Which Cheddar Cheese is Best?
Cheese! A food so good that you can put it on almost any other food and it makes that food better! Don’t believe me? My multiple lactose intolerant friends who won’t stop eating cheese say otherwise. When we were asked to hold a Cheddar Cheese taste test, we knew it was a must!
The person who asked us to test Cheddar Cheese felt overwhelmed at the amount of brands of cheese, and the wide range of prices. (Which is why we started The Food Showdown.) And it’s true, there is such a wide range. Look at the price difference between the cheapest contender and the most expensive contender below.
Setting up the Cheddar Cheese Taste Test
The cheeses were presented on identical plates, labeled A-F.
The panelists were asked to select them all at once and were allowed to test in whatever order they wanted.
Panelists were able to eat the cheese alone, or with whatever food (like cracker or bread) they wanted to eat with it. However they had to stick with that food for each brand. To see how we keep all tests unbiased, as well as a list of every test ever, click here.
The Contenders:
All brands are Sharp (because go big or go home) Cheddar. (Some brands have Extra Sharp as their only (Or only available at our local stores.) Sharp option. In that case, we used their Extra Sharp. It’s like fast food restaurants having Medium, Large, and Extra Large as their only drink sizes. Your Extra Large is the Large.)
In order of least to most expensive; number is the price per ounce on their 8 ounce package, unless otherwise noted:
Tillamook, packaged at a local food co-op. They buy big wheels and then package in smaller quantities. The idea is that the cheese should be fresher as it’s not going through a large processing plant. Tillamook is the only brand that this was available for. Also, the only cheese was not sold in 8 oz packages… it was actually 15.36 oz.
As with other foods we’ve tested like olive oil, butter, and potato chips, cheese does not have that large of an ingredient list. So will the more expensive prove to be worth the money? Or will a cheaper brand win it, as is quite often the case?
Cheddar Cheese Taste Test Results
Some of our taste tests have clear winners, or clear losers. Or one or two brands will separate themselves from the pack. This taste test didn’t end that way. The results were rather spread out, forming a nice even transgression from least to most favorite. Check out the point spread:
So who won?
The letter corresponds to the placeholder during the test.
6 – Tillamook from the co-op (F)
5 – Tillamook (B)
4 – Cabot (D)
3 – Kraft (E)
2 – Cracker Barrel (C)
And the winner is…
1 – Lucerne (A)
Insights:
We had bigger hopes for Tillamook. They built their brand on cheese, and won both vanilla and chocolate ice cream taste tests. But they did not fare too well here, coming in last and second to last place.
Cabot also surprised a lot of people by placing so low, because they are in the fancy cheese area of the grocery store. And when you think Cabot, you think cheese.
Remember that Cabot was the most expensive, at 2.8 times more expensive than the cheapest one… AND NOT ONE PERSON VOTED IT THEIR FAVORITE! Last place (co-op Tillamook) at least got one person to vote it their favorite.
No one was expecting Cracker Barrel to do so well. The general “feeling” was that they while they have cheese, they wouldn’t be a real contender. So this is probably the Cinderella story of this cheddar cheese taste test.
Lucerne (Safeway’s dairy brand) wins again! Safeway has won, or at least placed very high in most taste tests we’ve held. Lucerne was also the cheapest!
This test proves once again that more expensive does not always mean better.
Comments from panelists about each brand:
We like to include comments from our panelists about each brand. This way if there’s a quality in a cheese that you like, you can find it here, in case you don’t like our winner.
Tillamook from the co-op (F): mild flavor, thick!, not as good, best texture, limited flavor profile, tastes expensive, good, hard, extra sharp, more firm, robust, “no! oh, gross”
Tillamook (B): firm, mild, yuck, no, flavor develops later, weak, American cheese-like, boring, crumbly, hard, sharp, smoother with more bite, dry, not as sharp
Cabot (D): Harder, sharper, dry, strange flavor, somewhat dry, crumbly, sharp, dry, sharp, tangy, don’t like; dry not flavorful
Kraft (E): Mild, soft, flavorful, good flavor, good texture, sharp, creamy-ish, mild, tasty, soft, smooth, smooth but not very flavorful
Cracker Barrel (C): soft, extra!, sharp, mild, sharp, salty, soft, chewy, mellow, soft, creamy, not as natural tasting
Lucerne (A): soft, sharp, good!, creamy, tangy, creamy, very sharp, creamy, soft, pliable, slightly mushy, sharp, creamy
Do you agree with our panelists? Is there a brand of cheese we should have included? Let us know in the comments. Have a food you’d like us to test next? Hit us up!
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