Best Pimento Cheese You Can Buy (Even if You’re Not in the South)

It’s Uncle Sam(wich) week here at Sporked! All week long, we’re celebrating Independence Day by highlighting the best regional sandwiches and all the ingredients you need to make them at home. For more tasty sandwich fixins, see the full collection of rankings, product recommendations, and more.

Even though pimento cheese wasn’t invented in the South (it actually came to be in New York, according to Serious Eats), it’s an undeniable Southern staple. And I will never cross a Southerner by saying that the best pimento cheese comes from anywhere but their grandmother’s kitchen. But not all of us have access to a Kentucky meemaw. So, we tasted the brands we could get to find the best pimento cheese brand available across this great nation. 

Before we get into the winner, I have a couple of honorable mentions. First, let me shout out Queen Charlotte’s Pimento Cheese. We tried a bunch of this stuff a while back, and it’s great (it’s a favorite of Mythical Kitchen‘s Josh Scherer). And it comes in all sorts of flavors like jalapeno, blue cheese, and bacon. Unfortunately, while the company continues to expand into new stores, it’s a bit tough to find. And we were looking for the best store bought pimento cheese that was widely available. Also, their flavored pimento cheese is really the draw, and we were looking for classic pimento cheese for the best pimento cheese sandwich. Still, you should check them out. 

Now, allow me to talk about Price’s Pimiento Cheese Spread. In my research for this ranking, I looked through plenty of Reddit boards about the best pimento cheese brand, and Price’s frequently came up. It’s very, very creamy and red pepper-forward, with a lot of mayo flavor. My colleague, Jordan Myrick, preferred it over what ended up being our top pick. But it was just too mayonnaise-y and not cheesy enough for most of us. That said, when we combined our winning pick for the best pimento cheese with Price’s we actually wound up with the ideal pimento cheese. So, if you really want to create the best pimento cheese sandwich at home, you’ll buy both brands and spread them together. 

Here’s the best store bought pimento cheese that you can find pretty much anywhere. 


MyThreeSons Pimento Cheese Emmy’s Original

Best of the Best

MyThreeSons Pimento Cheese Emmy’s Original

This pimento cheese is thick, which makes it perfect for dipping celery sticks—but it’s super creamy, too, so you can spread it for a satisfying pimento cheese sandwich. If you grew up eating pimento cheese, you have your own concept of the platonic ideal. But this one is very close to the pimento cheese my mother (and her mother, a native Kentuckian) made when I was a kid. It’s made with extra sharp cheddar and you can really taste the cheesiness, but it also has this specific pimento pepper tang that makes pimento cheese unique. There’s just enough mayo to give it a smooth texture and lighten the flavor, but not so much that you can actually pick out the flavor of mayo. If you’re looking to make the best pimento cheese sandwich—pimento cheese, spread thick on white bread, and nothing else—this is the best pimento cheese you can buy if you don’t live in the South (and, possibly, even if you do).

Credit: Liv Averett / Kroger

Rating:

9/10

Sporks


About the Author

Justine Sterling

Justine Sterling is the editor-in-chief of Sporked. She has been writing about food and beverages for well over a decade and is an avid at-home cook and snacker. Don’t worry, she’s not a food snob. Sure, she loves a fresh-shucked oyster. But she also will leap at whatever new product Reese’s releases and loves a Tostitos Hint of Lime, even if there is no actual lime in the ingredients.

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