20 Chocolate Brands That Use the Highest Quality Ingredients
Sometimes, when a sugar craving hits, you just want to dig into some chocolate—and that's perfectly fine! You just need to be mindful of low-quality ingredients and added sugars that are lurking in many chocolate treats. Take a peek at the ingredient list of America's beloved M&M's, for instance, and you'll find a lineup of ingredients that might raise an eyebrow or two, including cornstarch, corn syrup, and a rainbow of artificial colors. Long story short, these popular treats are affordable for a reason—they're made with cheap stuff.
Thankfully, there are plenty of healthy chocolate brands out there that are both delicious and produce a product that people can feel confident eating. These high-quality chocolate brands pride themselves on transparency, using sustainably sourced cacao and natural ingredients while skimping on added sugars and questionable additives.
So treat yourself to some chocolate that tastes good, and that you can also feel good about eating if you're trying to be healthy. Read on, and next, check out 9 Chocolate Bars That Dietitians Love.
Chocolove
Chocolove's rich, complex chocolate bars are heavier on sugar compared to the many other options, so don't confuse quality with healthiness here, but in terms of quality, many of the unique chocolates this brand offers are hard to match. That includes things like a vibrantly pink chocolate bar they offer called Ruby Chocolate, an effectively new type of chocolate altogether. Chocolove also offers flavors like Coffee Crunch and Salted Caramel in Dark Chocolate and Cherries and Almonds in Dark Chocolate.
Oobli
Oftentimes when you're on the hunt for low-sugar chocolate, you end up having to resort to a form of dark chocolate. This is perfectly fine for dark chocolate lovers, but some people would rather enjoy a creamy, less bitter milk chocolate bar, something that is harder to find in healthier forms.
However, Oobli is working to solve this problem. With their Cocoa Dreams Milk Chocolate Bar, chocolate lovers can enjoy a creamy indulgence for only 1 gram of added sugar, zero sugar alternatives, and an impressive 10 grams of fiber!
How do they do this? By using sweet protein, which is a sweetener that comes from a rare Ecuadorian fruit. This sweetener is said to be better for your gut health than other alternatives like aspartame and sucralose, making Oobli Bars a healthier choice all around.
The Good Chocolate
A vegan, low-carb, Keto-friendly chocolate bar that still tastes good? Sign us up! The Good Chocolate's Dark Chocolate With Ginger Bars are made with organic cacao beans, organic cacao butter, and zesty ginger crystals, and each bar contains zero grams of added sugar.
Mast Market
Made with only three ingredients, this Dark Chocolate from Mast Market is the epitome of minimal, high-quality ingredient chocolate.
It contains vanilla, cacao beans, and cane sugar, all of which are certified organic. This bar is also non-GMO, vegan, kosher, gluten-free, and dairy-free. If 80% dark chocolate isn't your thing, you can choose from their other organic bars like their Oat Milk Chocolate, Sea Salt Chocolate, or Chocolate Raspberry. Whichever flavor you choose, your experience will be clean, safe, and delicious.
Public Goods
These chocolate bars from Public Goods are certainly on the pricier side, but if you're looking for something special, tasty, and made with high-quality ingredients, these Ayurvedic Dark Chocolate Bars are a great choice.
Ayurveda is a system of medicine used for over 5,000 years, originating from India, in which an emphasis is put on preventing disease and illness through natural foods and herbs. People still practice this medicine all over the world today, and it is growing in popularity in the U.S. in the last few years. These chocolates have Ayurvedic properties, with each bar offering natural ingredients to benefit different parts of your body.
For instance, the Chocolate Maple Toffee flavor is made with moringa leaf powder, which is known to help strengthen your immunity, reduce inflammation, and increase your intake of antioxidants and nutrients, and their Chocolate & Sea Salt flavor contains turmeric, which can help your joints, respiratory system, and digestive health.
Fine & Raw
Fine and Raw is a chocolate company from Brooklyn, New York that specializes in plant-based, artisan chocolate bars, spreads, and truffles. All of their chocolates use high-quality ingredients, and their Sea Salt Bar contains only four: Organic cacao bean, organic coconut sugar, organic cacao butter, and sea salt.
The sugar is lower than many other chocolate bars at only 8 grams per serving, and you'll get a nice 8 grams of fiber as well. If you don't like sea salt on your chocolate, they also have options like Hazelnut Butter, Espresso, or a plain 85% Dark Chocolate Bar.
Honey Mama's Truffle Treats
Dietitian Lauren Manaker, MS, RDN, author of The First Time Mom's Pregnancy Cookbook and Fueling Male Fertility loves the chocolate truffle bars from Honey Mama's.
These truffle treats are made with whole-food ingredients like raw honey, coconut oil, coconut flour, and pecans, and on top of being made with trustworthy ingredients, this chocolate bar has only 4 grams of sugar and 80 calories. They're also dairy-free, gluten-free, and soy-free, so they fit with a wide range of dietary needs.
UNREAL Chocolate
UNREAL is a great brand with a variety of options like peanut butter cups, chocolate gems, and chocolate bars, and it's one of our top dietitian-approved choices for chocolates with high-quality ingredients. "UNREAL chocolate is made with fair trade chocolate that is organic, sustainable, and non-GMO project verified," says Manaker.
You can also have peace of mind knowing that "their products contain up to 51% less sugar than the leading brand while free from artificial ingredients or sugar alternatives," says Manaker.
Alter Eco
Alter Eco is another well-known organic brand that can help people feel confident in what they're eating when they're craving chocolate.
"This is an organic chocolate brand dedicated to regenerating ecosystems and empowering farmers, and their ingredients are sourced from farmer-owned co-ops practicing sustainable agriculture to offer a variety of melt-in-your-mouth, organic chocolates," says Manaker. "Their products are also non-GMO and totally delicious."
Theo Chocolate
According to their website, Theo is a company that strives to "contribute toward a more compassionate and enduring world," and they do this by maintaining "full transparency, stable pricing, and third-party verification." Not only is this company honest in its processes, but it's honest in its ingredients as well.
"Theo Chocolate is made from sustainable and organic chocolate, contains no filler ingredients, and it is made from non-GMO ingredients, as well as being soy-free, kosher, vegan-friendly, and gluten-free," says Manaker.
Endangered Species
"This company focuses on real, high-quality ingredients in every aspect, from real fair-trade cocoa to pure cane sugar to American-grown fruit," says registered dietitian Kaleigh McMordie, MCN, RDN. "They also leave out any additives and fillers from their chocolate, and each chocolate bar tastes delicious!"
Endangered Species has plenty of chocolate flavors and combos to choose from, but McMordie suggests the "Espresso Beans + Dark Chocolate Bar, which is made with fair-trade coffee beans roasted in the USA."
Hu Chocolate
If you're looking for chocolate with very few ingredients, Hu is a deliciously good choice.
"Hu chocolate bars probably have the shortest, simplest ingredients list out of all chocolate bars out there. Their chocolate is made from organic, fair trade cocoa and unrefined coconut sugar, and they focus on real, simple ingredients, leaving out some typical less-than-desirable ingredients you might typically find in chocolate, such as emulsifiers, palm oil, or sugar alcohols. The milk chocolate bars are even made with grass-fed milk," says McMordie.
Neuhaus
According to Rachel Fine, RDN, registered dietitian and founder of To The Pointe Nutrition, Neuhaus Belgian chocolate uses high-quality ingredients you can trust.
"Neuhaus is known for their true Belgium chocolate roots with whole milk powder, milk cream, and butter offering an extra satisfying mouthfeel that better promotes feelings of fullness and satisfaction, making consumers more likely to listen to and honor fullness cues," says Fine.
Green and Black's
Green & Black's is another helpful option for those looking for healthier chocolate options because "this chocolate offers a simple option with just 4 ingredients: chocolate liquor, cane sugar, cocoa butter, and vanilla," says Fine.
Not only are there simple ingredients, but "another benefit is the higher fiber content, which promotes steady blood sugar rises and more sustained energy levels after consumption," says Fine.
Enjoy Life Semi Sweet Chocolate Chips
If you're looking for some chocolate chips to bake with that you can trust, Enjoy Life is the perfect option.
Enjoy Life Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips are great because they contain 3 ingredients: sugar, unsweetened cocoa, and cocoa butter, and they're vegan," says Dana Ellis Hunnes Ph.D., MPH, RD a registered dietitian and author of Recipe for Survival. "They also have 7 grams of sugar per 1-tablespoon serving, which isn't terrible for chocolate. That's a little under 2 teaspoons of sugar."
Nib Mor
Nib Mor offers a lot of great chocolate flavors, every one of which is made with at least 72% cacao. (Some are 80%, for the record.) The rest of the ingredients are all safe and familiar, and all Nib Mor products are Rainforest Alliance Certified. They offer options like Mint, Tart Cherry, Sea Salt, Blueberry, and more.
YES Cacao
For a sweet treat that offers some natural health benefits as well, we love YES Cacoa's Botanical Chocolate Bars. You can choose from Bliss Out, Brain Power, and Endurance, with each bar powered by natural ingredients.
Take their Brain Power Bar, for instance. This chocolate is made with wild organic cacao butter and their "Brain Power Formula," which includes ingredients like Lion's Mane mushrooms, turmeric extract, and ginkgo. If you want to relax instead, their Bliss Out Bar features a combination of relaxing ingredients like kava, blue lotus flowers, and GABA tea.
All of YES Caco's products are made with organic ingredients, are vegan-friendly, and a sweetener called CleanCane, which is a regenerative farming method for harvesting sugar cane and crystalizing the cane stalks—a process that helps maintain the medicinal and mineral properties of sugar cane in its natural form.
Lily's
Many of Lily's chocolate bars have no sugar added, like the company's Crispy Rice Dark Chocolate Bar. It does feature Stevia as a sweetener, and many people do strive to avoid that sugar substitute, but the bulk of the ingredients are high quality, so if you want a tasty chocolate bar and you're trying to cut out sugar, this brand is a good choice.
Lindt Excellence
Regular Lindt chocolates, those tasty individually-wrapped spheres of sweetness, e.g., can contain quite a few ingredients that are not of the finest quality, such as vegetable fat, milk powder, and emulsifiers, in the case of their classic Lindor Truffles. The Lindt Excellence line, however, features chocolates made with fewer and better ingredients, such as the Lindt Excellence Supreme Dark bar, which consists of just chocolate, cocoa powder, cocoa butter, sugar, and vanilla.
Taza Chocolate
Made in the stone-ground Mexican style, these unique chocolates from Taza Chocolate check all the boxes a customer concerned with quality and production could ask for. They are certified organic, they are non-GMO, they are Direct Trade confirmed, and they are kosher, gluten-free, and vegan. Also, the unique chocolate discs come in amazing flavors like Chipotle Chili, Cinnamon, and Salted Almond.
This story has been updated to include additional entries, fact-checking, and copyedits.
Sign up for our newsletter!
