7 Cheap Chocolate Bars You'll Actually Want To Buy

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"Cheap chocolate" often gets a bad rap, and for good reason. Ingredients like hydrogenated vegetable oil and synthetic vanillin can make a bar superficially enjoyable, but they tend to reveal their dark sides after the chocolate has been melting in your mouth for just a few seconds. That's not to mention the fact that cheap chocolate is frequently made possible through unethical labor conditions and unsustainable agricultural techniques.

We're not here to negate the fact that budget-friendly bars often taste sour and artificial. Nor will we claim that most such bars are produced through ethical supply chains. Instead, we're here to affirm the fact that there are still some widely acclaimed cheap chocolate bars out there that will please both your taste buds and your wallet. A few of them even demonstrate wins on the ethical and environmental fronts, too.

We curated this list based on past Tasting Table rankings, as well as online customer reviews. While "cheap" is a relative term, we ensured that each of these bars could be found for less than $1.50 per ounce pre-tax at our local stores in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. For comparison, premium brands like Hu can go for over $3 per ounce. You can learn more about our methodology at the end of this article.

In our roundup of grocery store dark chocolate brands, the Choceur Dark Chocolate bar from Aldi earned the very top spot. Why? It's aromatic, fudgy, buttery, creamy, and reminiscent of chocolate cake. Plus, it's strikingly affordable at only $0.38 per ounce, despite being imported from Europe. In other words, this bar is an all-around crowd pleaser that stands out from most budget-friendly bars.

Despite its low price tag, this bar still manages to be Rainforest Alliance Certified and features real vanilla extract instead of artificial or natural flavoring. The other ingredients are chocolate liquor, cocoa butter, cocoa powder, milk, sugar, and soy lecithin. At 49% cacao, it's gentle enough for most people to enjoy a piece by itself, but dark enough to complement the sweetness of baked goods.

Choceur Dark Chocolate with Almonds is likewise popular among customers, so grab one while you're at Aldi. We've waxed poetic about Choceur's other bars, too, including those from the Choco Changer line that introduces a further degree of ethicality while still being sold for an affordable $0.68 per ounce.

True, Whole Foods may not be the place to shop while on a budget. But if you stick to the deals and private-label products, you can still come away with quite the haul, especially if you're a Prime member. For example, we found the 365 Milk Chocolate bar for only $1.25 per ounce. This isn't the first time that we've featured this bar; we once recommended it in our roundup of milk chocolate bars to add to your cart and leave on the shelves. In our taste test, we discovered that this Fairtrade-certified chocolate offers an excellent flavor, despite its low price tag.

This bar's ingredients include sugar, cocoa butter, chocolate liquor, milk powder, nonfat dry milk, soy lecithin, and vanilla powder. With bold floral and vanilla notes, this is a sweet 34% cacao bar that falls solidly in the milk chocolate category. It's creamy and doesn't leave the strange aftertaste Hershey's bars are prone to. Judging by the ingredients, the same milk chocolate base is used to make the 365 Crispy Rice Milk Chocolate bar, so add one of those to your cart, too. Sadly, however, we weren't able to find the organic version of the 365 bar that's been offered in the past, and we hope that it comes back soon.

The bettergoods Premium Swiss Milk Chocolate bar is indisputably a step up from the Great Value milk chocolate also sold at Walmart. We tried them side by side, and the former impressed us with its cacao pod motifs, pleasing aroma, and luxurious smoothness. The latter, meanwhile, was too abhorrent to finish, repelling us with its grainy texture, sour aroma, and artificial flavor. So while the Great Value bar is certainly cheaper ($0.53 per ounce compared to $1.15 per ounce), bettergoods is overall a better pick because it won't end up in the trash can.

This bar contains sugar, dry whole milk, cocoa butter, chocolate liquor, hazelnut paste, soy lecithin, and natural flavor. Neither the natural flavor nor the hazelnut paste was obvious in our taste test. Instead, the Fairtrade-certified Ecuadorian and Ghanaian cacao shone brightly, and we were able to appreciate what makes Swiss chocolate so unique — this bar melted cleanly and smoothly, showcasing a fine balance of flavors all the while.

It's easy to spot Tony's Chocolonely bars in your grocery store's chocolate aisle. Just look for some of the largest bars in a rainbow of bold colors, and you'll be in the right place. Tony's Chocolonely Dark Milk Chocolate Pretzel Toffee bar weighs an impressive 6.35 ounces, roughly twice the weight of most other bars on this list. We've previously named it the best of over a dozen popular candy bars, thanks to the multifaceted textural experience that this bar affords. It's crunchy, sticky, and creamy all at the same time. Of course, the flavors of this Belgian chocolate are excellent, too. At 42% cacao, it may please dark chocolate and milk chocolate lovers alike.

Starring alongside Fairtrade-certified sugar and cocoa, this bar contains dry whole milk, cocoa butter, pretzel crumbs, caramel pieces, sea salt, and soy lecithin. Prices vary, but we found this bar for as low as $0.64 per ounce. It's worth noting that Tony's Chocolonely is a certified B Corporation, which speaks greatly to the ethical implications of each purchase. It's worth trying other flavors, too, like caramel and sea salt or caramel cookie.

If you're not a fan of Cadbury eggs, don't write off the brand just yet. Cadbury makes many other delicious chocolate products that can be bought year-round, not just during the Easter season. First up, you've got to try the Cadbury Royal Dark chocolate bar. We found it for $1.28 per ounce, and it landed a solid placing in our ranking of popular candy bars mentioned above. Our writer praised it for being an approachable dark chocolate, creamy and sweet, and not as bitter as the majority of dark chocolates tend to be.

This chocolate bar consists of sugar, chocolate, cocoa butter, milk fat, natural and artificial flavor, soy lecithin, and PGPR. Admittedly, some of these ingredients may cause chocolate lovers to turn up their noses. PGPR, for instance, is a synthetic emulsifier that replaces some percentage of cocoa butter in mass-produced chocolates. Still, this bar has earned high reviews among customers, who commonly praise the way it melts on the tongue and how it's not excessively sweet.

Chocolove is not the cheapest brand on this list, but it's definitely one of the most affordable luxury chocolates on the market. In fact, we once named the Chocolove Almonds and Sea Salt in Dark Chocolate bar second best in a ranking of over a dozen vegan chocolate bars. Even though this bar is just $1.21 per ounce, it still ticks a few boxes on the sustainability front, being both Rainforest Alliance certified and non-GMO certified.

And the flavor? Top-notch. The almonds and sea salt dark chocolate bar is just what it sounds like: almonds and sea salt mixed into a slab of 55% dark chocolate. The dark chocolate component contains cocoa liquor, sugar, cocoa butter, vanilla, and either soy or sunflower lecithin. Our taste tester found that the nuts were generously distributed and the salt was added in a nearly perfect proportion. We've also found that the rounded shape of each piece is pleasing on the palate, too. Don't hesitate to try other flavors from Chocolove, like the similarly wonderful Raspberries in Dark Chocolate bar.

When it comes to holiday baking, the Trader Joe's Pound Plus 72% Cacao Dark Chocolate bar is a product you'll always want to have on hand. No more running out of chocolate in the middle of making cookies with this bad boy, which weighs an astounding 17.6 ounces per bar. This is one of several Pound Plus bars that Trader Joe's offers, and we found it for just $0.51 per ounce. We gave its smaller version an excellent review in our roundup of Trader Joe's chocolates, so if you're not ready to make the bulk commitment just yet, you can start off small.

The ingredients list of this bar is shockingly short: Unsweetened chocolate, sugar, cocoa powder, and soy lecithin are all that you'll find. That means the chocolate isn't masked by any artificial flavorings like vanillin, allowing its natural flavors to shine. Indeed, this imported Belgian chocolate is packed with flavor, tasting fruity and rich like the best of dark chocolates. It's got just the right amount of bitterness to balance out the sweetness of myriad baked goods, but we can also say from experience that it's wonderful to savor a square of this chocolate on its own.

Using past Tasting Table rankings and online reviews, we ensured that each of the chocolate bars on this list offers a pleasing flavor, despite its low price tag. We found each chocolate bar for less than $1.50 per ounce pre-tax at local stores in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. We featured one flavor per brand, but often suggested additional flavors as footnotes. Candy bars with fillings (including the likes of Snickers and Milky Way bars) were not considered.