19 Popular Easter Candies Ranked From Worst To Best

While one should always be grateful for a wicker basket full of treats, it must be acknowledged that not all Easter candy is created equal. Every spring, candy aisles and seasonal sections are overrun with pastel-colored chocolates, egg-shaped delights, and about 100,000 different kinds of jelly beans. So what candies are worth your time and dollar and which should be put into a plastic egg and launched into oblivion via trebuchet? Don't worry; we ranked the best and worst Easter candies for you.

Easter is the exact opposite of a somber holiday, so why would you choose to eat such an unhappy candy? In fact, even considering these licorice morsels candy is being a little generous with the term.

Jelly beans and Easter go together like peanut butter and jelly. But have you ever stopped to think if jelly beans are actually any good? We're not talking about Jelly Belly or other brands of beans (more on those later). We're talking about that classic mixture or black, white, red, yellow, orange, green, and purple beans with vaguely fruity flavors that are at once so familiar and so foreign. The texture of these beans is oddly grainy on the inside and instantly stale on the outside. Respect your Easter basket enough to skip this treat.

Like black jelly beans, Jordan almonds are a candy that just look boring and sad. The pastel colors just look ... sleepy. When you actually talk about the flavor of a Jordan almond, similarly, it's a little boring. And you may want to be careful; the sugary candy coating on these things can crack your teeth if you're not careful!

One of the autumn's most divisive foods likes to reappear in the spring. Yes, candy corn is known as "bunny corn" for Easter. Don't let the swap from orange and yellow to pink and purple fool you; this is the same sticky, sweet, corn syrup-loaded confection you buy for Halloween. Candy corn — or whatever you call it — is bad in the fall, and it's bad in the spring.

Wait, chocolate bunnies are bad? Yes. They are. Think of the hollow chocolate bunnies you pick up at the drug store or Walmart or wherever it is you shop. They cost $1.99 and they taste like they cost even less than that. You don't even have to eat the ears off of a cheap, hollow chocolate bunny to know the taste and texture: sugary, chalky, waxy, crumbly, and nasty.

M&M's are one of America's favorite candies, and for a good reason. They're simple, perfectly sweet, and an easy thing to eat either just a few of or a whole bag of. As an Easter candy, though, they're nothing special. While we love a different color of M&M, beyond pretty shades of blue, purple, yellow, pink, and light green, these candies aren't anything you can't get literally any other time of year.

A chocolate-covered marshmallow should be a delightful experience, but like the hollow chocolate bunny, marshmallow eggs are typically made of cheap chocolate and filled with grainy mallows, when they should be airy, subtly sweet puffs of perfection. Sad!

These days, Cadbury Mini Eggs may shimmer and shine, but that doesn't make them any better than a mid-range candy. We love these eggs because the chocolate is a nice, creamy quality and an egg shape is festive fun for the Easter season. But we don't love the candy shell. Somehow, it just reminds us of old-fashioned candies we totally forgot existed (for a reason).

We don't hate Easter candy, we swear! But the Cadbury Crème Egg, which features a sticky fondant filling that is white and yellow inside of a chocolate shell, is a little too much. While it's a beloved confection both in America and especially abroad, it is sickeningly sweet. Try that filling on its own. You'll be visiting the dentist sooner than you can say "cavity"!

While Cadbury Crème Eggs are really only so-so, Cadbury's caramel-filled eggs are where it's at. When you take a bite into that egg-shaped milk chocolate confection, a caramel filling that is pure perfection oozes out. Not too sweet, smooth, or sticky, this caramel egg is something we dream about all year long.

A lot of favorite candies come in egg shapes during the Easter season, and some turn out better than others. The Butterfinger Egg, traditionally, has been a massive success thanks to its crispy, peanut-flavored inside. Is it messy? Yes. But it's satisfying.

If you're looking for something simple yet scrumptious to put in your Easter basket, consider the Dove Egg. This confection can be found pretty much anywhere and for a very reasonable price. But Dove makes really delicious chocolates, and their milk chocolate stands strongly on its own.

Whoppers, those malted milk balls you buy in a box that looks like a carton of milk, are already pretty close to being egg shaped. That's why adding a candy coating to this treat and dyeing it pastel colors is such a natural fit. The candy coating is snappy and sugary without being overly sweet, and malted milk is a vastly underrated candy type that people really need to get in their lives more often. This seasonal treat lets that happen.

If you're not a big fan of ham, lamb, or other Easter dinners, just grab yourself a Snickers egg. Like the candy bar it comes from, this chocolate, caramel, nougat, and peanut combination is truly filling. And who doesn't like a Snickers bar? It's a classic for a reason!

Peeps are far and away the sweetest Easter candy around, and not just because they're sugary marshmallows covered in even more sugar. Just look at those faces! Though Peeps are now available basically year-round in the form of hearts, pumpkins and gingerbread men, the chicks and bunnies are true classics of the Easter season and so frickin' adorable. When you start making plushes and other merch out of your candy, it's clear you have a total winner on your hands. And if you didn't know you could buy non-marshmallow Peeps, there are probably a lot of things you didn't know about Peeps.

Are solid chocolate bunnies really a top-five Easter candy while their hollow counterparts are left far, far behind? Yes. What it all boils down to is quality. Not all hollow Easter bunnies are cheap and chalky, but you're going to find a lot of cheap, chalky bun-buns hopping into baskets every spring. Meanwhile, if you try hard enough and head to the best chocolate shop in your state, you can get a high-quality and totally cute chocolate bunny if you want one.

The best thing about Easter is eating regular candy in adorable, seasonal shapes. And SweeTarts Chicks, Ducks & Bunnies epitomizes this. These are basically just regular ol' SweeTarts in festive baby animal shapes. The shapes are, once again, so very cute, but they also add in tiny nooks and crannies that give extra texture to this already beloved tart hard candy.

While black jelly beans and jelly beans of unknown origin are our least favorite candies, we have to give credit where credit is due and say that Starburst jelly beans are the star of fruity Easter candies. A little sour, perfectly sweet, and in flavors that are actually familiar, these bright, bold candies are the best possible cargo for any plastic egg.

No matter its shape, a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup is a top-tier candy. And while we firmly believe that nothing beats the OG Reese's, the Reese's Egg is a very, very close second. It's such a close second that it beats every other Easter candy on the market. The thin shell of sweet milk chocolate encases just loads of that scrumptious Reese's peanut butter that every chocolate fan knows and loves. A Reese's Egg goes perfectly with a glass of milk, and is the one thing you'd be happiest to find on your creative Easter egg hunt.