Eating fresh, seasonal fruit is one of life’s great pleasures, but buying fresh fruit at the grocery store sets into motion a guessing game you may or may not be in the mood to play. Is it ripe and juicy, or is it still hard and bitter? Will it spoil before you get around to making that pie you’re loosely planning to bake? So much fruit goes from underripe to ripe to rotten in what seems like the blink of an eye. That’s where the best canned fruit comes in. No more bringing home a pineapple that’s too green to eat for a week or tossing out a pint of cherries because they got moldy while you were simply trying to live your life. Canned fruit is convenient as hell and can save you a bunch of time and money if your lifestyle requires a little more flexibility than fresh fruit affords. From the best canned pineapples to the best canned pie fillings (no more peeling 100 apples!), here’s the best canned fruit from our taste tests.
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Canned fruit cocktail is super nostalgic, and if it’s been a while since you’ve had some, we highly recommend picking up a can of Del Monte Fruit Cocktail in Heavy Syrup. It’s packed with lots of good stuff—big chunks of peach, diced pineapple, peeled grapes, and halved cherries—and the appearance and quality of the fruit were better than any other fruit cocktail brands we tasted. The heavy syrup really brings out the flavor in the fruit, but if heavy syrup is a deal breaker, don’t worry—we found the best light syrup and no sugar added fruit cocktail, too. This is the best canned fruit to have on hand for a quick dessert.
Dole is the big name in pineapple for a reason. When we taste tested canned pineapple (in its various formats), Dole swept the ranking, and these slices were our overall favorite. They’re firm rather than soggy, and the flavor is fresh and vibrant because they’re packaged in juice rather than syrup. The best canned fruit should save you time, and if you’ve ever peeled and diced an entire pineapple, you probably get why canned pineapple should be a pantry staple.
Peaches are among the trickiest fruits to buy fresh. They’re so good when they’re good, but eat them a day too soon? Hard and sour. Eat them a day too late? Total mush. Before you swear off peaches all together, try Del Monte canned peaches in juice, which were “wildly” better than any other canned peaches we tried in our taste test. These sliced peaches are firm and have a fresh, tangy flavor that’s perfect for eating with cottage cheese or using as the base for a bitchin’ peach crumble. Just remember to pick up some vanilla ice cream, too.
We’re not lazy people. We promise. But the prospect of peeling a bushel of apples to make apple pie can test the limits of anyone’s energy. Sometimes the best canned fruit saves you time and wrist pain! Like this apple pie filling from Aldi, which “tastes like you made it with apples picked from a tree in your backyard,” according to Sporked’s Jordan Myrick. They’re actually crisp! And the sugary sauce they’re in is great, too—sweet and perfectly spiced. Just dump it in a pie crust or top it with streusel, and you’re good to go.
So much canned cherry pie filling tastes like cherry candy—and we don’t mean that in a good way. Cherry pie filling should taste like cherries that were slowly cooked on the stove, and that’s what you get from Kroger’s cherry pie filling. The cherries have that juicy slow-cooked quality, and are equal parts tart and sweet. Honestly, you don’t even need to make a pie to appreciate this. It would be an incredible ice cream topping, too.
The Sporked Staff tastes everything and anything. They are obsessive about groceries and finding the best of any type of food or drink, from frozen fried shrimp to Dijon mustard to gummy candy. And they're always on a hunt for the best new products. When they aren't eating professionally, they're eating recreationally. And often they're browsing grocery store aisles, just for fun.
Thoughts? Questions? Complete disagreement? Leave a comment!
Thoughts? Questions? Complete disagreement? Leave a comment!