I’m a New Yorker who tried 5 plain bagels from grocery-store chains and ranked them from worst to best
November 4, 20240
Trader Joe’s plain bagels looked light in color.
Ted Berg
Right from the jump, I thought Trader Joe’s plain bagels were unimpressive.
The packaging boasts of a “golden-brown exterior crust,” but it was the lightest in color of all the bagels, and there didn’t seem to be anything special about the exterior.
The outside was soft and squishy to the touch, but not in the springy way I like my bagels to be.
The bagels also seemed a bit flat, which didn’t seem bagel-like. When I cut one in half, the excess bread was forced out of the sides, making the bagel look almost foamy.
These were my least favorite of the bunch.
The L’Oven Fresh presliced bagels looked like they belonged in a hotel breakfast spread.
Ted Berg
The L’Oven Fresh presliced bagels looked like they might be found at a continental breakfast buffet at a chain hotel.
The bagels’ exteriors seemed very slick, and despite being presliced, I thought the halves were still hard to pull apart.
Aldi’s bagels were decent.
The Whole Foods bagels were very dark in color.
Ted Berg
The Whole Foods bagel was the largest of any of the ones I tried — at least by circumference — and had the darkest exterior.
But its weight felt wrong. It was very light and had a nice yeasty aroma, making it seem more like a pretzel than a classic bagel.
I’d use the Whole Foods plain bagels to make a sandwich.
Trader Joe’s artisan kettle-boiled bagels were also a light-brown color.
Ted Berg
At first glance, Trader Joe’s artisan kettle-boiled plain bagels were puffy and craggily. Similar to the chain’s other bagels, they were also very light in color.
I cut them in half to reveal a brilliant landscape of nooks and crannies their regular cousins didn’t have.
Trader Joe’s artisan bagels felt like an upgrade.
The packaging on the Kirkland Signature plain bagels frustrated me.
Ted Berg
Though items at Costco typically come in large quantities for remarkable prices, the Kirkland Signature bagels weren’t especially inexpensive compared to what I usually get at the budget warehouse.
There wasn’t an option to buy only one pack, so I purchased two bags of six Kirkland Signature bagels.
Frustratingly, the packages were sealed with a piece of tape, so I also needed to find my own twist-ties to cinch them back up.
Packaging aside, they seemed like appetizing bagels, brilliantly brown and more substantial than most on this list.
Costco’s plain bagels were my winner.
The Kirkland Signature plain bagels were delicious.
Ted Berg
The Kirkland Signature bagels were definitely the best of the bunch, in my opinion. They were appropriately dense, perfectly chewy, and seemed very fresh.
The flavor was fairly subtle, but there was a nice maltiness and yeasty-ness to these that all the other supermarket bagels lacked.
Would I choose them over a baker’s dozen from a legitimate local bagel shop? No. But they’re about ¼ the price, and I might successfully pass them off as local bagels if I happen to be serving them on a day I also go shopping at Costco.
This story was originally published on October 16, 2023, and most recently updated on November 4, 2024.
