The Worst Strawberry Jam On Store Shelves Is Also Extremely Expensive

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There are a few foods — pizza, most fried items, and Halloween candy come to mind — that are said to be good even when they're bad. Jam is not one of them. It can easily be too sweet, not sweet enough, rife with unmanageable fruit chunks, or bereft of those same botanicals. It's a real Goldilocks kind of condiment. It can also defy a kind of primitive subconscious that wants to make us think that the more expensive stuff in the prettiest package is just going to be better.

In our ranking of 11 store-bought strawberry jams, in fact, one of the spendier picks pasted with a cute little label was actually abysmal. Lucien Georgelin Organic Strawberry Preserves were too thin and somehow both strangely sour and cloyingly flavored, like they were made with overripe strawberries that would have been better off in a baked good. And a jar can cost around $10, depending on where you shop. We're not sure we'd even fling it at an anthropomorphized bear. Fortunately there are, as one might expect, 10 better bets.

The best tasting strawberry jam we sampled is going to be plenty familiar to most by its signature gingham lid. Bonne Maman Strawberry Preserves, also recognizable by convincingly hand-scripted labels, took the No. 1 spot on our list. Bonne Maman packs in the essence of fresh strawberries via nicely portioned fruit, it's amplified by just enough sugar, and, although it isn't the cheapest option, it's relatively reasonable at $6 a pop.

Bonne Maman is fairly ubiquitous, but the other top slots on our ranking are also lovely, should they be more readily available. Crofters Organic Strawberry Premium Spread in our No. 2 slot is sold for about $6 on Amazon. It almost made it to number one but for a little extra sweetness, however, some folks might prefer that quality. And good old Whole Foods' 365 label Organic Strawberry Fruit Spread earns the respectable number three position for its balanced flavors, spreadability, and $5 price tag. Any of these selections, or the rest of our top five for that matter, would be equally delicious simply slathered on toast, dolloped over ice cream, or as the secret ingredient in celebrity chef Jacques Pépin's pound cake upgrade.