Grocery stores stock thousands of products. How do you even start to find the best, say, extra virgin olive oil, or frozen buffalo wings? That’s where Block Party comes in.
Our Block Party team of expert food writers, test kitchen veterans, chefs, and connoisseurs — plus their willing partners, lucky friends, and hungry kids — conduct a whole lot of taste tests to discern the best of the best grocery store staples.
From string cheese to frozen dumplings to ranch dressing, they taste dining room tables full of products, take copious notes, and snap libraries of phone photos so they can confidently recommend the products that best deliver on flavor, texture, and quality. They diligently air fry, pan fry, dip, drizzle, stir, and swirl.
Next time you fill your cart, you can be sure you’re doing so with expert-backed guidance. Here are our guides to the best grocery store items, for the next time you’re staring at the endless shelves of food wondering what to buy.
The Best Potato Chips for All-Purpose Happiness: The perfect potato chips strike all the right notes — salty, crispy, and delectably golden.
The Very Best Grocery Store Olive Oils: A guide to choosing an excellent bottle of EVOO, which will elevate everything from salads to vanilla ice cream (trust us!).
We Tried a Dozen Ranch Dressings to Find the Very Best: These bottles of creamy, tangy, herb-flecked dressing give crudité and salads delicious life.
These Store-Bought Soups Are Instant Comfort in a Bowl: Ready-to-heat-and-eat soups are perfect for stocking when cooking is not in the cards. These are the cream of the crop (pun intended).
The 6 Best Tortilla Chips For Dipping, Scooping, and Snacking: Made with just corn, oil, and salt, these winners have great flavor, texture, salt level, and guac scooping capability.
The 6 Best String Cheeses For Snacking and Pulling Apart, Strand by Strand: The top picks for those who love this individually wrapped, protein-packed, no mess, zero fuss snack.
The 7 Best Frozen Dumplings You Should Stock In Your Freezer: Silky wrappers, flavorful fillings, and zingy sauces make for a winning dumpling — an ideal too-tired-to-cook dinner.
The Best Store-Bought Buffalo Wings Should Burn Your Lips: Simultaneously crispy and saucy — with a juicy interior — the best buffalo wings are no longer elusive.
The 6 Best Frozen Tater Tots That’ll Win Over Adults and Kids: Dipped in ketchup, eaten plain, or covered in cheese, here are the best crowd-pleasing tots.
I Tried 15 Jarred Grocery Store Salsas — These Are the Best Ones: Satisfying picks for lovers of chunky, spicy, and even mango-y.
I Tasted Tons of Store-Bought Hummus — These Are My Top 6: With dozens of brands and countless flavors, here’s how to choose the best classic chickpea-and-tahini dip.
I Tried 20 Store-Bought Guacamole, and Here Are the Best Ones: Some are chunky and some are silky smooth; the best guacs are all packed with savory flavor.
PHOTO CREDIT:
Photography: Paul Quitoriano
Art Direction: Sarah Ceniceros Gomez
