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Michael Murtaugh/NYT Wirecutter; food styling by Maggie Ruggiero

If you’ve been tasked with today’s inevitable last-minute grocery-store run, first of all, good luck out there. Second, don’t just grab the first thing you see on the shelf in an act of desperation. Hidden in the aisles are some truly great gems—delicious, high-quality ingredients that will level up tomorrow’s dinner.

Below, we’ll walk you through a few of our favorite grocery-store staples we’ve found after a whole lot of taste-testing, starting with what might be tomorrow’s MVP: butter.

7 butters we love→

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The best olive oil All of our testers unanimously agreed that this balanced and peppery olive oil was the best→

Truly delicious chicken broth A more robustly flavored chicken broth adds welcome richness to stuffings, braises, and hearty stews→

The best American cheese Contrary to popular opinion, a really good slice can rank among the greatest dairy pleasures→

Our favorite ketchup We found a few bottles that hit just the right notes of bright, balanced, and nostalgic→

The best vanilla ice cream A hefty scoop for your pie à la mode→

Sarah Kobos/NYT Wirecutter

If you’re on drink duty tomorrow, we can help with that, too. We have several rigorously tested recommendations for every kind of imbiber:

Tony's Chocolonely; Rozette Rago/NYT Wirecutter; Connie Park/NYT Wirecutter

There is a trove of surprisingly gift-worthy items at the grocery store, including scented bath salts and darling cookie cutters. Here’s what our gifts experts recommend if you’re in need of a little something to say thanks to your Thanksgiving host—or in case of drop-by visitors this weekend.

Gifts on aisle 2→

Sign up for Cookie Week. It’s the most wonderful week of the year! You’ll get a brand-new cookie recipe every day, December 1 through December 8. Get it in your inbox

We’re talking about our best advice to get through a holiday gathering today on “The Wirecutter Show.” Spoiler: Wirecutter’s editor-in-chief gives us his somewhat controversial take on what to do right now to get ahead on December holidays.

You can reach the Wirecutter Newsletters team at newsletters@wirecutter.com. We can’t always respond, but we do love to hear from you.

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