We taste-tested 11 brands of chocolate granola you’re likely to find at your local supermarket or online. To find the very best one, we sampled each without knowing which was which. Our winner is Cascadian Farm Organic Dark Chocolate Almond, but we also crowned two runners-up.
I can always count on a spoonful of chocolate granola to energize me or spruce up my favorite ice creams and yogurts. While it’s possible to make your own granola with cocoa powder and chocolate, I don’t always have time. For that reason, I like to keep a bag of store-bought chocolate granola in my pantry. With so many options available, the question is: Which ones are worth buying?
To find the very best chocolate granola, our editors sampled 11 different brands that you’re likely to find at your local grocery store or online. We stuck to oat-based granolas flavored with chocolate. We poured each into bowls, then sampled them in random order without knowing which brand was which. Some editors tasted the granolas two ways: plain and with milk. After crunching our way through 11 chocolate granolas, we tabulated the results and crowned an overall winner, as well as three worthy contenders that we’d be happy to eat for breakfast or atop a scoop of ice cream.
The Criteria
Like all granola, good chocolate granola should be crisp and satisfying to snack on. It should have bite-size pieces that are nicely crunchy but not so brittle that they are hard to chew. It should be evenly toasted, but not excessively so—it should not taste bitter or burnt. It might be obvious, but chocolate granola should taste chocolaty—and not in a chalky way. Though a touch of sweetness is welcome, it should not be cloying, and there should be just enough salt to round it out. Store-bought chocolate granola doesn’t have to taste freshly baked, but it shouldn’t taste like it’s been sitting on the shelf for weeks or months.
Serious Eats / Amanda Suarez
Overall Winner
Cascadian Farm Organic Dark Chocolate Almond
Everyone approved of this granola’s crunchy texture. “No notes,” wrote Kelli, our senior social media editor, though she did go on to give some very positive notes: She thought the flavor was nice, rich, and “reminiscent of chocolate cake.” Genevieve, our senior editor, thought that its flavor was a bit musty when she tasted it plain, but she liked it better with milk. Amanda, our associate visuals director, enjoyed that the granola tasted as if there was “real chocolate.” She’s not wrong—this granola does, in fact, contain dark chocolate chips.
Runners-Up
- Good and Gather Double Chocolate Chunk Granola
- NuTrail Dark Chocolate Nut Granola
Our editors thought Good and Gather Double Chocolate Chunk Granola was the junk food granola of the bunch, but they meant it in the best way. In fact, every taster loved this granola. “This is like the Cocoa Krispies of granola—kinda junky but also good,” wrote Daniel, our editorial director. Kelli thought that it tasted like “Dutch process cocoa,” which she found pleasant, but found it a touch too sweet. Her final verdict would please chocolate cookie fans: “If you like Oreos, you’ll like this.”
“This really feels more like a snack mix than a granola,” wrote Kelli of NuTrail Dark Chocolate Nut Granola. Meanwhile, Genevieve enjoyed the crunchy, appropriately sized clusters—not too big and not too small—and their “chocolaty” flavors. Daniel thought it needed salt, but didn’t mind the flavor overall. Since this granola lacked oats, the sunflower and pumpkin seeds were more noticeable to Amanda.
Serious Eats / Amanda Suarez
The Contenders
- Cascadian Farm Organic Dark Chocolate Almond
- Good and Gather Double Chocolate Chunk Granola
- Grandy Organics Dark Chocolate Sea Salt Granola
- KIND Healthy Grains Gluten Free Dark Chocolate Granola Clusters
- Kodiak Granola, Chocolate
- Michele’s Granola Cocoa Chocolate Chip
- Nature Valley Protein Oats ‘n Dark Chocolate Crunchy Granola
- Nature’s Path Love Crunch Double Chocolate Chunk Granola
- NuTrail Dark Chocolate Nut Granola
- Purely Elizabeth Chocolate Sea Salt Granola
- Trader Joe’s Chocolate Coffee Granola
Key Takeaways and Conclusion
Our biggest takeaway from this taste test? Chocolate granola is delicious! In fact, our editors gave high marks to nearly all the granolas we tested—our winner and the runners-up just got the highest marks.
With the exception of one brand, all the chocolate granolas we tasted have oats as the main ingredient. Most are sweetened with cane sugar, brown sugar, or coconut sugar. Many also contained oil and nuts and/or seeds. Some granolas contain preservatives such as tocopherol, a form of vitamin E used to maintain freshness.
To achieve that signature chocolate flavor, many chocolate granolas contain cocoa powder and chocolate chips or chunks. Some granolas are made with cocoa powder processed with alkali—in other words, Dutch-processed cocoa powder. The chocolate chunks are commonly made with sugar, chocolate liquor, cocoa butter, and vanilla. Generally, our editors preferred granolas made with both cocoa powder and chocolate chips, which contributed multiple layers of chocolate. Our winner, Cascadian Farm Organic Dark Chocolate Almond, contains both dark chocolate chips and cocoa powder.
Our editors found chocolate granolas made with cane sugar to be sweeter than granolas made with other sweeteners such as barley malt syrup and honey. Our tasters also found that granolas containing rice starch—an ingredient typically used to give granolas a crisp texture—tasted slightly stale and had muted chocolate notes, so we’d skip that when purchasing granola for our own pantries.
Our Testing Methodology
All taste tests are conducted with brands completely hidden and without discussion. Tasters taste samples in random order. For example, taster A may taste sample one first, while taster B will taste sample six first. This is to prevent palate fatigue from unfairly giving any one sample an advantage. Tasters are asked to fill out tasting sheets, ranking the samples according to various criteria. All data is tabulated, and results are calculated with no editorial input to provide the most impartial representation of actual results possible.
