How the Comfort Foods bracket works
Comfort food tier list without dragging anything into rows. You get one matchup at a time — Mac & Cheese or Grilled Cheese? Chicken Noodle Soup or Pizza? — and after 23 picks the bracket has a champion, with everything else placed by how far it got. By the end you have ranked all 24 without ever having to look at more than two at a time.
This bracket runs 5 rounds at the default 24-slot size (Round of 24, Round of 16, Elite 8, Final Four, Championship), with every one of the 24 choices in the field. 24 is not a power of two, so 8 of them draw a first-round bye — spread evenly across the draw rather than handed to whoever happens to land at the top of it. The field is reshuffled on every play, so the same choice can meet a different opponent in round one and finish somewhere else entirely. You can also play it at 8 or 16 slots for a shorter or longer run.
23 picks, 5 rounds
- Round of 248 matchups
- Round of 168 matchups
- Elite 84 matchups
- Final Four2 matchups
- Championship1 matchup
Roughly 2-3 minutes start to finish.
All 24 entrants
All 24 entrants are listed below, including Mac & Cheese, Grilled Cheese, Chicken Noodle Soup and Pizza.
Mac & Cheese
Cheesy pasta perfection
Grilled Cheese
Buttery & melty
Chicken Noodle Soup
Feel-better food
Pizza
Everyone's favorite
Mashed Potatoes
Creamy & buttery
Fried Chicken
Crispy & juicy
Lasagna
Layered Italian comfort
Chicken Pot Pie
Flaky & hearty
Meatloaf
Classic American
Chili
Warm & spicy
Pot Roast
Slow-cooked perfection
Tomato Soup
Pair with grilled cheese
French Fries
Salty & crispy
Spaghetti & Meatballs
Italian-American classic
Biscuits & Gravy
Southern staple
Shepherd's Pie
Meat & potato casserole
Chicken Tenders
Crispy strips
Cornbread
Sweet & crumbly
Beef Stew
Hearty & rich
Tater Tots
Crispy potato nuggets
Loaded Baked Potato
Cheese, bacon & sour cream
Chicken & Waffles
Sweet meets savory
Ramen
Warm noodle bowl
Pho
Vietnamese noodle soup
Would rather group them than rank them? Open all 24 in the tier list maker and sort them into S, A, B, C, D and F tiers instead — same entrants, no matchups.
How everyone else ranked them
Aggregated from 9 completed Comfort Foods brackets. Win rate is the share of head-to-head matchups each entrant has won across every play.
- 1
Pizza
18W - 4L · won 2 brackets
82%
win rate
- 2
Fried Chicken
11W - 4L · won 2 brackets
73%
win rate
- 3
Lasagna
13W - 5L · won 2 brackets
72%
win rate
- 4
Spaghetti & Meatballs
9W - 6L · won 1 bracket
60%
win rate
- 5
Loaded Baked Potato
9W - 6L · won 1 bracket
60%
win rate
- 6
Chicken Tenders
8W - 6L
57%
win rate
- 7
Mashed Potatoes
10W - 8L
56%
win rate
- 8
Chicken Pot Pie
5W - 4L
56%
win rate
- 9
French Fries
6W - 5L
55%
win rate
- 10
Shepherd's Pie
6W - 5L
55%
win rate
Getting a ranking you actually agree with
- 1Answer as if both options were in front of you and you could only eat one.
- 2The default run puts all 24 choices in the draw. Short on time? Drop to 16 slots — a quicker run over a random 16 of them.
- 3Undo exists for a reason: an early-round mistake propagates all the way to the final, and there is no shame in taking it back.
Comfort Foods bracket FAQ
How many choices are in the Comfort Foods bracket?
The pool holds 24 choices. A default run puts all of them in the draw and takes 23 picks across 5 rounds: Round of 24, Round of 16, Elite 8, Final Four, Championship. 8 entrants start with a first-round bye, spread evenly through the draw. Other field sizes are available too — 8, 16, 24 slots.
Which choices are included?
Mac & Cheese, Grilled Cheese, Chicken Noodle Soup, Pizza, Mashed Potatoes, Fried Chicken, Lasagna, Chicken Pot Pie, Meatloaf, Chili, Pot Roast and Tomato Soup, plus 12 more. Every entrant is listed further down this page with its artwork.
How long does the comfort food tier list take?
About 2-3 minutes — 23 choices at the default size, or 7 if you drop to a 8-slot bracket. No account is needed, and you can abandon a run at any point without losing anything.
Can I turn the result into S/A/B tiers?
Both are here, and the bracket is closer to a tier list than it looks. It ends with a champion, a runner-up and then every other choice grouped by the round it went out in — which is exactly a set of tiers, decided by 23 direct comparisons rather than by your first guess at a layout. What it deliberately does not do is claim a precise gap between two choices that never met. If you would rather place the choices into S through F rows yourself, the tier list maker loads all 24 of them at bracketranker.com/tier-list-maker.
Can I compare my order with other people's?
Every completed bracket feeds the Comfort Foods community results page, which aggregates win rates across all plays and tracks how often each of the 24 entrants takes the title. It updates continuously, so it moves as more people play.
What if a choice I wanted is missing?
Use the bracket maker: add your own choices, name it, and share the link so other people play the same field. That is the route to take when this pool of 24 is missing something you would have picked, or when you want a version scoped to one era, label or franchise.