If pantry staples were ranked on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, sweetened condensed milk would land somewhere near the top (closer to black garlic and malted milk powder than to true essentials like flour, salt, and eggs). You might not use it every day, but when you want fudge or Vietnamese iced coffee , it suddenly feels essential.

Methodology

Our favorite sweetened condensed milk

The wild card

Honorable mentions

We also tasted

The “Father of Canning”—French chef and confectioner Nicolas Appert—invented condensed milk (the unsweetened variety, now largely known as evaporated milk ) in 1810, more than 50 years before Louis Pasteur would have his way with microbes. In 1835, English civil engineer William Newton added sugar to milk before reducing it, thereby increasing its shelf stability.

Sweetened condensed milk was popularized in the US in 1858 by Gail Borden Jr.’s Eagle Brand, which you’ll still find on many store shelves.…