The Best Graham Crackers for Pie Crusts, S’mores, and More

Although we know them as a simple snack fit for toddlers, graham crackers have a rather odd origin story. In the early 19th century, Presbyterian minister Sylvester Graham promoted a restrained lifestyle led by a high-fiber, vegetarian diet. The coarse, crumbly crackers he invented were key to helping his followers maintain it. Designed to be as bland as possible, Graham’s unsweetened crackers had a purpose beyond combating the 3 o’clock slump—namely, he hoped they would curb sexual desire.

Graham’s original recipe used a coarse-ground unsifted wheat flour (the style would eventually come to bear his name). He likely also used yeast with just enough molasses to activate it, making them taste mostly unsweetened.

The minister’s renown was not insignificant, with both proponents and those less keen about his ideas of achieving moral purity through food. Years after Graham’s death, other popular bakers of the time tinkered with his invention, adding various sweeteners, leaveners, and adjusting the fat ratios. When the National Biscuit Company (now Nabisco) added honey to its recipe in 1925, rebranding its version Honey Maid, popularity soared.

These days the graham cracker market has gotten more crowded. But with so many options for your crumb crusts and s’mores bases to choose from, which brand is best of the best? We put 11 grocery store graham crackers through a blind taste test to determine our favorites.

To make sure we tested a fair sampling of graham crackers, we combed through Reddit threads and polled our test kitchen editors on their favorites. We also reviewed graham cracker roundups around the internet to make sure we weren’t missing any beloved brands. For this test, we stuck to graham crackers made with original or honeyed flavors, as opposed to cinnamon or chocolate, for instance. This versatile taste profile, we reasoned, would help us to get to the heart of the merits and faults of each contender more easily.

Separately, we tested two top gluten-free brands. We thought it important to judge them apart from wheat-based competitors, and think readers who avoid gluten deserve the benefits of our scientific process too.

You can’t make a great graham cracker crust without really good graham crackers.

Photograph by Isa Zapata, food styling by Judy Kim, prop styling by Beth Pakradooni

We made sure to hide any brand names or recognizable packaging from our tasters before placing a few graham crackers from each brand in anonymized bowls. After testers sampled each contender, the group traded notes before moving on to the next graham cracker.

Chief among our tasters’ criteria was flavor. A great graham cracker, they said, should have toasty warm flavors—of honey, yes, but also lightly spiced, toasted sugar notes. They should be lightly sweet, not cloying, and offer a dynamic taste with some depth rather than a flat, one-note experience.

Texture was important as well. Our panel said they wanted a graham cracker that lived somewhere between a snap and a crumble. It shouldn’t have a brittle or hard break, but they didn’t want it to turn to dust while chewing either.

Elliott Jerome Brown Jr.

Although Graham designed his original crackers to be distinctly not sweet, these days manufacturers often use a variety of sweeteners to reach a particular delicately sweet flavor and tender texture in their recipes. The tasty ticket for 365 graham crackers (Whole Foods’ house brand) is a combination of honey, cane sugar, and molasses.

Why it won us over: Nearly every taster on our panel noted that 365’s graham crackers had strong notes of honey. Tasters appreciated this graham cracker’s floral, earthy vanilla notes, well-rounded baking spice flavors, and undercurrent of grounding molasses. Shilpa liked the snap of these grahams, which we also noticed had an airier and less dense crunch than Honey Maid.

One other trademark we liked about 365 grahams was their shape. While most graham crackers are packaged as rectangles, these are perfectly portioned 2½“ squares: ideal for swiping with peanut butter for a quick graham sandwich, or stacking with a square of chocolate in wait for a blistering hot marshmallow to make s’mores.

We’d love it in: the graham cracker-centric cookie base of S’mores Sandwich Cookies or mixed into the pastry of a Strawberry-Graham Galette.

Elliott Jerome Brown Jr.

A century after its initial release, Honey Maid’s graham crackers have essentially become the standard against which all other grahams are measured. The graham crackers are made with both unbleached enriched flour and graham flour.. Per FDA regulations, all graham crackers must include some amount of graham flour as well as sugar. Honey Maid graham crackers also include honey as a secondary sweetener.

Why it won us over: Honey Maid’s almost malty flavor is so iconic that many tasters recognized it even in a blind tasting. The “honey is integrated,” remarked associate test kitchen manager Inés Anguiano. She also said these crackers had a good balance of salt that supported the restrained sweetness in each bite. Commerce writer Alaina Chou called the flavor nostalgic, while associate manager of audience strategy Carly Westerfield savored the soft vanilla notes. Tasters also appreciated this cracker’s delicate snap and the crunch that came from biting into one, as opposed to the gritty texture they observed in other contenders.

We’d love it in: Senior test kitchen editor Shilpa Uskokovic thought Honey Maid graham crackers would do especially well ground into a pie crust. Try it in our recipes for Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie or Banana Cream Pie.

Elliott Jerome Brown Jr.

Since classic graham crackers must be made with graham flour, and Pamela’s Honey Grahams are gluten-free, they’re technically classified as graham-style crackers. But, according to our panel, you could put them up against the real thing any day. In place of wheat, Pamela’s uses a mixture of brown rice flour, sorghum flour, white rice flour, tapioca starch, and gluten-free oat bran. Although we tasted our gluten-free contenders separately from ones with gluten, tasters insisted that Pamela’s beat out its gluten-forward competitors, making it the overall winner of our graham cracker taste test.

Why it won us over: Let’s get one thing straight: Pamela’s graham crackers won’t replace traditional grahams. For one thing, these are no mild-mannered snack. Instead, they showcase bold molasses flavor, with deep, layered caramelized notes and fragrant warm spice. Tasters thought they ate more like a cookie than a cracker—Ines compared them to gingersnaps, while Shilpa said they had the flavor of a honey cake. Still, because of their satisfying snap and buttery taste, Pamela’s Honey Grahams completely swept our tasters off their collective feet.

We’d love it in: this Pumpkin Spice Icebox Cake, where its molasses notes could shine.

• Amazon Grocery Honey Graham Crackers: These grahams were fragile, but might do well in something like an icebox cake where structure is less important a factor.
• Amazon Saver Graham Crackers: With an unexpected lemon shortbread flavor, these grahams didn’t line up with tasters’ expectations.
• Annie’s Organic Graham Crackers: Although these graham crackers boasted a pleasant vanilla aroma and flavor, tasters detected a dull aftertaste.
• Fair & Square Gluten-Free Graham Crackers: Our panel said these crackers were extremely hard, and not sweet enough for their taste.
• Favorite Day Honey Flavored Graham Crackers: Although they had nice snap, these graham crackers didn’t have much of the honey or spiced flavors we were looking for.
• Must Love Classic Graham: Small, thick, and hard, these grahams didn’t score many points with our panel.
• Nabisco Grahams Original: Some tasters enjoyed the rather malty flavor of this supermarket stalwart, but it put others off.
• Trader Joe’s Graham Cracker Squares: All the flavors were there, but testers said these graham crackers tasted overbaked and were too fragile.