The Worst Philadelphia Cream Cheese For Your Morning Bagel

There's nothing that pairs with a bagel quite like a healthy schmear of cream cheese. Whether you like a sweet or savory schmear, it imparts plenty of flavor to go with your morning bagel of choice. We tried and ranked 10 kinds of Philadelphia cream cheese spreads — judging flavor, texture, and consistency to find out what works best atop a bagel — and whipped mixed berry is the one flavor you'll want to avoid.

Philadelphia's whipped cream cheeses provide a nice, lighter texture compared to traditional dense cream cheese, which is a plus. But whipped mixed berry proved too sweet and too akin to yogurt, taste-wise, rather than ordinary cream cheese. In short, it's a flavor that works better for dessert than a bagel.

Fruit flavors ranked lower on our list for the same reasons — too sweet and better suited for desserts — but strawberry, which ranked seventh on our list, offered a less sweet option and tasted authentic.

While we put savory flavors higher in our ranking, the simplicity of a bagel topped with cream cheese makes it a breakfast favorite. A bagel can be a deliciously blank canvas, and it can be upgraded in many ways while using cream cheese, which, as noted above, comes in different flavors. It also allows for both sweet and savory combinations such as fruits, vegetables, pizza toppings, hot sauce, and more.

But if you're going to keep it simple and stick with a bagel and cream cheese only, you can take a page from Ina Garten to let cream cheese be the star of your breakfast. While a traditional bagel cut is down the middle and horizontal for equal halves, cutting a bagel into thirds allows for cream cheese to be spread over more surface area and enjoyed in smaller layers rather than repeated dense bites — which is ideal for those who like a dense schmear. Just be sure to avoid the whipped mixed berry flavor of Philadelphia cream cheese if you're looking for an authentic breakfast bagel experience.