The Best English Muffins You Can Order Online

Grocery store english muffins do the job. They toast, they hold an egg, and they disappear into your morning without making any impression at all. A great english muffin is a different experience, and once you've had one, the difference is hard to ignore.

What makes an english muffin good

There are a few things a great english muffin has to get right. Real nooks and crannies that go deep into the interior, not just surface texture. A slight chew without being dense. A crust that pushes back a little when you bite into it. And enough flavor that you'd eat it plain, without butter, jam, or anything else on it.

Most grocery store english muffins fall short on at least two of those. The nooks are shallow and mostly decorative. The interior is uniform in a way that feels processed. The flavor is close to neutral, which is why people load them up with toppings.

The interior structure comes from fermentation. A properly fermented dough develops gas bubbles during rising that become the irregular, open crumb that butter soaks into and toppings catch on. Cut the fermentation time short, and you lose the structure. That tradeoff is what most commercial production makes. You can see the same fermentation approach across our other breakfast breads and on the full menu.

Sourdough vs. regular english muffins

Sourdough english muffins use wild yeast fermentation instead of commercial yeast. That process takes longer, sometimes significantly longer, but it produces a few things commercial yeast cannot replicate on a bakery schedule.

The wild yeast creates a more irregular interior structure, which means deeper, more varied nooks and crannies. The fermentation also produces lactic acid, which gives sourdough its characteristic tang and adds a complexity to the flavor that plain white bread doesn't have. The crust comes out with more chew and more resistance.

Commercial yeast is predictable and fast, which is the right call for industrial production. For character, it's a ceiling. Sourdough has more variables, which is why it requires a baker paying attention, and more upside. Our english muffins at Sunflour are sourdough, baked fresh every day.

What to look for in a great english muffin

If you're comparing options, here is a short checklist that separates the good from the mediocre.

• Nooks and crannies that go deep, visible when you fork-split the muffin, not just pressed into the surface
• Slight tang from fermentation, a sign the dough had time to develop
• Even toasting without burning the thin spots while the thick spots stay pale
• A crust that resists a little before giving
• Real flavor when eaten plain

The easiest test is the plain test. Toast it, let it cool slightly, eat it with nothing on it. If it's worth eating that way, it's a good muffin. If you reach immediately for jam to cover something up, the muffin didn't pass. Speaking of jam: our jams and jellies guide covers exactly what goes well on a fresh english muffin if you want pairing ideas.

The best english muffins compared: Sunflour, Wolferman's, Thomas', and Bays

Most comparisons of english muffin brands come down to one question that nobody asks directly: is this thing built to be eaten, or built to survive a distribution chain? Every difference below follows from that.

Brand	Leavening	How it's sold	Built around	Where you get it
Sunflour	Wild yeast sourdough starter	Baked daily in small batches	Eating it the day it's baked	Five Charlotte bakeries, or shipped to a date you choose
Wolferman's	Commercial yeast	Thick-cut, packed for mail order	Surviving transit and shelf life	Mail order, nationwide
Thomas'	Commercial yeast	Mass produced, shelf stable	Consistency at national scale	Grocery bread aisle, nationwide
Bays	Commercial yeast	Sold from the refrigerated case	A softer crumb, cold distribution	Grocery dairy case, regional
Store brand	Commercial yeast	Mass produced, shelf stable	Price per unit	Grocery bread aisle

Wolferman's is the most recognized name in gourmet english muffins by mail. They've been shipping since 1888 and their thick-cut muffins are genuinely well made. If you've never had a bakery-fresh english muffin, Wolferman's is a real step up from the grocery aisle. The difference is that Wolferman's is a mail-order operation, not a fresh-daily local bakery. Their muffins are produced to ship, which means they're built for shelf life and transit, not for the morning after baking.

Thomas' made "nooks and crannies" a household phrase, and they earned the recognition. At the scale they produce, consistency is the whole job, and they deliver it. What you give up is depth. A dough fermented on an industrial timeline cannot build the irregular open crumb that a long fermentation produces, and no amount of shaping puts it back in.

Bays takes a different route by selling from the refrigerated case rather than the bread aisle, which gets you a softer crumb than a shelf-stable muffin. People who grew up on them tend to prefer them to Thomas'. It's still commercial yeast on a production schedule, so the tang isn't there.

Sunflour bakes in Charlotte every day. When you order our english muffins, a 6-pack is $9.95, which works out to about $1.66 per muffin. If you're in Charlotte, you can pick them up at any of our five locations, which is the closest you'll get to eating them the same day they were baked.

For a sense of what else we're baking alongside the english muffins, the breakfast pastries collection is a good place to look. Our morning glory muffins and blueberry muffins come from the same from-scratch kitchen.

How to order Sunflour english muffins

We ship sourdough english muffins nationwide. You pick your delivery date in the cart before you check out, and the earliest date available is 3 business days out, because we bake and pack to the date you chose rather than shipping from stock. Nothing leaves the bakery on a Saturday or Sunday, and those days don't count toward the lead time.

Store them in an airtight bag and refrigerate if you're not eating them within a few days. They freeze well and toast straight from frozen, which makes ordering a larger batch worth doing. You're not racing the clock.

If you're ordering for an event or want to add english muffins alongside something else, the cinnamon rolls ship well and make a good pairing. See all options on the order now page.

Frequently asked questions

What makes an english muffin good?

The interior structure. A good english muffin has real nooks and crannies that come from fermentation, not shaping. It should have a slight tang, a crust with some resistance, and enough flavor to eat plain. If it needs toppings to taste like something, the base muffin didn't do its job.

What's the difference between sourdough and regular english muffins?

Sourdough uses wild yeast fermentation, which takes longer but builds a more complex flavor, a more irregular interior structure, and a chewier crust. Commercial yeast is faster and more consistent, which is good for factories. Sourdough has more character, which is why we use it.

How are Sunflour english muffins shipped?

We ship nationwide, and you choose your delivery date in the cart before checking out. The earliest date available is 3 business days from when you order, because we bake and pack to your date rather than shipping from stock. Nothing ships Saturday or Sunday. We recommend refrigerating anything you won't eat within a few days, or freezing a batch if you ordered ahead.

What are the best store-bought english muffins?

Among the shelf-stable brands, Thomas' is the most consistent and the easiest to find. If your grocery store carries Bays in the refrigerated case, most people find the crumb softer and the flavor better than a bread-aisle muffin. Neither is fermented long enough to develop real tang, which is the ceiling on any muffin built for a distribution chain rather than a morning.

Bays vs. Thomas': what's the difference?

Thomas' is shelf stable and sold in the bread aisle, produced for national consistency. Bays is sold refrigerated, which lets them run a softer crumb than a shelf-stable muffin needs to tolerate. Bays is regional, so availability depends on where you live. Both use commercial yeast on a production schedule, so the difference between them is smaller than the difference between either one and a sourdough muffin baked that morning.

How long do english muffins stay fresh?

At room temperature, two to three days in an airtight bag. Refrigerated, up to a week. Frozen, they'll hold well for a month or more and toast straight from the freezer with no thawing required. Most people who order from us freeze half the batch immediately.

Can I freeze english muffins?

Yes, and we recommend it if you're ordering a batch for shipping. Freeze them in an airtight bag and toast straight from frozen. They come out essentially the same as fresh. It's one of the few foods where the freezer doesn't cost you anything.

How are Sunflour's english muffins different from Wolferman's?

Wolferman's is well made for a mail-order product. Our muffins are baked fresh daily in Charlotte and packed to the delivery date you choose. They're not designed around shelf life. That shows up in the texture and the crust. We're a working bakery, not a shipping operation.

Sunflour bakes english muffins fresh every morning at all five Charlotte locations: Elizabeth, Dilworth, Ballantyne, Harrisburg, and NoDa. You can pick them up in store or order them online for nationwide shipping. Place your order here.