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There’s no holiday gift quite like a commemorative tin. Tinned gifts — like traditional Italian cookies or a classic tri-flavored popcorn tin — have found their way into gift exchanges for years. In fact, many families and friends turn tinned goodies into an annual ritual. But just because this holiday gifting idea has roots doesn’t mean it’s boring. As we've tested, reviewed, and researched hundreds of products for our editor-favorite gift guides, we kept coming across great things that come in tiny tins.
We’ve rounded up the best tinned gifts that are perfect for every home cook on your list. Whether you’re shopping for someone who prefers sweet treats (we’ve got hot chocolate, cookies, and panettone) or likes things on the salty side (there’s no way we could leave tinned fish off this list!), these tinned gifts are practical, pretty, and a perfect way to cut down on your gift wrap consumption this year.
Nobody said you have to make hot cocoa from scratch every time. But we can do better than those weakly-flavored grocery store packets. Enter Spicewalla, a spice company committed to diversity of flavor and sourcing, and created by James Beard Award winner Meherwan Irani. The Haute Chocolate selection earns its name by using Guittard chocolate in each of its blends: Classic, Mexican Hot Chocolate with cayenne and chilis, and Chai Spice featuring green cardamom and a touch of sugar.
The tins make for pretty packaging, but they’re also ideal for keeping the cocoa fresh and fragrant until the last cup. Hot tip: We recommend adding one of our editor-favorite coffee mugs for a cozy holiday gift.
Godiva chocolate and the holidays go together like Santa Claus and cookies. If you’re looking for a guaranteed great gift for the chocolate lover on your list, the search stops here. The festive red tin features a cozy holiday scene, and it’s filled to the brim with individually wrapped truffles in three flavors. We can confirm that the milk chocolate, dark chocolate, and salted caramel are all winners. Order directly from Godiva, and the Belgian chocolatier will include a complimentary gift message upon delivery.
Here’s one for the person on your list who can’t stop watching the new season of The Crown. Fortnum & Mason is the official tea supplier of the British royal houses, and it’s easy to understand why when you have your first cup. The quality of Fortnum & Mason’s loose-leaf tea is unparalleled. It shines here, in this blend with cocoa nibs, cloves, and safflower petals.
It’s a grown-up tea that still tastes like your best childhood memories, and it’s perfect with a splash of milk. The elegant tin is pretty enough to pop right into someone’s stocking, and it’ll look good next to your favorite electric tea kettle all season long.
When it comes to fancy salt, it’s hard to beat Jacobsen. The Oregon-based company is serious about delivering briny, seaswept vibes to customers’ tables with its hand-crafted, highly curated product selection. We like their flaky salt for its perfectly-sized crystals that add a finishing touch to everything from salads to chocolate chip cookies.
Once you’ve tried Jacobsen Salt, you won’t want to be without it — making these slim, highly portable tins essential. Buy the 15-pack, and you’ve got stocking stuffers and your White Elephant gift exchanges handled.
This high-end oil has its origins in both Brooklyn and Italy: It’s made from Sicilian-grown olives, and used by the famed New York restaurant Frankies 457 Spuntino. The team at Frankies 457 isn’t shy about sharing their trade secrets (This EVOO is made from Nocellara del Belice olives), and the result is a drizzle-able oil with nutty, fruity notes. The tin isn’t just for good looks, either. It protects the oil from UV rays and keeps it fresh.
For the uninitiated, Italian panettone is a rich, eggy sweet bread infused with dried fruits, traditionally made and gifted around Christmas. Panettone is only as good as the ingredients used, which is why Giada DeLaurentiis only recommended this one after ensuring it was baked with the highest-quality flour, butter, and fruit. This cake is made by hand in Verona and leavened naturally with a 48-hour fermentation period. The result is a fluffy, impossibly tender loaf you’ll want to keep all to yourself. Oh, and the Italian-designed tin is so gorgeous, that it just might upstage the panettone.
No sweet treats brand delivers smiles quite like Milk Bar: After all, this is the company behind such irreverent concoctions as a Cheetos-adorned Birthday Cake. They’re keeping things a little more mellow, but just as fun, with this holiday gift idea. The clear-paned tin is packaged festively and comes with Milk Bar’s best-loved cookies and three kits for making your own flavored milk.
It’ll be hard to choose between the holiday sugar cookie flavor, pumpkin cinnamon, or apple cider donut, but luckily, all three are included. As a thoughtful touch, a reusable mesh strainer is included, so all you have to do is pick up the milk.
Fishwife is one of our favorite tinned fish brands, and for good reason. The woman-founded company was a major bellwether in shaping the seafood industry’s shift to transparent, ethical sourcing, and we love them for it. Other reasons to adore Fishwife: their highly unique offerings (sardines with preserved lemon, and smoked salmon flavored with Fly by Jing Sichuan Chili Crisp to name a couple); their cheeky origin story (“fishwife” is a colloquial term for bossy, brash women), and the gloriously illustrated packaging. Trust us, you’ve never had tinned fish quite like this before.
The first four words of this holiday treat say it all. What’s not to love about “butter almond toffee popcorn”? Poppy’s ingredient sourcing is stringent: they use real butter, and the non-GMO corn kernels are popped in small batches to ensure quality in every tin. The result is a snackable mix that’s equal parts salty and sweet. The festive yet sophisticated tin makes it a nice choice for everyone on your list, from relatives and friends to teachers and postal workers.
Peppermint bark is one of the more traditional picks on our list, and the ingredients matter when crafting a sweet and minty bark with the perfect snap. The team at Harry & David has cracked the code, making their tinned bark one of our must-haves. The secret is a thick slab of dark chocolate swirled with sweet white chocolate, finished with a shower of crushed peppermint candies. Every bite contains a little bit of each flavor — a must for true bark aficionados. The duo of twins are just as sweet, with a candy cane striped design and spacious interior you’ll want to repurpose.
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: a giant tin of artisan pasta is the way to our hearts. This cheeky offering from the popular NYC restaurant looks just like a traditional popcorn tin but inside is filled with dried casarecce, lumache, and trottole. Don’t worry: the tin contains dividers to keep each shape separate. If you want to level up your gift, add in a three-pack of Rubirosa’s famous marinara sauce. It’s a match made in red sauce heaven.
If you love Italian cookies, Chiostro di Saronno is a baker you need to know. They’ve been baking in Saronno for centuries, so it’s safe to say they’ve mastered the recipe for the perfect amaretti cookie. The family-owned bakery pulled out all the stops for this giftable tin, with four different varieties. There’s the traditional crunchy amaretti, soft amaretti, amaretti with chocolate chips, and lemon amaretti. Can’t choose a favorite? Giada de Laurentiis uses the crunchy cookies in many of her holiday recipes, including as a crust for a naturally gluten-free cheesecake.
Is there a tin more iconic than one filled with caviar? We think not. The Caviar Co. is a perfect example of approachable luxury. As purveyors of the finest seafood, this brand still manages to keep things fun. Their “Perfect Pair” Cooler Gift Set is ideal for caviar aficionados who will appreciate the duo of tins, plus the ability to customize your order. You can choose from classic white sturgeon and paddlefish, white sturgeon and Siberian sturgeon, and Kaluga hybrid and Osetra.
The white glove shipping is essential for ensuring the caviar arrives fresher-than-fresh, thanks to premium packaging and 1-2 day shipping.
Ceremonial Grade matcha is a wow-worthy gift for green tea drinkers, and we’re big fans of the blends by Chamberlain Coffee. This gift set includes three 1.5-ounce tins of their best-loved matcha: original, mango, and vanilla-flavored. The high quality of these blends makes the variety pack a gift equally suited to matcha pros as well as novices. P.S.: We think their lavender matcha latte mix is pretty darn delicious, too.
This luxe tinned fish company has been on our radar for a while. Their fish are harvested in Galicia, Spain, which makes this a good option for giftees who prioritize sustainability and transparency in sourcing. Siesta Co.’s variety pack isn’t for the tinned fish newbie, but the variety will appeal to aficionados. The set includes mussels in pickled oil, mackerel, and sardines in extra virgin olive oil. There’s also tuna in EVOO, which is one of our favorites of the bunch.
The colorful packaging is pure joy and makes it a memorable stocking stuffer. We’d happily display these tins on our counters as decor.
Pineapple Collaborative’s oil tastes good and does good. It’s crafted with exclusively California-grown olives (Arbosana and Koroneiki varieties), picked at the peak of ripeness and quickly processed to retain their vibrant flavor. Fans of the brand cite its prioritization of relationships with women along their supply chain as one of the key appeals. Well, that and the fun, colorful tins. Choose from a creamy white, pale pink, or mustardy yellow tin — or splurge on all three in a gift-ready set.
We can’t imagine the holidays without Moose Munch, the snack mix so famous, that it has a trademark. This pretty holiday tin features a Scandinavian-inspired winter design and inside holds four bags of flavored Moose Munch. The 10-ounce bags of dark chocolate peppermint bark, dark chocolate salted caramel, dark chocolate churro, and milk chocolate holiday blend prove that this is not your basic caramel corn. Don’t leave Moose Munch off your list: It’s a must at parties, gatherings, and office break rooms throughout the season.
We’d be remiss to leave these famous cookies off the list. We’re not sure which is more famous: the buttery, melt-in-your-mouth cookie recipe or the tin. Although Royal Dansk may not be as artisanal a choice as some of the cookies on our list, we appreciate that they’re made without preservatives or dyes — and we’ll admit, there’s no substitute as an accompaniment for a cup of hot coffee. The real allure here is the tin, which can be reused to store sewing supplies, art supplies, stamps, and more.
We’ll get to the teas in a moment, but first, you’ve got to check out the gold-embossed details on these tins! They feature the brand’s signature hot air balloons with different colored ombré backgrounds. Just gorgeous. Now, onto the tea. This set includes three different blends of real-deal chai: ginger, cinnamon, and Maharani Oolong. The blends are extremely high-quality (no “tea dust” here). VAHDAM prioritizes its relationships with Indian farmers, eliminating the middleman to allow for more sustainable, ethical sourcing.
Can’t jet off to Italy for the holidays? This eye-catching Moka pot is the next best thing. Two Italian powerhouses merged for this collaboration, with Dolce and Gabbana’s designs on Bialetti’s Moka pot, coffee canister, and commemorative tin. The Moka pot small coffee maker can be used on a variety of stovetop styles, and the tin is filled with 7.5 ounces of freshly ground coffee. We’d love to see anything from Bialetti in a gift-wrapped box, but the Sicilian-inspired design on this set makes it one of the most covetable items on our list.
This exclusive collection of juicy dried fruits and premium nuts is ready for your next holiday party: Just add Brie for an Insta-ready cheese board. One of the nicest host or hostess gifts we’ve come across this year, these tins offer a mix of nuts (almonds, pistachios, cashews, and walnuts) and sun-dried fruit (Black Mission figs, kiwi, tricolor raisins, pears, and pineapple). We especially like that the tins keep everything fresh. As a bonus, the California-grown products are all from a family-run farm that prioritizes solar energy, healthy soil, and protecting honey bee habitats.
Is it whiskey or is it cherry liqueur? Well, both! Stillhouse blends 100% corn whiskey with liqueur made with cherries and warming holiday spices. The holiday-red tin is reminiscent of an oil can and has a cool industrial vibe. Bring a tin of Stillhouse Cherry Whiskey to all your parties this year and make any old cocktail (or cup of coffee) a little sweeter, spicier, and boozier. This also makes a great gift for the bourbon lover or whiskey aficionado in your life.
And just in case you were wondering: Stillhouse doesn’t cut corners on the whiskey in this blended drink. Their spirits are distilled in traditional copper stills and filtered through charcoal for a truly superior flavor.
Magnolia may be best known for its Carrie Bradshaw-approved cupcakes, but here’s an industry secret: Do not sleep on their cookies. The best way to try them is with Magnolia’s holiday cookie tin, which features four of their best-loved recipes. It’ll be hard to choose a favorite between the buttery snowballs, colorful spritz, jammy thumbprints, and chocolate crinkles, but we believe you are up to the task. Although the bakery is famous in NYC, these cookies are shipped nationwide. The tin is patterned in Magnolia’s signature colors, so you can feel like you’re indulging right there.
Love Ghia? We do too. Show your super fan status with a branded apron embroidered with the NA aperitif’s logo. We like that it is made in LA, has pockets (four of ‘'em), and is made from sustainable dyes and a blend of cotton and hemp fabric. Oh, and did we mention the packaging? Ghia’s apron comes in a La Dolce tin, so you can spend your gift wrap money on a case of Ghia’s editor-loved nonalcoholic drinks.
One of the most unique picks on our list, this tinned fish is made from plants. It’s an innovative spin on snow crab (enoki mushrooms) and whitefish (celery root). Packaged beautifully, these tins look and taste just like the real thing, but they’re vegan-friendly and packed with umami. Pretty enough to give all on their own, but we think they’d shine paired with fancy crackers or a DIY ramen kit.
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Our Expertise
Rochelle Bilow is a food writer and editor with over a decade of professional experience. Previously a senior associate editor and social media manager at Bon Appétit and Cooking Light magazines, Rochelle is also a novelist, a culinary school graduate, and a former professional baker and line cook. Rochelle has written extensively about home and kitchen products in the luxury space; in writing this article, she included picks from a variety of brands, including many tested and approved by Food & Wine editors.