Ranking the Top 10 Pillsbury Products from Worst to Best

Pillsbury is one of the most iconic American culinary brands. Dating back nearly 150 years, Pillsbury began with a series of flour mills along the Mississippi River and has transformed into a household name that is synonymous with comfort. The company’s ready-to-bake bread products are a nationwide staple that level the playing field for homecooks, ensuring that anyone (regardless of their busy schedule or range of skills in the kitchen) can make warm, freshly baked goodness to serve as a perfect complement to dinner or as a show-stopping dessert. 

Pillsbury products are canned and ready to bake directly from the refrigerator packaging with little to no preparation required, save for slathering on the included tube of thick sugary icing for Pillsbury’s sumptuous cinnamon rolls. The brand’s canned baking product line has expanded in recent years to cover more of your everyday culinary needs, but the brand is perhaps best known for its thick, flaky biscuits, its decadent, gooey cinnamon rolls, and its buttery crescent rolls. 

To rank Pillsbury’s most popular products, I sampled five varieties of Pillsbury canned biscuits, three varieties of the brand’s legendary crescent rolls, and two varieties of classic-style cinnamon rolls. Among my criteria for ranking the bread products, I considered overall taste, bread texture, balance of sweetness, and intensity of butter flavor. Now, when you find yourself standing in the refrigerated aisle at the grocery store trying to decide which can of Pillsbury deliciousness to purchase, you’ll have a guide.

To my great surprise, after sampling ten of Pillsbury’s most popular products, my least favorite was the very cinnamon roll I cherished in my childhood. When I began the taste test, I felt the thrill of nostalgia as I peeled the label off of the Pillsbury cinnamon rolls can and waited to hear the audible ‘pop’ that booms when the can bursts open, revealing gooey cinnamon dough. The pop arrived, and the dough smelled pleasingly sweet, but when the oven timer announced the cinnamon rolls were finished cooking, I could tell something was off. 

The cinnamon rolls appeared quite flat, suggesting that the dough wouldn’t be as fluffy as I remembered. I slathered on the tube of icing that accompanies the cinnamon rolls and took a bite. The dough was somehow both bland and overly sweet. The flavor of cinnamon swirled throughout the dough was subtle at best, and the original icing on top was overwhelmingly sugary without any depth. The texture of the dough was as flat as its appearance, and made the overall tasting experience unpleasant.

Before my taste test, I had the least experience with Pillsbury’s canned biscuits, having had many of its varieties of crescent rolls and cinnamon rolls throughout my youth. But my general biscuit-eating experience is far from minimal, ranging from canned to homemade to restaurant quality. Because of that, my standards for Pillsbury’s biscuits were quite high. 

Sadly, my expectations were not met in the Grands! flaky layers original biscuits. Though the dough looked promising when I unpacked it from the can, after removing it from the oven, I found that the biscuit never fully fluffed up, leading to a disappointingly deflated texture. The mouthfeel was overly chewy as the dough was a bit tough rather than being light and airy. Overall, the biscuits lacked flavor. No apparent sweetness or saltiness came through. Instead, an artificial flavor, perhaps relating to the preservatives used or the treatment of the bleached flour, was present in every bite, making the biscuits difficult to enjoy.

When you’re looking for a sumptuous side for your dinner, you might not necessarily think of searching for the reduced-fat label on a can of baked goods, but Pillsbury offers a wide enough product line that you can experience its crescent rolls with a lower fat content than the originals. Growing up, I ate lots of reduced-fat or low-fat baked goods, so I’m familiar with the subtle differences to anticipate in flavor: namely, less butter and less richness. 

That’s exactly what’s notable about Pillsbury’s reduced fat crescent rolls. The decrease in overall flavor was immediately evident. While they appeared flaky and cooked to a pleasing golden brown in the oven, they were not as sweet as the Pillsbury original crescent rolls, and the dough was significantly less rich. In terms of texture, the reduced-fat crescent rolls weren’t as thick as their original counterparts, making them crisper, which I found unexpectedly pleasant. The sweetness was similarly pulled back here, but that gave way to a satisfying saltiness. I suspect the salt was added to make up for the otherwise relatively bland flavor. 

Pillsbury original crescent rolls were my introduction to Pillsbury products. Growing up, my family used them as dinner sides and later transformed the canned crescent rolls into buns for homemade mini hot dogs. When it was time to sample them again, I was eager to see how the flavor would compare to my memory. I popped the can open and folded the dough as I have done for years, noticing that it appeared slightly thinner than I recalled. 

When the crescent rolls were finished cooking, they were noticeably plumper than their reduced-fat counterparts, and the exterior was nicely golden brown. The texture is satisfyingly doughy with a crisp base and firmer pieces at the ends of the roll. While there was much less richness than I remembered, the rolls had an elevated sweetness that was enjoyable and not artificial-tasting. I longed for more butter in these rolls, but I accepted them as lighter fare that would be much enhanced with a filler or topping.

While original crescent rolls may not have lived up to my expectations, fortunately, butter flake crescent rolls did. The first thing I noticed that differentiated them from the reduced-fat and the original versions was how much plumper and flakier they appeared after baking. As with the other rolls, butter flake crescent rolls baked into an even golden brown that blossomed across the entirety of the roll. 

Throughout, the texture of this roll was far superior to its counterparts, as the flakiness added a rich dimension to the dough and the exterior crisped nicely to nuance the plumpness. The butter is more apparent both within the physical dough and in the flavor of every bite you take. The richness is creamy and mouthwatering. The butter flake has a noticeable sweetness like the original ones, but it’s dialed back, allowing the crescent roll to have a more decadent and balanced overall flavor. 

Just as I noticed the individual pieces of butter threaded through the dough of the butter flake crescent rolls, the same was evident within the Grands! Southern homestyle Butter Tastin’ biscuits. Immediately, I could taste that these were superior to the original biscuits. The most obvious difference between the two arrived in the form of the depth of flavor. The richer taste is perhaps due to the Southern-style biscuit recipe, which adds much-needed dimension to the flavor. 

The buttery richness is present in every bite, but it isn’t ever overwhelming. I was delighted to find that the unpleasant taste I encountered in the original biscuits was absent here. I found these biscuits tasty, though they would have still benefited from the addition of tart jam or a thick slathering of salted butter.

Pillsbury’s biscuit game is one of the things that surprised me most about this taste test. The sheer variety of types of biscuits on offer means you have the opportunity to customize your experience by selecting a biscuit type that most adheres to your personal preferences. Southern biscuits are notable for having slightly different ingredients than other biscuits, namely flour ground from soft wheat, which affects the texture. 

So, how did the inclusion of buttermilk affect Pillsbury’s Southern homestyle biscuits?  The dough of this one was both richer and more flavorful than its predecessor. The buttermilk added a subtle tanginess and significantly enhanced the decadence. On the downside, these biscuits had much less pronounced spice than the Grands! Southern homestyle Butter Tastin’ ones, but that’s perhaps its primary fault. I wish the biscuits were a bit flakier, as they cooked densely and browned well before the oven timer went off, but the flavor mostly made up for that. 

It turns out that the secret really is buttermilk. When I slid the perfect rounds of the Grands! flaky layers buttermilk biscuits dough out of their can, I wasn’t expecting them to be far and away superior to the flaky original ones, because I had become partial to the Southern-style variety. So imagine my surprise when I tasted a biscuit that was intensely creamy with a discernible amount of rich butter flavor throughout. 

The answer to why this biscuit was so lush is, of course, the buttermilk, which elevates the bread by balancing out its sweetness with a subtle tartness. The texture is doughy without the dryness. The layers of biscuit dough puffed up nicely, revealing stacks of buttery decadence that made for one of the most satisfying mouthfeels of the bunch. Fortunately, the unpleasant taste of the flaky layers original biscuits was nowhere to be found here, instead allowing for the butter-forward flavor to take center stage. 

Grands! Southern homestyle Southern recipe biscuits marched right to the top of the list of Pillsbury’s biscuits for me. After sampling the other Southern-style biscuit varieties, I wasn’t surprised to find myself so connected to the spice that nuances every bite of this mouthwatering biscuit. As with the Southern homestyle buttermilk biscuits, the Southern recipe browned quickly in the oven, initially concerning me that the taste would be overly dry and the texture might be stiff, but neither of those worries came to fruition. 

Instead, I found myself biting into a fluffy Southern-style biscuit with the best texture of the bunch, which is much less chewy than its counterparts. The mouthfeel is a wonderful balance of flakiness with a light-as-air, rich buttery biscuit dough. The exterior of the biscuits crisped more prominently than any of the other biscuits, and this, paired with the quality of the interior, made for an intensely satisfying overall texture balance. The flavor of these biscuits is decadent enough to be enjoyed without the need for additional toppings. That said, with all the Pillsbury biscuits, I’d recommend eating them piping hot straight from the oven for maximum texture enjoyment.

The popular Pillsbury product that I couldn’t help reaching for seconds of was flaky cinnamon rolls with butter cream icing. It’s not lost on me that the cinnamon rolls with original icing rank lowest on this list in comparison. Now, let’s get into the differences. As soon as I opened both cans, I noticed that the flaky cinnamon Rolls burst out of the packaging with an evident fluffiness that unraveled the dough’s prearranged spiral. The cinnamon rolls with original icing emerged compact as if they had been preemptively smashed. That visual contrast foretold the dramatic polarity in their tastes. 

Instead, the flaky rolls were satisfyingly doughy with a fluffy interior that matches the texture of a homemade cinnamon roll or one found in a bakery display case. The buttercream icing that paired with the rolls was thinner than the original icing, but it was significantly less saccharine and had a mouthwatering taste that elevated the overall flavor experience. 

As a cinnamon lover, I could have gone for even more cinnamon flavor here, though it was much more present than in the original. Still, the rolls were incredibly delicious with a taste that struck the perfect balance of buttery richness with notes of sweetness. Far and away, it’s the best Pillsbury product I sampled.

I grew up with cans of Pillsbury bread products lining the shelves of my family’s refrigerator. Pillsbury crescent rolls elevated our weekday dinners. Pillsbury cinnamon rolls were a very special breakfast treat or a decadent after-dinner dessert. I discovered Pillsbury biscuits later in life and have been a fan ever since of the flaky, buttery biscuits that are perfect on their own or stand out when topped with heavy cream. 

For this ranking, I considered my personal experience with Pillsbury products and the flavors of my childhood alongside my current culinary palate. Among my criteria for determining which products were superior to one another, I focused on the texture of the baked goods, whether they tasted overly sweet or were lacking in flavor, how well I could taste the quality of the butter, and how the bread products performed on their own without the addition of any added toppings or accompaniments in a larger meal. I opted to sample Pillsbury’s most popular products and kept my attention on its original flavors to provide a guide that is reflective of the core Pillsbury roster.