Save Your Money And Avoid This Vegan Chocolate Bar We Ranked The Worst
Vegan chocolate is just as tasty and complex as conventional popular chocolate brands. In fact, many dark chocolates are naturally vegan. Just like regular chocolate brands, some vegan brands can unfortunately miss the mark. Ingredients like cocoa butter, coconut milk, and oat milk can work just fine as a milk replacement, but sometimes the flavor or texture isn't great for other reasons. One bar you should consider leaving out of your cart is Brooklyn Born Chocolate's paleo vegan milk chocolate.
Chowhound ranked this one the lowest out of 13 vegan chocolate bars that we taste tested, predominantly due to an off-putting texture that was starch-like. As for flavor, it was slightly earthy but with a cloying stevia-esque sweetness, which is strange considering the chocolate is made with coconut sugar. The bar's ingredients list is short, containing cacao butter, coconut sugar, almonds, cashews, pea protein, cacao liquor, and sea salt. The fact that cacao liquor, which is essentially the chocolate component of this bar, is listed last is likely why it lacks a rich, complex flavor.
It makes sense that this vegan chocolate bar would have an unpleasant starch-like texture, as one of its ingredients is pea protein. It's great to sneak in a little extra protein to sweet treats, but pea protein is known to have a gritty texture and a slightly bitter, vegetal flavor, so maybe, it simply does not belong in a chocolate bar. Brooklyn Born Chocolate isn't the most affordable option either, as four chocolate bars will cost you $24.
Alternatives to Brooklyn Born Chocolate
Despite being our least favorite vegan chocolate to indulge in, Brooklyn Born Chocolate admittedly does a lot of right. This particular bar, and the brand overall, makes chocolate that caters to a lot of diets, including vegan, paleo, and keto. Plus, it uses natural, organic ingredients and no refined sugars.
As much as we want to like a better-for-you bar, it's not worth buying this one since it's simply not a pleasant eating experience. (Note: we haven't tried the other chocolate bars from Brooklyn Born Chocolate, so it's certainly possible that there are tastier ones.) If you want vegan chocolate with similar values and great taste, there are other brands to consider. For starters, the No. 1 option on our list is Evolved and its signature dark chocolate bar. This bar tastes luxurious and indulgent, while still using healthy, organic, and sustainable ingredients. However, like Brooklyn Born Chocolate, it's on the pricey side; four bars cost $24.
For a comparable but more affordable option, HU Kitchen is a paleo chocolate brand with plenty of vegan bars that also uses all organic ingredients and coconut sugar for sweetness. The Simple Dark Chocolate, Salty Dark Chocolate, and Hazelnut Butter Dark Chocolate bars each have a 4.5-star rating on Amazon from thousands of reviews. A pack of six bars sells for around $23, depending on the flavor. Now that you know about some of the worst and best vegan chocolate bars, it's worth reading up on vegan candy, too.