We Tried 8 Blue Cheese Dressings to Find the Best

If you had to crown one salad dressing America’s favorite, it would definitely be ranch. But blue cheese — the other delicious, creamy salad topping — definitely deserves a spot as a close second. Whether it’s being used as a sauce or as a greens finisher, blue cheese dressing is just as versatile as Hidden Valley’s namesake. And for cheese lovers, it provides that familiar, tangy satisfaction that only blue cheese can deliver.

With Super Bowl LIV quickly approaching, blue cheese dressing will soon be put through its paces, as a dip for wings, vegetables, fries, and anything else remotely dunkable. So to help you prepare for any upcoming event where blue cheese might be wanted, we’ve tested out eight brands of salad dressing, featuring everyone’s favorite Penicillium-laden cheese. Three of these brands are shelf-stable varieties, and five were refrigerated options. We’ve separated these out into separate categories, to make it easier for you to shop for your preferred version. Here are our rankings, from best to meh.

Target

None of the shelf-stable varieties we tried had a strong blue cheese flavor, but the blue cheese taste in Ken’s shone through more than its competitors. The dressing’s base also has a pleasant tartness, so if you like your blue cheese dressing slightly on the sour side, Ken’s is the variety for you.

Amazon

Kraft’s blue cheese is a pretty unremarkable, but inoffensive, option. It tastes close to Ken’s but with a bit more sweetness. If you find a good sale before game day, this is a good variety to stock up on.

Safeway

Our tasters couldn’t quite identify what was off about Safeway’s generic blue cheese. But compared to our top picks, this dressing tastes artificial, and way too sweet to be a go-to blue cheese dressing. Normally we love generic, but in this case, it’s worth reaching for a name brand.

Litehouse Foods

If you make blue cheese dressing from scratch at home, you might have this Litehouse variety beat. But otherwise, if you want fresh, tangy dressing with plentiful chunks of blue cheese, reach for this bottle.

It’s worth noting that although the Greek yogurt in this dressing plays exceptionally well with the blue cheese, it also enhances that strong cheese taste. If you prefer a milder blue cheese taste, it might be worth reaching for a different brand. Otherwise, Litehouse’s Opa has our vote.

Walmart

Compared to Litehouse’s Opa, Bolthouse Farms’s yogurt dressing is not nearly as powerful in the flavor department. The yogurt is less tart, and the chunks of blue cheese less discernible. The yogurt base also tastes slightly sweeter than Opa’s Greek yogurt variety. Otherwise, these dressings are fairly identical in terms of taste, cost and quality, making Bolthouse a good backup option when you’re trying to choose the perfect sauce.

Walmart

Marie’s flavor is pretty comparable to Ken’s or Kraft’s with a slightly stronger blue cheese taste. It also had the lowest sodium content of the brands we tried, at 7 percent of someone’s daily recommended sodium intake per serving. For those looking for a slightly more low-sodium-friendly version of blue cheese, this would be our top pick.

Litehouse Foods

Compared to Litehouse’s Opa dressing, their original blue cheese supremely disappointing. It barely tastes like blue cheese at all. We’re not sure how Litehouse messed this up, but they might want to swap out Greek yogurt for their original recipe in the future.

Publix

A lot of mayonnaise variations have been popping up on grocery stores in the last few years. We’re wondering if that’s what Marzetti was going for here, because this variety definitely tastes like mayo mixed with blue cheese. Not exactly what we were craving, but if that sounds appealing to you, Marzetti’s might be worth a shot.