Pumpkin pie is one of those Thanksgiving dinner dishes that can get pretty divisive. The whole pumpkin spice craze of the last 20 years (yes folks, it’s been that long) hasn’t helped either. Pumpkin pie — at its core — is a celebration of a roasted gourd spiced up by fall/winter spices with a creamy and soft texture. Then there’s a pie crust with a nice crunch, savoriness, and butteriness to it, adding more flavor and texture.
Sounds good, right? It is… when it’s done right.
Sadly, it’s a very easy pie to screw up — especially when corners are cut for efficiency and cost. Case in point, prepared grocery store pies have massive swings in quality. Even in our blind taste test and ranking of grocery store pies, the winning pumpkin pie didn’t seem to be that great. Uproxx’s Dane Rivera had this to say about the current champ, “My only real knock against this pie is the crust. It’s a bit too soft and doesn’t serve as a big enough contrast to the silkiness of the filling.”
The gist is that when you’re not baking from scratch at home, you’re going to have to be okay with some shortcomings. Nothing Dane ranked seemed to leave him blissed out.
If you have time, we think you should take the hour to bake a pumpkin pie this Thanksgiving (oh, look — here’s a great recipe to do just that). But what if you don’t have time? Well, after Dane’s ranking, we got a whole lot of emails and comments about Costco’s colossal pumpkin pie. People wanted to know where it lands in the grand scheme of things. So I dutifully purchased Dane’s favorite grocery pumpkin pie from Trader Joe’s and pitted it in a side-by-side tasting with Costco’s truly huge pumpkin pie.
The results were striking — let’s dive right in.
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Part 1 — The Battle: Costco Vs. Trader Joe’s
2. Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Pie
Price: $6.99 (27 oz.)
The Pie:
Trader Joe’s pumpkin pie has a brownish hue with a clear sense of spices in the filling (you can see the dark brown dots). The crust is fancy on the edges and very thick. I want to call this pie “small” but that’s only because it’s sitting next to a massive Costco one.
The pie also has a bold aroma of pumpkin spice. The moment you take it from the box, it hits you with a lot of pumpkin spices — kind of like a pumpkin spiced latte from Starbucks. I don’t think this is an accident.
Overall, you should be able to get six slices from this pie, which is a good size overall.
Tasting Notes:
Pie Filling: The filling really smells of pumpkin spice lattes. The texture is softer at first but then gets a little gummy on the third and fourth chew. The actual taste is pumpkin spice only. There’s no sense of pumpkin at all on the palate. By the end, the filling was like chewing pumpkin spice creamy gum.
Crust: Crust? What crust? I’m only half kidding. The crust was dense yet gummy and almost completely blank of flavor besides a whisper of salt. The crimped rim had a bit of a crunch to it but that’s me being very generous. The underlayer of crust was just gummy to the point of almost being annoying to chew.
Bottom Line:
If this is the best “grocery store pumpkin pie” … the others must have been complete dumpster fires. Poor Dane, what have me made him submit himself to! There’s no taste of pumpkin whatsoever.
1. Costco Pumpkin Pie
Price: $5.99 (58 oz.)
The Pie:
Fifty. Eight. Ounces. That means that you can easily get 12-16 servings from this pie. So right out of the gate, this pie wins major points for feeding a big crew or family.
Okay, let’s get into the pie. The color is a nice brownish orange — a burnt orange if you will. The crust isn’t overly fancy or crimped but it’s there.
The key is that when you pop the container open you get a nose full of roasted pumpkin that has been spiced. Like real, actual pumpkin.
Tasting Notes:
Pie Filling: The filling is moist and has a little give to it. It’s kind of halfway between a flan and crème brûlée in consistency thanks to a moment of airiness. The actual taste is roasted pumpkin forward with a nice layer of savory pumpkin that’s been spiced with nutmeg, allspice, and cinnamon. There’s nothing as bold as clove or anise but there is a mild sharpness to the spice.
Plus, it feels real. I mean that in that it feels like real pumpkin and actual spices were used instead of a mix (or can).
Crust: The crust is thinner, which works here. There’s a nice butteriness to the crimped rim with a good pinch of salt countered by a moment of white sugar. The under crust is thin and kind of gets lost for the most part. It does provide a faint textural layer but not much. At the very least, it tastes like real pie crust with butter and salt and not just white flour.
Bottom Line:
Overall, this tastes like real-deal pumpkin pie. And that’s why Costco’s Pumpkin Pie runs away with this battle. There’s almost no comparison between the two.
Part 2 — Final Thoughts on the Pumpkin Pies
Okay, while I am dragging Trader Joe’s pie pretty hard, I do get it. It’s made for folks who want “pumpkin spice” pie. It’s a latte in a neutral pie crust. And I fully appreciate that it beat a whole mess of middling pies in the blind tasting. But there’s still little to no “pumpkin” in that equation. Then there’s the mouthfeel. The Trader Joe’s pie is gummy. The Costco pie is lush by comparison.
In the end, the Costco pie wins on every front and that’s before you even get to how much more you’re getting for one dollar less in price. I think it might be time for y’all to pull that trigger and get a Costco membership if you want to buy the best storebought pumpkin pie. Or, y’know, just bake your own and make this conversation moot in an instant.