We Tried And Ranked 7 Grocery Store Apple Pies

There's nothing like talking about apple pie. To share my favorite Carl Sagan quote, "If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe." The quote speaks to the idea that everything in an apple pie has deep roots, from the grain of the flour to the apple tree that grew the fruit. I've also found it shares just how challenging it is to make an apple pie from scratch, given the sheer number of mistakes everyone makes when baking apple pie. In the hubbub during the holiday season, you might feel the same. That's why I've assumed the delicious task of trying grocery store apple pies to help you choose the best ones for your holiday meals.

I should say that no premade apple pie is as tasty as a homemade one. Since none of the pies were freshly made from scratch (or as close to it as Sagan would deem reasonable), there was a certain not-quite-fresh taste that all of the pies had. I ranked the pies according to the texture and flavor of both the filling and crust. What I found may honestly surprise you.

The two pies I picked up from Walmart couldn't have been more different. They sit on either end of my list, with the Freshness Guaranteed option ending up at the very bottom. Like the Marketplace pie, it used thinly sliced apple slices instead of wedges, but unlike the caramel apple version, the filling was a lot less substantial. Like an apple pie milkshake that has the apple pie flavor but is missing a whole lot of that filling, this apple pie just seemed lacking.

While the apple slices are too few, so was the cinnamon and flavoring in general. Like the filling, the crust was just soft and mushy. When I cut into the pie, it just sort of gave in without any look of flakiness. Between the flavor and the texture, this pie was easily my least favorite of the bunch. Honestly, this is the best-case scenario since Walmart had my favorite pick of the bunch, so you can just pick up that one instead on your grocery store visit.

When deciding which pies I would include in this ranking, I knew I wanted to add one from Target. After all, the store's private labels have served me well and often deliver some of the tastier options in rankings like these. While that wasn't the case with the Favorite Day apple pie, it sure was an interesting option.

The pie is covered in a lattice crust, and it was the only pie I tried that had this type of crust. For this reason, it was noteworthy, but the crust also had this cinnamon and sugar sprinkling on it. I expected this to enhance the flavors, but I ultimately found this apple pie to be overly flavored. It was as though someone in the Favorite Day kitchen was trying to reinvent the apple pie and got fancy with the seasonings. Unfortunately, it felt a little too extracurricular to me. The added spices and flavoring really didn't bode well for the overall pie. Had the brand simply kept a more simple pie with added cinnamon sugar and lattice crust, it would have worked out better.

When my family and I first moved to Florida, I was thrilled with Publix, even though it's one of the most expensive grocery store chains in America. The bakery is most certainly worth a perusal, even if Costco definitely had a better carrot bar cake, among other selections. When we first started visiting Publix, we efficiently made our way through the various baked goods, finding them respectable, and at times, pretty outstanding. This apple pie is fine, but one bite, and I felt that it, more than most of the other pies, tasted obviously premade, rather than homemade.

In the same way that canned apples are delicious, but canned all the same, this pie had a similar quality. There was plenty of cinnamon flavor that helped create a nice fall effect, but tasted and felt as though they had come right from a can of pie filling. While the crust had a nice look to it, it was also on the flimsy side without a whole lot of flavor. Due to the quality of the crust and the way the pie filling tasted overall, I placed this one toward the bottom, though not at the end of the ranking. After all, even if it tasted premade, it was still a reasonably tasty pie.

That's right: Amazon sells pie. Before you get too excited about the convenience of it all, this is about as basic of an apple pie as you can get. While that doesn't make it bad by any stretch of the imagination, there wasn't much special here, either.

Filling-wise, it was similar to other apple pie options that use the wedges. However, instead of the full wedges, this pie utilized half wedges. Though very baseline, I found the flavoring a little on the bland side. It certainly needed a little more cinnamon. What it lacks in fall spice, it makes up for in sugary goodness. While my sweet tooth enjoyed just how sweet it was, I can imagine it being a little much for some people. Amazon's apple pie had a very substantial crust, holding its form well and staying together nicely. The reason this one didn't rank higher overall had everything to do with its overall basic, middle-of-the-road flavor.

The only pie I actually had to bake in this collection came from Marie Callender's. For this pie, I cooked the bottom crust and the filling, then added the crumble topping and cooked for 10 minutes longer. Before this tasting, I assumed this was just about the best apple pie you could get from a grocery store.

After tasting several brands, Marie Callender's clearly offers a solid option, but I found it to be closer in texture to an apple crumble than an apple pie. While a crumble can be a pile of seasoned and sweetened fruit with a crunchy type topping, spilling into a mound on your dessert plate, pie should hold its form a little better. It's this struggle to hold a pie form that kept the pie from reaching a little higher in my overall ranking. Marie Callender's pie didn't quite do this. Even still, the flavor is great, having a slightly fresher taste than some of the other pies. I also found the crust to be flaky, even while it enclosed a very gooey filling.

If there's one thing I've learned about Costco since becoming a member, it's that Costco bakery items are the stars of the show. This was my first holiday season getting to enjoy all the specialties the bakery has to offer, and I've leaned in hard. Like the huge pumpkin pie (which is definitely a can't-miss Costco fall food), the warehouse's apple pie is an ideal addition to your holiday dessert spread.

Like most of the other pies, it had a wedge-type filling, but I noticed that the apples had more of a soft, stewed feel than I expected. The flavor was sweet without being sickly sweet, but the crust really drew me in. While the Favorite Day pie had a sugared crust that just didn't translate to the overall pie, Costco's crust was a different story entirely. The sugary-type texture offered some additional flavor and crunch that set it apart from other brands and added just the right amount of extra flair. Plus (and I can't stress this enough) it's positively huge. In all metrics, this is the perfect apple pie, and the only reason it didn't claim my top spot was because there was one pie that absolutely blew away all expectations I had from a store-bought apple pie.

I was ready to roll my eyes and explain that this was one of my least favorite pies, but it honestly blew me out of the water. Purchased from Walmart's bakery section, the Marketside Caramel Apple Pie had everything you want from a seasonal apple pie and a little extra flair to push it over the edge. Crisscrossed like some kind of caramel macchiato, Marketside's pie came with a decadent drizzling of caramel sauce all over the top. I assumed this would be largely for decoration, but it definitely added a decent amount of caramel flavor.

While the outside of the pie was certainly exciting looking, the inside was just as wonderful and fell right in line with my ideal apple pie. Instead of a heaping spread of haphazardly cut and arranged wedges, the filling was stacked with thin apple slices. This stacked arrangement gave it more of a homemade feel, even though I had to open a sealed box to enjoy it. Even though it was lacking that fresh flavor like the rest of the pies, I still found it delicious. The Marketside pie was easily my most surprising of the bunch, and to find it among fall bakery items at Walmart makes it all the better.

To rank these pies, I chose as many grocery store brands as I could find. I sampled each by cutting out a slice and sampling it with a little whipped cream. The ranking is based on the taste and texture of both the crust and filling of the pie. I wanted a flaky, buttery taste for a crust and a filling that had abundant apples while being flavored well without being too soft.