14 Boxed Stuffing Mixes, Ranked

Not one of our tasters enjoyed this cornbread take on the holiday favorite, with complaints about it being too dry, which the preparer (me) apologizes for if it was her fault. Other comments were just not very nice, so let's just move on.

"Rancid," "boring," "tastes like a dusty pantry" and "looks like dog food" were a few of the crueler comments this stuffing received from our tasters. Perhaps sage shouldn't be a tradition after all. At least not in the proportions used in this recipe.

This vegan-friendly stuffing had its fans, but overall our panel felt it was more like eating plain bread than dressing.

Decidedly different, this pork-flavored stuffing mix was a little on the salty side for most of our testers. This fact could have led to one of them calling it disgusting, but on the other hand, some peeps really enjoyed this more savory/meaty version of stuffing—hence its middle-of-the-pack status.

Why cubed bread deserves such special attention, we have no idea, but this stuffing is another place where our less-than-perfect onion dicing might have hindered public opinion. Basically its biggest crime is being boring, but really that just means you get to be a little more liberal with your gravy pour on Thanksgiving Day.

The tricky thing with this and the other Pepperidge Farm mixes on the list is that they call for onions and celery as part of the standard prep. So we may have made this a little onion heavy for some tastes, but overall, our tasters said this was a good, but ultimately meh, option.

The best thing we can say about this stuffing mix is that it was perfectly fine. It probably could have used more moisture, but we'll chalk that up to our prep, rather than the mix.

The whole-wheat variety JUST beat the original chicken flavor, but this classic still had its fans. There were some who felt the color was a little too yellow, which could turn off picky eaters, but this mix is used year-round for a reason, people.

The heartiness of the whole-wheat bread seemed to win over stuffing fans during our test. The best comment we heard about this one was that it was "oddly comforting" and "tasted like chicken soup." That should be enough to convince you of this bad boy's merits.

There's no denying this red box's "classic" status, which was the word that our tasters used over and over again. While some bemoaned it as bordering on boring , we're inclined to keep this tradition toward the top of our list.

This Whole Foods mix skips the middle man and puts the cranberry goods right in the mix, with tasty results. One reviewer said it best when she posited, "Cranberries are vital to stuffing." You've convinced us.