3 Red Flags To Avoid When You’re Buying Easter Chocolate

Easter is second only to Halloween when it comes to chocolate-covered treats— just think of all the bunnies and eggs you see on store shelves. While some parts of the holiday were better as a kid (spending the morning hunting for candy), one thing I don’t miss is the disappointing taste of certain Easter chocolates. You know the ones — waxy, bland and weirdly crayon-like.

According to Erica Gilmour, a chocolatier and founder of Hummingbird Chocolate in Almonte, Ontario, that chalky texture often comes from fillers like palm oil or soy lecithin, a sign that the brand you’ve chosen is cutting costs over creating a creamy, craveable confection.

HuffPost spoke with experts about the three red flags that may make you reconsider when shopping for Easter chocolates. Here’s what they had to say.

Before you grab that chocolate bunny, take a second to give it a once-over. A little visual inspection can save you from biting into something disappointing.

“If the chocolate is dull, soft or cloudy, it may indicate the chocolate is lower quality or not tempered correctly,” said Bill Brown, chief chocolate officer and owner of William Dean Chocolates in Florida. Instead, look for a shiny, almost glossy exterior — this indicates the chocolate has been properly tempered. Not only does it make for a more tempting-looking treat, but tempered chocolate has a smooth, silky texture when you bite it.

Watch out for bright pink or red confections — Red dye No. 3 has been linked to health concerns. “One additive to be on high alert for this year in Easter chocolate is Red dye No. 3,” said Denise Castronovo, a chocolate maker and owner of Castronovo Chocolate in Florida. “The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has banned the use of Red dye No. 3, but food manufacturers have until January 2027 to remove it from their product.”

If you can get close enough to a bonbon or bar, give it a sniff. “Does it smell like chocolate?” asked Ron Sweetser, a cocoa sourcing and quality manager at Dandelion Chocolates in San Francisco. “It should! Not just sweet.”

You don’t need to be a food scientist to spot bad chocolate — just flip the package over.

“High-quality chocolate has few ingredients [and] cacao (i.e. cocoa beans) is the most predominant one instead of sugar,” Castronovo said. “Dark chocolate only needs two ingredients: cacao and sugar.”

The same is true for milk or white chocolate. Castronovo explained, “High-quality milk chocolate has four ingredients: cacao, sugar, cocoa butter and milk. High-quality white chocolate should only be made with cocoa butter, sugar, milk and possibly real vanilla.”

All food products list ingredients in order of quantity, so if sugar or sweeteners come first, the chocolate likely has very little actual cacao. According to Gilmour, this makes for an easy tell: “If sugar or an alternative sweetener are the first or second ingredient, the chocolate does not have very much cacao in it and is low quality.”

Some mass-market chocolates contain ingredients you’d expect to find in a candle, not a candy bar. Cheap chocolate is often loaded with fillers like vanillin (a synthetic vanilla substitute), paraffin (a food-grade wax) and palm oil — ingredients that help manufacturers cut costs but don’t do your taste buds any favors.

Gilmour said, “Any type of palm oil or other oils (aside from cocoa butter) are being used as a cheap filler or alternative to real cocoa butter. This is a sign of a low-quality chocolate.”

If you’re scoring a deal and not shopping the after-Easter discount rack, you should be suspicious. While price doesn’t guarantee that you’ll get lower quality, with historically high cocoa prices, chocolate has also gotten more expensive.

Gilmour shared, “Although you can’t trust that chocolate is good quality because it’s expensive, you can be sure that very inexpensive chocolate is not good quality. So a low price is an immediate giveaway.”

Depending on the size of the product, Gilmour noted that consumers should expect to pay between $5 and $7 for a mid-range 60-gram bar of chocolate, with $8 being on the premium end. Anything below $4 is likely lower quality.