12 Grocery Store Gingerbread Cookies Ranked Best To Worst

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You don't have to break out the rolling pin and the cookie cutters to enjoy gingerbread cookies when the festive spirit strikes. There are so many brands of these spiced biscuits lining grocery store shelves, they practically have their own section in the cookie aisle. Unlike other packaged holiday treats, it seems like each brand of gingerbread cookies offers its own unique spin on the basic composition. Some are thin and crispy, others are soft and chewy, and everyone brings in a different concept of how ginger should flavor a cookie.

If you head to the grocery store on a gingerbread cookie hunt, you should know that gingerbread cookies come in a wide variety of flavors and consistencies. I'm here to help you sort out the best bets from your bottom-of-the-barrel bits. I'll guide you through the wintry wonderland of ginger-based biscuits to give you a direct line to the picks with the most potential.

I won't lie: All of these cookies turned out to be pretty tasty. But for every gingerbread preference, there's a specific option that hits the taste-and-texture bullseye best without being too expensive. Here's a round-up of the best and worst Christmas cookie selections from the gingerbread category, ready to be opened and eaten at your convenience.

By emphasizing the molasses element of the usual gingerbread cookie recipe, lesser-known food creator Mi-Del adds a little gourmet razzmatazz that sounds like it should pay off big. It's what gives the dough its depth and complexity, creating a suitable platform for the ginger and other spices to rest upon. The cookies are also the size of a quarter, so you can pop a bunch in your mouth before you even realize what's happening. That's a highway to the ginger zone if ever there was one.

I hate to bash a smaller-brand offering, especially one that comes with a $5 price tag for 45 treats. But these cookies were distinctively underwhelming. The bite-sized stature makes it easy to devour a couple at a time as you search for the spritely ginger notes, but they never appear. All you get instead is a decent, nondescript cookie flavor that leaves your tongue more than a little deflated.

Subtlety is one thing, but minimizing the ginger in a gingerbread cookie until it's indiscernible is taking it too far. In the case of Mi-Del, the flavor is a whisper when it should be singing as loudly and proudly as a Christmas carol.

Walker's, that plaid-patterned maker of traditional British shortbread, hedges its bets in the big gingerbread cookie gamble by bagging up crispy gingerbread men to expand its Target treat lineup for the holidays. This gives the company additional presence in the holiday food gift sphere with a refined Christmas cookie for those with elevated sensibilities. They also snap a little more than an ordinary gingerbread man, offering fans of old-fashioned ginger snaps a familiar option to sink their teeth into.

The flavor in this gingerbread man recipe is closer to a butter cookie with a little spice than it is to the more familiar gingerbread formula. The box also includes only eight of the sweet little dudes for $4, which doesn't exactly make them a bargain. The name may mean a lot in the realm of gourmet treats, but the diminished gingerbread essence and higher price point make Walker's an option you can walk away from.

If you're expecting your edible gingerbread man to have legs, you'll want something spicier than Walker's can provide. It's better off to keep on walking.

Clever marketing allows Little Debbie snack cakes to balance out the frosting-heavy Christmas tree cakes that everyone loves so much with an equally pleasing yet spicier gingerbread cookie. That's both the upside and the downside of this $3 package; if you like cheaper snack cakes, you're in luck, and if you don't ... well, now you know what to avoid.

I was expecting bigger things from the brand, considering the size of the snack cakes, but the gingerbread man turned out to be sensibly sized and individually wrapped, so you can treat it as you would any other Little Debbie product. These are great for tossing in lunch bags or Christmas stockings to give your school kids a fun holiday surprise.

All in all, it's a soft, chewy cookie, similar in texture and consistency to the oatmeal cream cakes, but with a molasses-forward personality of its own. And since these are only around at holiday time, they're a get-them-or-miss-out product that you should get a jump on. But if you happen to miss out, you won't be missing much.

If you've never heard of Dewey's Bakery, sampling the triple ginger snaps might be the perfect introduction to this boutique label's cookie craft. This little package is a solid deal, considering you get more than 80 crisps for $5 or thereabouts. They're bite-sized biscuits but only about a third of the thickness of other cookies, which lets you dole out your portions as you see fit.

One of the mistakes people make when making gingerbread cookie selections is gliding past the lesser-known brands. I've never heard of Dewey's before searching for a smaller-brand gingerbread cookie to sample, but I sure am glad I found it. These light and lovely crisps contain bits of real ginger that add a chewy aspect to the crunchy, buttery cookie. There's just enough ginger flavor to brighten up your snack time without too much sweetness to muck things up.

Because these are very close to Anna's Swedish Ginger Crisps, they take a lower spot in the rankings. But they're still a solid entry.

Favorite Day has gone all out with its gingerbread cookie selections, including a sandwich-style treat featuring a sweet cheesecake-like filling mashed between two spicy snaps, Oreo-style. It's a fun twist that gives these smaller cookies the appearance of whoopie pies made by elves. The prospect of cheesecake being in the center rather than just the usual vanilla cream is an enticement that can't be overlooked — so I didn't.

My first impression was that these two-bite goodies were a little too sweet for my taste. The soft ginger flavor is no match for the sweetness of the cream in the center. But the more I chewed, the more powerful the ginger became, until all the flavors merged into one well-balanced blend.

While these wouldn't be my first choice, it was refreshing to see a different take on the basic ginger snap setup. I located the box in the holiday section at Target, which means they're part of the Christmas gift collection and would make a great present for the gourmet cookie lover in your life.

Target tackles the great Christmas gingerbread conundrum with a box of Favorite Day frosted gingerbread cookies designed to look like they came straight from the bakery. But when you know how capricious the quality of this label's items can be, you approach these little baked dudes with great caution. You don't want to get your hopes up too high for a fantastic holiday find, only to discover a pale imitation of satisfactory gingerbread men waiting beneath the lid. Gingerbread cookie hunting is serious business, you know, and nobody wants to be fooled by a duplicitous decoy.

Fortunately, this is one of those times when Favorite Day gets it more right than wrong. Think of this selection as a Lofthouse-style sugar cookie, but with a subtle gingerbread persona under a swipe of vanilla icing. They're soft yet sturdy and a perfect complement to your favorite type of coffee, which is what I happened to sample them with.

For fans of more subtlety in a gingerbread cookie, these iced wonders could make any day before Christmas your Favorite Day. They may be a little on the sweet side, but that can be a win if you know what you're getting into.

The great-granddaddy brand of old-timey cookie bliss, Pepperidge Farm introduces its adorable Gingerman cookies as a festive member of the family whenever the weather gets chilly. Instead of only shelving them in the cookie aisle with the other selections, the company also packages them in smaller quantities that are perfect for stuffing in stockings or stashing in gift baskets. They're priced at just over $1, making them a great way to become acquainted without having a bunch left over. I was only able to find the larger $5 bag during my excursion, so I could have easily been the sucker stuck with an army of displeasing cookies.

It's a good thing that Pepperidge Farm gets the balance right. These sweet little dudes carry a subtle ginger essence wrapped in the form of a butter cookie. It's like opening the blue tin of Danish cookies and pulling out one that got a generous sprinkling of warm spices before baking. The tender toothiness makes them easy to crunch into without making a mess, too.

For fancier scenarios like holiday coffee dates with your more discerning friends, Pepperidge Farms Gingerman are a great addition to the invite list. The $5 or so price for a 20-cookie pack may steer you in a different direction, however.

Boy, does Favorite Day haul out the gingerbread goodies this season. This one is a package of large bakery-style cookies that look homemade enough to become a clever stand-in for your usual recipe. With soft centers and a deep trove of rich flavor, they're one of the more impressive items in the Favorite Day carousel.

You get eight oversized cookies in this generous package, and in a lucky turn of events, it just happens that these Favorite Day creations are on the winning side. They're heavier on the molasses than the ginger, which gives them an old-fashioned feel and keeps them from seeming like they're trying too hard to be super peppery. If you have a cookie-sharing partner, one of these massive bakes will be perfect for splitting in two.

Priced at $5 or so for 10 cookies, Target's cozy house brand hits a tasty home run in the gingerbread world series. It's a surprise success from this line, which usually takes big swings but can't always connect.

Kroger keeps a signature label box of ginger snaps among its general cookie population at all times, with a price tag of just about $3. Paying half the price could be an indicator of getting half the flavor. It's not unheard of in the world of store-brand duplicates; it's usually how a company is able to charge less. But it also means shoppers steer clear of the second-rate options, which defeats the whole purpose of making cookies in the first place. All of which is to say, can these half-priced gingersnaps keep up with the big boys?

Short answer: Yes. They're just basic round ginger cookies, but they come with a fantastic snap and a flavor that takes your taste buds on a fun peppery ride. Kroger is clearly aping the Nabisco version, which is notably better. But considering that this box is half the price, it makes choosing the store label version pretty much a no-brainer.

Overall, Kroger delivers a triple win in a lower-priced box of highly enjoyable gingersnaps in a quantity that's sure to satisfy. It's not the best choice on the list, but it definitely holds its own.

You can depend on Tate's Bake Shop to line grocery store shelves with premium cookie creations, with a tasty gingerbread option waiting among them. Even with its gluten-free versions, the company goes to great lengths to offer premium recreations of cookie favorites. The Ginger Zinger crisps in the brand line are no exception to this rule.

This was the most interesting gingerbread cookie of all the brands I tried. There's a brown butter richness that bursts through to make you believe you're just eating a plain old sugar cookie with a little extra rizz. The ginger shows up as chewy pieces of candied ginger root rather than just flavoring, which can be a little difficult to find as you chew. Initially, there were one or two little nuggets that didn't give enough spice ... then I reached the last bite of the cookie where all the ginger power was hidden, and it was like a fiery spice explosion. The flavor was fun when it showed up, and the uneven distribution made it feel like a bit of a treasure hunt.

These are specialty cookies priced a little higher than the others, and the rich flavors really sell the concept. They're not the cookie you want if you're looking for traditional homestyle ginger snaps, but they're an exciting change-up, especially for anyone who needs a gluten-free gingerbread cookie recipe that comes already made.

This box of spicy-sweet happiness is one of the few brands you'll find on shelves year-round. Though they used to be a much more reasonable price for the size you get, that horrifying Ghost of Inflation Present has driven the number up to around the $8 mark. It may say family size on the front of the box, but there's just not enough product on hand to justify such an elevated price point, especially when the other companies seem to be able to keep their prices down between $3 and $5. So if you're going to pay that much extra, you better be getting a darn special ginger snap.

Lucky you if you choose to make the purchase. These cookies have the juice — or the pepper, rather — that makes a full-force gingersnap assault on your unsuspecting taste buds. It's actually a good thing; there's a fun heat here that many of the other brands hold back on. They're also crisp enough to hold up to a swath of frosting or nut butter if you prefer your gingerbread cookies of the filled sandwich persuasion. The higher price of these snaps may cause a little sticker shock, but if you're craving big-time ginger flavor, they're a great buy.

Anna's creates elegant boxes of ultra-light tea cookies called ginger thins that bring Swedish style to your most special occasions. These wafer-like crisps are as delicate a cookie as you can find on market shelves, and they come wrapped in boxes that remind you of upscale department store packaging. Fortunately, you can find them in all the bigger grocery chains, as well as some smaller boutique spots and online outlets.

And what a find they are. These brittle bites are the epitome of refinement, not something I'm used to finding at the grocery store. The texture is crisp, yet the cookies melt in your mouth, releasing a perfect composition of sweet and spicy flavors. There's a buttery element underneath it all, reminding you that store-bought cookies are capable of delivering homestyle goodness when treated with thoughtful care. Anna's may be a top-shelf choice, but with a price just above $3, they're worth every penny.

With a perfect trifecta of quality, price, and availability, Anna's Swedish ginger thins tops the tower of store-bought gingerbread cookies. Grab a box of these charming biscuits and settle in for a soothing good time.

I was on the search for gingerbread cookies that played up the ginger and spice aspect. This is one of my favorite seasoning blends, and I am a fan of a powerful ginger punch in a cookie. This can come as a soothing, warm flavor that simmers or a supreme heat-filled layer that fires up every bite. The cookies I chose ended up representing a range of ginger-ness, none of which were a total disappointment.

Beyond the ginger, I also gauged overall flavor, freshness, and texture, all of which combined to make a satisfying cookie regardless of the spice level. I kept an eye on the selections that offered more of a home-baked experience, though that didn't always provide an advantage. And because spending more than necessary on gingerbread cookies is never an enriching prospect, I also assessed price friendliness for each item.