The 6 Best American Cheeses of 2025

We tasted 11 American cheeses sold as individually wrapped slices, which are generally known as “singles,” and 10 cheeses pre-sliced in packages but not individually wrapped, which is often referred to as “deli style” or “deluxe.”

How we defined American cheese: The US Food and Drug Administration has strict definitions for processed American cheeses. They’re made by grinding and re-cooking real cheeses (for American, that is typically cheddar or Colby), with small amounts of other approved ingredients added for emulsification and texture, as well as stability, flavoring, or color. Typically, processed American cheese must be made with about 50% real cheese, measured by weight.

But we tested plenty of cheeses that don’t fit that standard. They are all sold in the same part of the supermarket and made from similar ingredients and methods. If they can’t legally say “American cheese,” they put something similar on the label: American singles, American slices, American pasteurized cheese food slices. Most still look, feel, and function like American cheese once you get them home. To that end, we tasted both American cheeses and products like Sandwich-Mate Singles that contain no cheese at all.

What did matter to us was texture and flavor: Our tasters agreed that an American cheese should feel like a processed cheese — smooth and silky, without the brittleness found in pure cheese. We also agreed that it should not taste wholly artificial, with at least some flavor of real cheese, which, after all, is American cheese’s primary ingredient.

In the end, the flavor profile of our picks varied quite a bit. Some had hints of mild cheddar, one had notes of Swiss, while the others were milky and buttery. But they were all creamy, with good flavor that wasn’t too mild or too sharp.

Availability and packaging: Most supermarket chains have their own store brand of American cheese, and there are also quite a few regional favorites, such as Cooper Sharp White on the East Coast, or Land O’Lakes Extra Melt, which is popular in parts of the Southwest. But we focused only on brands that you can easily find in stores nationwide.

We also limited our tasting to individually wrapped singles and pre-sliced cheeses, and we steered clear of block cheeses or those sliced to order.

Our research revealed that although only a few manufacturers produce all of the country’s American cheese, no two products we analyzed had identical ingredients or nutritional panels. In other words, store brands do not appear to be low-cost dupes of name-brand cheeses.

Full-fat only: To limit our testing, we did not taste reduced-fat versions of American cheese. We also only tasted processed cheeses, and excluded thin slices of mild cheddar or other real cheeses that are marketed as “American-style” cheese slices.

Yellow versus white: The majority of producers of American cheese typically make yellow and white versions. Yellow is typically tinted with annatto and/or paprika, or occasionally food coloring. To limit our testing, we tasted only yellow versions, which are the default color and the most common. We tasted both versions of two of our picks while blindfolded to determine whether they had any differences. (They did, but they were subtle!)

In the first round of our brand-concealed taste test, we let the cheeses rest for 30 minutes at room temperature so that cold would not mask any flavors or textures. We tasted singles and deli-style slices separately. In the case of individually wrapped slices, each tester also assessed how easily the cheese came away from the plastic.

Besides tasting them plain, we tried each cheese in cold sandwiches (plain or with ham, using soft white bread) to see how they held up when paired with other ingredients. We eliminated any cheeses that the majority of panelists disliked or had off flavors or textures.

We tested the remaining cheeses in grilled cheese sandwiches prepared on an electric griddle with butter. We used this test primarily to evaluate their meltability — if they dripped or separated — but also to see how their flavors held up when they were hot and molten off the griddle and when just warm to touch.

We also watched carefully as the sandwiches were sliced, to see whether the cheese dripped or pooled, neither of which is ideal. (We wanted them soft and molten when hot, but not oozing onto the plate.)

Later, for picks that had both white and yellow counterparts, we tasted the two blindfolded to determine whether there were any differences in flavor. We also melted each of our picks on a burger patty to compare melting speed, drape, and overall meltability.

This article was edited by Gabriella Gershenson and Marguerite Preston.