supermarket bagels are worth buying, we have lots of thoughts on that too: Swing by the Great Bagel Boom, where we’re celebrating the vast expanses of bagel culture across America.
Bagels, like people, come in many shapes, sizes, and densities. But unlike people, some bagels are just innately better than others. Hold on. I have just been informed that I’ve been named poet laureate for those two opening sentences! What an honor.
The ideal bagel, of course, is fresh out of the oven, with a crust that crackles, an interior with serious chew, and toastiness in every bite. Typically, these incredible bagels are found at specialty bagel shops, where bakers have perfected their recipe over years or, if you’re lucky, generations.
The thing is, these idyllic bagel spaces are not always accessible, and that’s where the supermarket bagel comes in. Supermarket bagels are distinctly not bagel shop bagels, and comparing the two will only leave you distraught. For one, the crust on a bagel shop bagel, created by boiling before baking, is much more substantial than that of the supermarket bagel, which is often merely steamed before the baking process. Sugar often makes an appearance in supermarket bagels as its hygroscopic qualities can help maintain freshness, but it’s noticeably absent from many bagel recipes, which could account for the difference in taste. Supermarket bagels also have to stave off staleness for weeks at a time, which means they’re usually made with preservatives.
But the bagels you can find in bread aisles across the country have their own distinct charm, and there’s something about their springy textures and delicate wheaty flavor that make them, well, loveable. Perhaps supermarket bagels were your family’s Sunday morning staple—a pile of sliced, toasted bagels in the center of the table, as everyone reached for peanut butter or jelly or Nutella. Or maybe they remind you of rushing out the door to catch the schoolbus, cream-cheesed bagel in hand. However you enjoyed them, supermarket bagels are delicious in their own nostalgic right.
To find the best supermarket bagel, we blind-taste-tested five popular brands, judging toasted and untoasted versions on their texture, smell, and taste. Popular classic brands like Thomas’ went toe to toe with relatively newer supermarket bagel contenders like Dave’s Killer Bread. And the results? Shocking, if I do say so myself. Without further ado, here’s how five popular brands stacked up.
All Out Abysmal: Trader Joe’s
The ingredients: unbleached enriched flour (wheat flour, malted barley flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), water, sugar; contains 2% or less of salt, wheat gluten, cultured dextrose (to preserve), monocalcium phosphate, wheat starch, yeast, distilled vinegar, enzymes, monoglycerides
The verdict: The Trader Joe’s bagel was the only one that did not come presliced, which was to its detriment. When we sliced it in half we found an interior that was jagged and shaggy—just the first of the many textural problems every one of our tasters would note. “This is the worst one,” food editor Jesse Szewczyk declared almost immediately after taking a bite. Recipe production assistant Carly Westerfield described the dry texture as “truly sawdust,” and associate cooking editor Antara Sinha compared the taste to water crackers: weak, insubstantial, and vaguely cardboardy.
Not Outrightly Offensive: Toufayan
The ingredients: enriched flour (wheat flour, malted barley flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), water, sugar, yeast; contains 2% or less of salt, molasses powder (molasses, wheat starch), mono- and diglycerides, ammonium chloride, ascorbic acid (vitamin C), calcium sulfate, cornmeal, guar gum, corn syrup solids, wheat gluten, soybean oil, preservatives (calcium propionate, potassium sorbate), sesame
The verdict: We had a hard time finding much to love about the Toufayan bagel. It was missing any kind of bagel-like crust; it had a strange chemical smell; and its chew was gummy rather than sturdy. Food editor Shilpa Uskokovic declared the Toufayan bagel “Wonder bread in bagel form” based on its bland bleached-flour taste and gloppy chew. Overall, it was an unsatisfactory bagel experience but not actively bad, which saved it from last place. The Toufayan bagel wouldn’t crash and burn at a brunch, provided it could be loaded up with cream cheese, lox, capers, red onion, and a dash of optimism. Still, as senior cooking editor Kelsey Youngman put it after her first nibble, “This wouldn’t sate my bagel craving.”
Thoroughly Fine: Dave’s Plain Awesome Bagels
The ingredients: organic flours (organic wheat flour, organic barley flour, organic rye flour, organic spelt flour, organic millet flour, organic quinoa flour), water, yeast, organic cane sugar, organic rolled oats, organic wheat gluten; contains 2% or less of each of the following: organic expeller pressed canola oil, organic vinegar, organic yellow cornmeal, salt, organic cultured wheat flour, organic fermented rye flour, organic whole wheat flour, organic sesame flour, enzymes, organic acerola cherry powder, salt
The verdict: To describe this bagel as “Plain Awesome,” seems like a stretch, though I guess “Dave’s Just Okay Bagels, I Mean They’re Nothing Special, but I Would Eat Them If I Was Trapped Under a Boulder and They Were the Only Thing Within Reach” is a bit of a mouthful. The Dave’s bagel had potential—Jesse enjoyed its “honey, whole wheat” flavor—but it lost us at the texture, which was just all wrong. We were looking for an interior that was dense without being gummy, but we were met with pure sponge. Carly compared it to “memory foam,” and Kelsey noted that it had the chew of “a horrible dinner roll.”
Genuinely Likable: Thomas’
The ingredients: enriched wheat flour (flour, malted barley flour, reduced iron, niacin, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), water, sugar, yeast, wheat gluten, salt, cornmeal, calcium propionate and sorbic acid (to preserve freshness), monoglycerides, citric acid, guar gum, vegetable oil (soybean), soy lecithin, sesame seeds
The verdict: Sometimes they’re known as classics for a reason. Thomas’, which has been in business for over 140 years (!) and baking bagels for the last 29, was a close second in our taste test. Thomas’ bagel had only the slightest trace of sweetness, and its chew was light and airy but still substantial. Antara deemed it “the classic supermarket bagel—I mean not a real bagel, but, you know.” With a swoop of cream cheese it became “remarkably better,” Carly noted.
Simply the Best: Whole Foods’ 365
The ingredients: organic enriched wheat flour (organic wheat flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), water, organic cane sugar, organic vital wheat gluten; contains 2% or less of the following: organic expeller pressed soybean oil, xanthan gum, organic distilled white vinegar, yeast, sea salt, ascorbic acid (dough conditioner), organic cultured wheat flour, microbial enzymes
The verdict: Will this be the best bagel you’ve ever tasted? Likely no, but it will be the best supermarket bagel you’ve ever had. We were thrilled with the 365 bagel because it lacked the sour smell and strange sweetness that almost every other bagel had. Instead, it had a more toasty flavor and a bouncy, “cakey” bite as Jesse described it. When our tasters tried a bite with cream cheese, its more mellow flavor allowed the tangy schmear to shine. Clearly not all bagels are created equal. But for a lo-fi bagel, the 365 plain would do well on hectic mornings, stuffed in your kid's hand before shooing them off to school.