The Best Grocery Store Bakery French Bread Isn't From Aldi Or Costco

A French loaf is a quintessential bread type that you can take in so many directions. It's also a product that most grocery store bakeries offer. We evaluated eight bakery French bread loaves according to taste, texture, moisture, and sliceability. While we had high expectations for Aldi and Costco, Kroger's French bread took the gold.

Kroger's French bread loaf was a fairly wide, thick loaf with a beautifully yeasty and nutty aroma right out of the bag. It came in a paper bag, which is supposed to help keep the crust nice and crispy. In addition to being crispy, the crust was fluffy and soft with a chewy texture. 

Costco's Kirkland French bread came in a close second, with a toasted, crunchy golden-brown crust balancing the chewy interior. This Costco bread is also packaged in a brown paper bag, elevating its crispy crust and toasty flavor. What gave Kroger the upper hand — along with its deliciously yeasty and nutty crispy flavor — was its bread's subtle sour note. 

At the other end of the spectrum, Aldi came in second to last with a dry, grainy, and overly soft texture. Aldi's evaluation also suffered from its bread's long, floppy, and skinny form not amenable to slicing. The only thing we liked about Aldi's bakery French bread was its salty, sourdough flavor. That said, we wanted a French loaf, not a sourdough loaf. In turn, the texture, freshness, and flavor of Kroger's French bread reigned supreme, especially with its sourdough flavor not being overwhelming.

Shoppers mirrored our praise of Kroger's French bread loaf, posting various 5-star reviews on the grocery chain's website. One customer wrote, "We love this bread. This loaf is more of a mix between french loaf and sour dough taste with artisan texture. Not a typical white fluffy french bread." Customers also raved about the bread's texture, with one person saying, "[It] has that distinct French bread bite ... texture is just hard enough ... crust is just right and [the] bread does not have too many air holes." We also noted during our taste test that the French loaf had a uniform crumb with only a few air bubbles, making for a sturdy sandwich or bruschetta foundation.

While baguettes might be what you think when you hear "French bread," Kroger's wider, fatter loaves have more uses. Customers from Kroger's online reviews loved that the bread wasn't pre-sliced, giving them free range for multiple use cases. One Kroger customer said, "cut this loaf lengthwise to make sub sandwiches, paninis, and stuffed sammies that chill overnight." They also said to "slice this bread crosswise into slices for French toast [and] to serve as bread and butter with soups." You could make multiple French bread pizzas out of this loaf. To avoid waste, customers slice them and freeze and freeze the bread to use over the following weeks.