The Best Store-Bought Egg Salad Can Be Found At Whole Foods

Mashed loves a classic egg salad recipe — the perfect clean slate to alter the texture and ingredients to taste. Some like it chunky, others like it mustardy, and many people add chopped dill or celery. We recognize that when it's prepared with fresh ingredients at home, egg salad is miles better than any premade version from a market. However, having a reliable store-bought egg salad is vital for days when you don't have enough time to prep it yourself.

So when ranking 13 store-bought egg salads, a good balance of texture, flavor, and freshness was important with the first two criteria holding the most weight. Whole Foods' egg salad nailed all of these factors, providing a product that tastes like it could be homemade. When sampling the selection from a variety of stores like Walmart, Shop Rite, and Trader Joe's, the amount of mayonnaise and the use of herbs for brightness didn't go unnoticed. Some of the disappointing options were packed with mayo, too uniformly smooth, unpleasantly liquid-y, or not well-seasoned. If any of these things describe the egg salad from your go-to grocery store, maybe it's time to give Whole Foods a chance.

Among the 13 grocery store egg salads our reviewer tried, we noticed that some were made at the deli counter, and others were not. Not surprisingly, the deli-made ones were overall superior in freshness, taste, and quality, like the kind from Whole Foods. Of course, if you buy one whose quality is lacking, there are always many amazing ways to upgrade egg salad. You can give it a Mediterranean-style twist with capers and cucumbers, take a page from Cobb salad-style with bacon, or even throw in some caviar.

Fortunately, Whole Foods' egg salad didn't need any alterations (though if you want to add caviar or capers, go for it). The egg whites were cut into square chunks and coated in a rich mixture of mashed egg yolks. Chives, onion, and celery freshened up the salad and added a slight crunch. An unmistakable note of Dijon mustard took the flavor up a notch and balanced the creamy mayo. What solidified this egg salad's top ranking, however, was the short and clean ingredient list without many food additives or preservatives (only citric acid, tartaric acid, and xanthum gum were present). This salad gets our seal of approval for use in a lunchtime sandwich.