6 Store-Bought Worcestershire Sauce Brands, Ranked

It is always fascinating to me to realize I've been laboring under a misconception. Since I was a child I had assumed, erroneously, that A1 (which is my favorite steak sauce), HP Brown sauce, and Worcestershire sauce were all just different brands and names for the same exact condiment. That's egg on my face! I am not sure how, or when, that idea took root in my mind but researching this article swiftly corrected my thinking on the subject. Now I was left with the question of: What the heck is Worcestershire sauce?

Vinegar, anchovies, sugar, and spices is the simple answer. All those flavors are rendered down into a watery, soy-sauce-like, consistency. It was originally invented by English chemists John Lea and William Perrins, who ran a shop in Worster, England. Lea & Perrins is still a functioning brand to this day. Worcestershire sauce is what is considered a 'brown sauce' which is an umbrella term for a sauce that is brown in color, and usually made with molasses and vinegar. A1 sauce, HP Brown Sauce, and Worcestershire sauce all fit into this category. My younger self likely tasted a vinegary British condiment and assumed all brown sauces from across the pond were going to be identical — oops. Anyway, once I understood Worcestershire sauce's origins a little better I set out to taste test several brands to see which ones will be best for flavoring on burger nights, and which ones aren't worth the trip to the store.

If the repetitive name of this brand didn't clue you in, O Organics does organic sauces. Ignoring the fact that an "organic" label means practically nothing except a price increase, this bottle was sending up all sorts of red flags for me. First, I could barely get the cap off; it was so sealed that I had to run it under water and use the old dish-towel trick to really get it open. Then the smell hit me: Straight up vinegar. Now, if you're unfamiliar with Worcestershire sauce — it is a vinegar based condiment. But I don't think O Organics really got the memo on what Worcestershire sauce is or how to make it.

A proper Worcestershire sauce is supposed to come out with the same consistency as soy sauce. Basically just a liquid. So when O Organics sauce oozed out, I had to take a moment and ask myself if this was Worcestershire sauce. No, it's not. Every single ingredient, even the vinegar, was about an inch to the left of the correct flavoring. Honestly if they marketed it as a knockoff HP sauce it might be more accurate. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't correct. It gets the lowest billing for failing to be the correct condiment. If you were hopeful that adding it to a burger might help — it didn't. The combination stripped away the present flavors and left me eating a vinegary chunk of meat. Bleugh.

Shopping the store brand at Walmart is always a roll of the dice. Sure, I've got some regular items that I make sure to shop smart and buy from the Great Value brand, but there are some other products that Great Value simply misses the mark on. I am none too happy to report that when it comes to Worcestershire sauce, Great Value is a swing and a miss. Everything from having to remove that little white tab from under the bottle before I could pour it, to the smell of the sauce being really, really sweet. Nothing was working even before I put the condiment to my lips.

The pour on the Great Value Worcestershire sauce was strange. It was a liquid, no strange viscosity here, but it was thin. I could see through the sauce, there was so little color to it. Pair that with the fact that I could see floating specs in the sauce and it was entirely unappetizing to look at. I'm sure the floating bits were just spices and flavoring but unlike most of the other sauces here I could see it all. The flavor, much like the scent, was oddly sweet. While there's some sugar and molasses in a good Worcestershire I wouldn't say it's a predominantly sweet condiment. Unfortunately, it passed that sweetness onto my burger chunk and I tasted a bit of saccharin meat. Not recommended. Sorry, Great Value, this one's a real stinker.

This one is a little strange to me. Kraft Heinz is currently the parent company for Lea & Perrins, the original Worcestershire sauce creators. However, Kraft Heinz also sells a Worcestershire sauce under the Heinz branding. Lea & Perrins is a subsidiary of the U.K. Branch of Kraft Heinz, whereas the Heinz brand is from the American side of things. However this strange family tree of Worcestershire sauces work, the products tasted different so they both get to be included on this list.

Heinz Worcestershire had a very powerful scent as soon as I popped the top on the bottle. It wasn't a bad scent, per say, just a very powerful one. I could tell I was about to dispense some Worcestershire sauce. However this particular condiment was more aroma than flavor. That's why it's ending up here on the lower end of the middle of the pack. It tasted very muted for the amount of smell it was putting off. The on-its-own taste test sealed Heinz's fate to the bottom three, but I would highly recommend you use this to enhance the flavor of meat, or a meaty dish (it could make your chili really stand out, for example). The burger bite I dipped in Heinz was instantly uplifted and made to shine. Even if it can't crack the top three, this sauce still has some zip to deliver.

Rather than having a house brand like Walmart has Great Value, or Albertson's has Signature Select, Stop & Shop simply have the Stop & Shop brand of products. It fulfills the same niche, being a generally cheaper alternative product to a name brand affair. I'm actually a fan of Stop & Shop's store brand, it's one of my favorite kinds of pre-made pumpkin pie, and the store has a robust clearance section that changes daily. So I wasn't all that surprised to find Stop & Shop making it into the better half of this list.

This bottle of Worcestershire sauce lost a couple points for having one of those fiddly flavor seals that take forever to remove. Once I successfully decanted the sauce I was struck with a rich aroma. The vinegar wasn't as strong and really let other spices become present in the air. The actual flavor was good — though not as strong as some. It was a gradual build to all the flavors I'd expect from a Worcestershire sauce. The reason this is ranked at third is that it took patience for the flavors to come through, and when I used this on my burger no amount of patience made any difference. The burger completely overrode the Worcestershire flavor. I think this would be a good sauce to use as an enhancing element in a marinade, or a dijon mustard, but on its own it's just a little weak.

Signature Select, like Great Value, and Stop & Shop, does a whole lot more than cheap knock offs of name brand products. While I've never had a problem with Signature Select's line of tissues or water, the non-stick sprays and frozen breakfast sandwiches are not great. As such, I have to treat each instance of a Signature Select product with the same tentative hope that I extend to Walmart, and dollar stores. It could be a surprise hit, or a real pain to process. Thankfully, Signature Select seemed to be right on the money with its Worcestershire sauce.

While pouring this particular sauce into the bowl, I was hit with a surprisingly light scent. Not weak, per say, but light. It was very forward with all the warm flavors within but lacking in that vinegar-y punch that other sauces had hit me with. Tasting it was actually pretty great, it had a note for note perfect Worcestershire sauce flavor. Whoever developed this sauce for Signature Select deserves a pat on the back. The only reason it's not absolutely tied for first place is that it had no aftertaste. It was uncanny, as soon as this sauce was off the tongue it removed all traces of itself. Perhaps that's why it didn't do much when I tried to season a burger with it. Either way, it's a strong recommendation if you don't want to shell out $5.99 for the original Worcestershire sauce.

Ah, Lea & Perrins. With these taste tests it is rare that I get to taste the original anything. I don't think there is an "original" stew or original frozen burrito I could have tried. But Lea & Perrins not only created but are still creating this sauce, despite not liking it way back in the day. I was fascinated to see how the genesis of Worcestershire sauce would stack up against its imitators.

The bottle design for Lea & Perrins gave me the smoothest pour, which was another point in its favor. Once poured, this sauce has a molasses-forward aroma. There's a bit of a vinegar bite to the nose, but just enough to say that it's there. The actual taste was, as expected, a shot for shot Worcestershire sauce. Despite the vinegar content, it was not overly acidic, and all of those wonderful molasses notes made their way onto my palette unimpeded. I swear I could taste the individual flavors here without any of them fighting for dominance. It just worked. As if the raw taste test wasn't enough, I literally, audibly, groaned when I paired this sauce with a burger. It not only enhanced all the flavors of the burger but imparted a tangy, almost BBQ-like, flavor to it. There's a reason this product endures. If you're looking for Worcestershire sauce I can confidently say there's no better substitute than the original product itself!

There were two separate stages of taste testing with the Worcestershire sauces. The first was a straightforward taste test of the sauce. I poured a bit into the bottom of a small glass dish both for convenience of photography, and also for ease of tasting. I took two small sips and, using what I know of wine tasting, swished the sauce around my mouth so that I got a really good sense of all of the flavors. I wouldn't recommend doing this, especially not with a vinegar based liquid, unless you need to clear out your sinuses.

The second stage of taste testing came around dinner time. I broiled and then seared a couple burgers, cut them into thirds, and then dipped and slathered each strip in one of the sauces to see how it affected the flavor of the meat. This was quite a bit more fun than injecting Worcestershire sauce into my palette directly, but it would not have given me as direct a flavor profile for the sauces.

The last few things I took into account for each sauce were how easy they were to serve, which includes their pour, how tightly packaged they were, and whether there were extra steps to opening the bottle besides unscrewing, or popping, the top. While price was initially going to be a factor none of the bottles exceeded $5 save for Lea & Perrins, so I ended up waiving the idea of price being a deciding factor early on.