When I visited Wegmans, a 16-ounce tub of grilled chicken salad cost $15. Since that price seemed borderline outrageous, I hoped the chicken salad would be delicious.

However, I was disappointed. There wasn't much flavor to it at all — the prevailing taste was that of mayonnaise — and it had an oddly grainy texture that closely resembled tuna salad.

There was a good amount of chicken in the mix, which might help explain the price, but the meat lacked flavor and wasn't especially moist.

The price point, more than the chicken salad itself, earned Wegmans the bottom spot on my ranking.

Across multiple visits to three separate Trader Joe's in my area, the closest option I found to the others on this list was the Wine Country chicken salad. However, it differed slightly from the others as it incorporated sweetened dried cranberries and pecans.

At first, I thought that might give it an unfair advantage in the ranking, since I normally enjoy a chicken salad with dried cranberries. The $5 price also seemed like a good deal for a 12-ounce container.

However, this chicken salad was way too sweet for my taste and not quite hearty enough. It seemed like there was a lot more goopy liquid than chunks of chicken, and the cranberries tasted like candy.

Overall, I thought this tasted more like a salad dressing than a deli salad.

I found the Kirkland Signature chicken salad in Costco's prepared foods section. It was priced at $6 a pound, making it the least-expensive option I tried on a per-pound basis. The container I picked up contained about 2 pounds of chicken salad.

The salad had the biggest chunks of chicken of any I tried by far, but it practically shimmered with grease.

I also thought it was bland in terms of flavor. However, since I was already familiar with the Kirkland Signature rotisserie chicken, the briny, brothy flavor of the meat was easy to pick out.

There was celery in the mix, but it added more flavor than texture; ideally, I'd prefer that reversed.

The chicken salad was fine but not especially good, and it's hard to imagine a situation in which I'd want two pounds of it.

Of the four chicken salads I tried, the version from Whole Foods was the only one that was scooped fresh at a deli counter. It was also the only one I'd consider buying again.

At $14 per pound, it was significantly more expensive than the chicken salads from Costco and Trader Joe's but slightly less expensive than the one from Wegmans. I appreciated that I could order only as much as I needed — a half-pound, in this case.

It was easily the best-tasting of the four salads I tried. The chicken, chopped up into bite-sized pieces, was moist and tasted fresh. Although hardly bold in flavor, the salad was nuanced with the earthy sweetness of red onions, notes of rosemary, and a touch of mustardy bite.

Unlike the others, it tasted better than anything I could easily make at home.

At first taste, my favorite was the Trader Joe's version. To me, it looked like it had the richest orange hue of the three brands and the creamiest, meltiest texture to the cheese sauce.

I thought it tasted like it had a hint more salt than the others, bringing out more of the cheese flavor.

My daughter liked the Wegmans version best, but personally, it was my second favorite.

The cheese powder didn't seem to dissolve as evenly in the Wegmans pasta as it did in the other two, which actually made it feel a little more like real cheese.

To me, it had a mellow, buttery taste that was a little less assertive than the Trader Joe's version.

Although neither of us chose the 365 by Whole Foods mac and cheese as our favorite, it wasn't bad.

However, the Wegmans and Trader Joe's recipes called for the same amount of butter and milk, while this version called for less of both.

That said, it was similar enough to the other two that it felt reasonable to wonder if the only difference was how it was prepared.

I thought it had a milky flavor, was a touch less cheesy than the other two, and had the smoothest sauce.

After tasting all the boxes of mac and cheese, my daughter and I conducted blind taste tests to see if we could correctly identify which was which. However, neither of us could identify them with any sort of consistency.

They were all incredibly similar and perfectly suitable for my boxed mac and cheese needs. Truthfully, I'd buy any of them again.

Each of these stores has premade cupcakes available in their bakery sections, but I wanted to see how the chains would handle my custom order.

I used the online ordering option for each store and chose cupcakes topped with white buttercream frosting and rainbow sprinkles.

All three chains had an easy-to-use system that let me quickly choose the options I wanted. Each of my orders was ready on time and accurate.

My priority was finding a good-value cupcake that my daughter loved, though I also wanted to see what the adults at the party thought.

I had seven kids, ages 4 to 12, and eight adults try each cupcake in a blind taste test.

Each participant rated which cupcake was the most aesthetically pleasing and which tasted best without knowing what store it came from.

I paid $8.13, including tax, for a dozen cupcakes at Walmart. They were the cheapest option by far.

These cupcakes were noticeably smaller than the rest, but if they'd been the only option, I don't think I would've thought they were small.

Even so, the kids unanimously agreed these were the most visually appealing and that they'd choose to eat them first.

It seemed fair considering these cupcakes had the most sprinkles in the most vibrant colors compared to the ones from Wegmans and Publix.

In my opinion, the frosting on the Walmart cupcakes was overwhelmingly sweet and the cake was dry with little flavor.

The other adults agreed and, as a result, we ranked these as our least favorite.

However, all of the kids rated the Walmart cupcakes as their top pick, likely due to the super-sweet frosting and pretty aesthetic.

The cupcakes from Wegmans were the most expensive at $24.90 for a dozen — more than triple the cost of the Walmart cupcakes.

The cupcakes were almost identical in size to the Publix ones and bigger than the Walmart ones. The frosting on these was swirled the highest.

The adults unanimously picked the cupcakes from Wegmans as their favorite. The buttercream frosting was light, airy, and perfectly sweet.

We also agreed the cake was also the most moist and flavorful of the ones we tried.

The icing didn't extend all the way to the edge of the cupcake, which made it look like it came from a more high-end bakery. This might have been a more important factor had these been for an adult gathering, not a kid's birthday party.

A dozen cupcakes from Publix set me back $10.81.

I personally found these cupcakes to be the most visually appealing, with large amounts of icing and an array of sprinkles on top. Their flavor was good, too.

Publix's frosting wasn't as light as Wegmans' frosting, but it wasn't as overly sweet as Walmart's.

The cake was also fairly moist and had more notes of vanilla than Walmart's, but wasn't as flavorful as Wegmans' version.

Even though we adults thought Wegmans' cupcakes were the best, I didn't think they were worth the high price tag.

For a child's birthday, I'll probably stick to the Walmart cupcakes since they were the least expensive and the clear kids' favorite.

For adult birthdays or celebrations, I still wouldn't pick Wegmans. The price is just too high for me to justify buying them.

Instead, I'd go for Publix cupcakes, which are almost as good and less than half the price.