Best Store Bought Rye Bread [Taste Test]

The best rye bread is tangy, aromatic, and has great chew. While it’s nearly impossible to recreate that transcendent, expertly crafted deli rye experience, we sourced some of the best store bought rye bread from all over the country to find the best tasting rye bread at the grocery store, especially if you’re craving those deli vibes..

What is rye bread anyway? It’s a variation on the wheat flour bread you know and love that’s made with wheat’s close relative, rye, which is actually a form of grass. Rye bread isn’t easy to get right, and if you just blindly walk into your local grocery store trying to find something good, you’re likely to be disappointed. Rye bread shouldn’t taste like white bread and it shouldn’t taste like wheat bread with a few caraway seeds scattered throughout. Every morsel of the bread should be bursting with an earthy, sour flavor. It should feel cared for, with deeply developed gluten and a robust flavor.

For our rye bread taste tests, we sourced pumpernickel swirl, dark, German-style, Jewish, and Russian rye breads, and all were all considered. Regardless of style, we were looking for high quality bread that tastes fresh and homemade. So what’s the best rye bread? There are the eight of the best tasting rye bread brands we found in two separate taste tests.

Best Gluten Free

This bread is a little moist inside the packaging, yes. When you open the plastic wrapper it sort of smells like grains that were fermented to make beer. But hear us out: All of that only means it has a lot of flavor, especially for a gluten free bread. Now, this isn’t technically rye bread. Rye is a grain and that’s not gonna work in GF bread, but this is a good substitute for people who don’t eat gluten and miss a nice toasty slab of rye with their eggs in the morning. This caraway-studded bread is perfect for a GF Reuben, too. It isn’t technically gluten free rye bread, but it’ll do the trick. —Gwynedd Stuart

Credit: Merc / Instacart

Rating:

6.5/10

Sporks

Best Basic

Pepperidge Farm makes some of the best bread at the grocery store (we love their frozen garlic bread in particular), and their Jewish rye is some of the best tasting rye bread at the grocery store. It reminds me of higher ranking breads on this list—chewy, sturdy sandwich bread with a distinct tangy caraway seed flavor. It looks quite porous, almost like a sourdough, and it has a small crumb that’s textured and authentic. For whatever reason, Pepperidge Farm rye bread has been hard to get out in Los Angeles, but I have been assured it’s available nationwide. —Danny Palumbo

Credit: Sarah Demonteverde / Amazon

Rating:

7.5/10

Sporks

Best for Tuna Salad

It’s not for me, but most of Sporked’s taste testers absolutely loved this Oroweat dill rye bread. The dill flavor is just so fragrant and pleasant, and the bread itself is soft, chewy, and slightly sweet. All that said, I think dill is a pretty specific flavor. This would go great with chicken salad or tuna salad, but I’m docking some points for lack of overall utility. If you really love the herbaceous flavor of dill, this is the best rye bread to buy. —Danny Palumbo

Credit: Sarah Demonteverde / Amazon

Rating:

7.5/10

Sporks

Best Dark Rye

This is another awesome, pumpernickel-esque rye bread. The second ingredient is barley flour, so this bread has a nice, grain-forward taste. The texture is also great—it’s soft, chewy, and floppy, almost like a white bread. You won’t find caraway seeds in this loaf, but that flavor is quite good all the same. While this is a bit on the “white bread” side of rye, I think that makes it the best rye bread for families. I prefer this to the German dark rye bread that tastes very malty, earthy and grainy, and I think others will, too. —Danny Palumbo

Credit: Sarah Demonteverde / Target

Rating:

8/10

Sporks

Best Pumpernickel

I took this rye bread home and made like seven sandwiches in two days out of it. It’s just so damn soft and chewy! The flavor is great, too. It’s got that rye and sourdough tang, but with an added layer of sweetness for balance. This is the best rye bread for people who don’t want a straight-up seeded rye with lots of caraway seeds. This made a fantastic egg sandwich at home, but its flavor is so pleasant and agreeable, you could use it to make any sort of sandwich. You’ll be thankful for the added flavor. Also, the swirl is just mesmerizing and beautiful. It’s the best store bought rye bread if you like a good-looking rye bread. —Danny Palumbo

Credit: Sarah Demonteverde / Target

Rating:

8.5/10

Sporks

Best Deli Rye

This rye bread tastes so much like freshly made bread from a deli, and reminds me a lot of the rye at a bakery back home in Pennsylvania called Schwebel’s. Levy’s is thick, chewy, and has a tangy, sourdough-like punch to it. The texture really blows me away; for a store bought rye to seem like it was made with love like this is a huge achievement. The caraway seeds in the loaf have a nice anise-and-fennel flavor that’s assertive without being overpowering. The texture and flavor are just incredible. Levy’s is a Chicago company, but we got it delivered from Amazon fairly easily. This is the best tasting rye bread to buy in my personal opinion. —Danny Palumbo

Credit: Sarah Demonteverde / Amazon

Rating:

9/10

Sporks

Best Soft

There’s a lot to love about this rye bread. It’s so squishy and satisfying. I also love the textural diversity you get from the cornmeal coating around the top of the loaf. This bread really melts in your mouth as you eat it. It has a slightly malty flavor and just enough caraway seed spice. I think Sunflour keeps the top spot because it has more of that malty flavor that really screams rye—it’s the best rye bread if you really want to be reminded that you’re eating rye bread, with or without caraway seeds. But when it comes to the best store bought rye bread, this is a very close second. —Gwynedd Stuart

Credit: Merc / Kroger

Rating:

9.5/10

Sporks

Best of the Best

This rye bread came frozen and, once it thawed out, it really blew us all away. Sunflower Jewish Rye is chewy, dense, aromatic, seeded, and just lovely overall, man. The flavor is subtle (not a distracting amount of caraway seeds), and we really appreciate that. Really, though, the selling point of Sunflour is that it has a wonderful chewiness and a density that will lend itself to being topped with deli meats. Put a fat stack of pastrami and pickles betwixt (that’s right, betwixt) this bread and go to town. Sunflour BakeryJewish rye is excellent deli bread, and we’re here for it.

Credit: Sarah Demonteverde / Amazon

Rating:

10/10

Sporks

Other products we tried: Dave’s Righteous Rye, Oroweat Russian, Oroweat Jewish, Great Value NY Style, Angelic Bakehouse, Mestemacher Whole, Mestemacher Sunflower Seed, Mestemacher Pumpernickel, 3 Bakers, Korn Seeded, Korn Original, Klosterbot.

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