The Great Value Cookie Dough You Should Leave On The Shelf

Sam Zwick/Mashed

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When you need a sweet fix, sometimes, store-bought cookies just don't quite cut it. Not only do they never have that warm, freshly baked texture that makes homemade treats feel like a hug from grandma, but some cookie brands are also just made with low-quality ingredients. If you don't have the time or the skills to make them from scratch, store-bought cookie dough is your next best option. All you have to do is take them out of the freezer, pop them into the oven, and enjoy freshly baked cookies in just a few minutes. If you're wondering which brand is best, Mashed did a taste test of frozen store-bought cookie doughs and ranked them from worst to best, to figure out which were the smartest options for a quick cookie fix. Unfortunately, one in particular stood out for how decidedly disappointing it was. 

Great Value Ready to Bake Regular Chocolate Chip cookie dough landed firmly in the middle of the pack, ranking fifth out of eight total. The gap between Great Value and the fourth-ranked variety, Aldi's Specially Selected Chocolate Chip with Almond Brittle, however, was pretty huge. While Aldi's cookie dough did well in terms of taste, Great Value's flavor was buttery but bland. In fact, we reckon they're the "ultimate mid-level cookie" and would even compare them to the kind you'd find at a potluck: Reliable, but nothing more. If you really want to give yourself a treat, Magnolia Table Chocolate Cookies ranked as the best overall. It may also be the priciest option, but you get your money's worth with close-to-homemade quality.

Sam Zwick/Mashed

Great Value's Ready to Bake Regular Chocolate Chip cookie dough disappoints as soon as you open the bag. The cookies were among the smallest in our sample — second only to the worst-ranked overall, Bakr — and were oddly rectangular in shape. After baking, they didn't spread out enough to lose this weird outline, which is enough to give away that they're store-bought. Taste-wise, they had a delectable butter-forward flavor and a decent distribution of chocolate chips, but that was about it; they were completely unremarkable yet pleasantly inoffensive at the same time.

The best thing Great Value had going for it was its literally great value. A 16.5-ounce bag made 24 cookies for $3 (or just over 12 cents per cookie), making it the bang-for-your-buck leader in our taste test by a wide margin. The next-cheapest brand was Aldi's Specially Selected, which costs around 33 cents per cookie at $3.99/dozen. If you're not picky about quality and just want as many cookies as possible, you'll probably be happy getting a bag or two of Great Value's cookie dough.

Customers agree, with one Walmart reviewer noting, "Ok for value but not the best cookie," while another argued, "The value on the cookies is very good. However, the taste, though not awful, is just not enticing enough to switch from the national brand." Of course, there's nothing stopping you from making mid cookies like these taste better with a little customization at home, so there's definitely some real potential with Great Value's offering. If you want to give it a shot, make sure you try out these baker-approved ways to make store-bought cookie dough taste homemade.