We Tried 13 Ketchups and These Are the Best (and Worst)

When it comes to America's favorite brand of ketchup, Heinz wins hands down, according to research conducted by Statista. But just because more Americans say they prefer Heinz to Hunt's — or any other brand — does that mean it's really the best brand of ketchup you can buy? To find out, we purchased 13 kinds of ketchup, including sugar-free (sometimes called keto ketchup), organic, and low-sodium varieties, then subjected them to a blind taste test. All samples were tasted straight and with french fries; the results are ranked best to worst.

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Best Ketchup Overall

One of the reasons why so many Americans love Heinz may be because Heinz has been making ketchup since 1876 — longer than just about anyone — and has set the standard for how the condiment "should" taste. The primary difference between their Simply Tomato Ketchup and the "classic" version (just two of the 21 ketchup varieties Heinz sells) is the use of cane sugar, rather than high fructose corn syrup and corn syrup, to give Heinz its subtle sweetness. That sugar also evens out the tang of the vinegar just enough to give Heinz Simply ketchup a balance and depth of flavor few can match.

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Runner-Up

This ketchup comes closest to homemade: thick, rich, with a deep red hue and a texture that clings tenaciously to french fries. It's got less vinegary bite than Heinz, with a fuller, more savory flavor that hints at onion, green pepper, and allspice. One reason for that unique flavor: Unlike most ketchups in this comparison, Sir Kensington's uses tomatoes, rather than tomato concentrate, as its first ingredient. If you love ketchup but want a little less tang, this is your condiment.

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Best Sugar-Free Ketchup

If you're diabetic, following a keto diet, or otherwise need to cut your sugar intake, even condiments are fair game for rethinking. There are a fair number of low- and no-sugar ketchups out there, including a few in this roundup. This is the best, although if you're accustomed to a sweetened ketchup, you will notice a difference. Primal Kitchen uses balsamic vinegar, rather than white. This smoothes out that familiar tangy bite, but the ketchup lacks the hints of spice and depth of flavor of our top choices.

Best Low-Sodium Ketchup

This reduced-sugar and -salt ketchup from Target's "upscale" brand, Good & Gather, isn't quite on par with our top picks, either, but it was our favorite condiment from Target or rival Walmart. The overall flavor is balanced, with just enough sweetness that you won't miss the reduced sugar (nor, for that matter, will the extra salt be missed). Although the Good & Gather ketchup wasn't quite as tasty as name brands, particularly when it came time to dunk french fries in our samples, it would still be just fine on a burger or hot dog laden with other condiments.

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We detected a sharper, snappier presence of vinegar in our sample of Heinz's "classic" ketchup than in our top pick, Heinz Simply Tomato, and a very subtle extra sweetness. Otherwise, you'd be hard pressed to tell the two apart, making Heinz our top pick of the rest of the pack.

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Hunt's is the second most popular brand of ketchup, according to Statista, but it's definitely no Heinz clone. This version, one of two from the brand we sampled, was the preferred choice, mostly because it was definitely the thickest of the bunch (making it our go-to for fry dunking) and lacked the funky, powerful spices we detected in the lesser Hunt's sample.

Imagine a diner. Now, imagine the ketchup in that diner. Great Value, Walmart's house brand ketchup, tastes exactly how diner ketchup typically tastes. The consistency was notably thinner than that of Heinz, and the flavor was less intense, though still a balanced mix of sweet, savory, and sour.

Target's "other" house brand ketchup had the smoothest mouthfeel of our samples, but otherwise was very similar to Great Value taste-wise. If you're looking for a cheap bottle of ketchup to take to that potluck or picnic, this is a decent, inexpensive option.

Like your ketchup super-tart and almost too tangy? Then Hunt's original ketchup is the condiment for you. It had by far the most vinegary bite of the ketchups we sampled; too much, in our opinion. The tomato base was rich and savory, though it could have used more sweetness to counter the tang.

We're not quite sure what all funky flavors are that we detected in this. Though tomato-y, it also had a slightly vegetal taste with funky hints of onion and celery powder and a weirdly sweet aftertaste.

Easily the runniest of the bunch, this G. Hughes ketchup pooled and spread like none of the other ketchups we sampled. Despite being sugar-free, it was surprisingly (though not overwhelmingly) sweet, thanks to the addition of sucralose. It was little too heavy on the onion powder for our taste, and too thin to cling satisfactorily to fries.

What does Heinz ketchup taste like without any sweetening at all? Bright with a hint of bitterness on the back end. "Heinz Lite," as one of our tasters referred to it, was our least favorite of the Heinz products we sampled.

With its thin consistency and overpowering vinegary bite, this was hands-down our least favorite ketchup. It bore little resemblance to its Walmart brandmate, which we strongly prefer.