Cottage cheese is a surprising superpower ingredient in a number of our recipes. Just like buttermilk in biscuits, cottage cheese can lend some extra tang and decadence to many comfort foods like lasagnas and casseroles.

There’s also a dedicated following of folks who enjoy cottage cheese on its own. Southern Living editors tasted seven brands of cottage cheese to see what wins out in a taste test—and there was a clear winner.

For this taste test, we transferred each of the brands of cottage cheese into bowls which were numbered—no packaging in sight! Testers served themselves and tasted each cottage cheese.

Each was ranked on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being the lowest and 5 being the highest. After tasting all of them, editors also selected their “overall favorite.”