Best Trick-or-Treat Candy for Little Ghouls and Goblins

The best trick-or-treat candy for Halloween is delicious, spooky, and, ideally, individually wrapped. Unless you live in Mayberry, North Carolina, (and we know you don’t because it’s not real) those adorable little cellophane baggies of unwrapped candies you put together for trick-or-treaters are going directly into the trash—sorry!  . Let us help you find the best bag of Halloween candy for trick-or-treaters instead. 

For this year’s taste test, we broke open big bags of miniature candy bars we know and love to inspect their variety, ratios, and overall value. We also scoured our local grocery stores for bags of brand new Halloween candy we’d never tried before and ranked the coolest new bites for the little ghouls and goblins on your block, from individually wrapped chocolate stuffed marshmallows to surprisingly delicious allergen-friendly fruit snacks. Don’t switch the porch light off and go to bed early on Halloween; stock up on the best trick-or-treat candy you can buy.


best trick or treat chocolate bars

Best Unique

Popping Potion Milk Chocolate Bars with Popping Candy

Target has a whole line of unique Halloween candy this year, but this bag of Halloween candy is the best trick-or-treat candy they have. They’re fun-size chocolate bars packed with Pop Rocks-like candy. You take a bite and then you get that fun, fizzy sensation. It’s a new candy concept and some of the best trick-or-treat candy we found in stores this year. Bonus points for the cute/spooky witch on the wrappers. —Gwynedd Stuart

Credit: Liv Averett / Target

Rating:

8.5/10

Sporks

best trick or treat candy

Best New

Stuffed Puffs Monster Marsh Filled Marshmallows

We love Stuffed Puffs marshmallows (they ranked highly in our best marshmallows taste test). They’re squishy and sweet and they have a morsel of chocolate in the middle that tastes like a more delicious Hershey’s Kiss. Jumping on the trick-or-treat candy bandwagon was a brilliant move. What you get in this bag are individually wrapped Stuffed Puffs marshmallows that are a Frankenstein-y green and covered in little Halloween sprinkles for extra texture. If I wound up with a couple of these in my bag after schlepping around the neighborhood all night in tights and cat ears, it would all feel worthwhile. —Gwynedd Stuart

Credit: Liv Averett / Walmart

Rating:

8.5/10

Sporks

best fruit snacks

Best Allergen Friendly

Yum Earth Organic Gummy Fruits

Nothing would be scarier on Halloween than inadvertently sending a trick-or-treater into anaphylactic shock. That’s where this bag of Halloween candy comes in. You get 20 little packets of fruit snacks that are free of gluten, peanuts, soy, and other allergens, as well as gelatin (they’re vegan). They’re squishy and tangy and tasty. If you don’t feel like too much of a granola mom handing out vegan fruit snacks on Halloween, this is the best bag of Halloween candy. —Gwynedd Stuart

Credit: Liv Averett / Target

Rating:

8.5/10

Sporks

best reese's halloween candy

Best Peanut Butter

Reese’s Bats

When you’re looking for the best trick-or-treat candy, you kind of can’t go wrong with a big ol’ bag of Reese’s. But don’t settle for the same ol’ cups. And don’t just grab the Reese’s Pumpkins or the Reese’s Skulls. No. Get the Reese’s Bats, aka Halloween candy in its most perfect form. Even if you’re attached to the variety in a candy mix, you have to give it up for a bag of Halloween candy that has no duds whatsoever. —Gwynedd Stuart

Credit: Liv Averett / Instacart

Rating:

9/10

Sporks

best trick or treat gummy candy

Best

Haribo Trick or Treat Mix

I have never thought of gummy bears as something even remotely Halloween-y, but I have to give credit where credit is due. Haribo did a great job revamping their brand for the month of October. This bag of Halloween candy comes with gummy snakes, sour gummy bats (the best Halloween gummy candy, according to our taste test), and skulls, as well as favorites like gummy bears and Happy-Cola (one of the best gummy candies overall, in our opinion). There are classic flavors and sour flavors. I was thoroughly impressed by these tiny packs of gummies. I think any child would be thrilled to receive a mini bag of themed Haribos. —Jordan Myrick

Rating:

9/10

Sporks

trader joe's halloween candy

Best Value

Trader Joe’s Wicked Good Mini Chocolate Bars

I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but Halloween candy has gotten expensive. If you want to save a few bucks and you don’t live in a neighborhood where your house will get egged by rotten rich children if you hand out generic candy bars, this is the best bag of Halloween candy. The little candy bars in Trader Joe’s Wicked Good mix really are wicked good. They come in four varieties, all of which are dupes for name-brand candy bars: Nougat & Caramel is like Milky Way, Peanut & Caramel is like Snickers, Caramel & Wafer is sort of like 100 Grand, and Nougat is like 3 Musketeers. And they all taste great—the milk chocolate is creamy and tastes European, and the fillings are high quality (I especially love the nougat even though I usually don’t go out of my way for 3 Musketeers). The best part? This bag of Halloween candy for trick-or-treaters is cheap. You get 24 bars for less than five bucks. It’s the best trick-or-treat candy if you don’t feel like splurging on the neighborhood kids. —Gwynedd Stuart

Credit: Liv Averett / Trader Joe’s

Rating:

9/10

Sporks

best costco halloween candy

Best Variety

Kirkland Funhouse Treats

Funhouse Treats is, indeed, a very fun Halloween candy mix! It’s not the bag of Halloween candy I would typically think to buy, but I was pleasantly surprised by the exceptional variety and quality of its contents. Mini Airheads, bags of Swedish Fish, Skittles? All A+ Halloween candy. This is the best bag of Halloween candy for anyone who is not into chocolate. Fans of fruit and chew and sugar will love this blend of Halloween candy that features zero chocolate. —Jordan Myrick

Credit: Liv Averett / Instacart

Rating:

9.5/10

Sporks

best trick or treat sour candy

Best Chewy

Sour Patch Kids / Swedish Fish Spooky Mix

You would think a bag of just Sour Patch Kids would be boring, but you would be wrong! The Sour Patch Kids Spooky Mix has Sour Patch Kids and bags of Mini Swedish Fish. On top of being both sweet and tart, this is the best Halloween candy mix for different dietary needs. Despite being jellies, these candies contain no gelatin, making them perfect for vegans, vegetarians, or kids who don’t eat pork because of their religion. They’re dairy-free and nut-free, too. This bag of Halloween candy will make the spookiest day of the year a little less scary for people with dietary restrictions. —Jordan Myrick

Credit: Liv Averett / Walmart

Rating:

10/10

Sporks

best chocolate trick or treat candy

Best of the Best

Kirkland All Chocolate

The Kirkland All Chocolate Mix contains some of the most lusted-after Halloween candy. Peanut M&M’s and Twix are delicious and have a high trade-in value when it comes to swapping sweets with your friends. Almond Joys and York Peppermint Patties appeal a little more to the older crowd. This bag of Halloween candy mix is diverse and satisfying. It’s from Costco so you know you’re getting a good size-to-price ratio. You could buy multiple bags and stockpile them to enjoy throughout the year (which you’ll want to do because this bag is such a crowd pleaser). —Jordan Myrick

Credit: Liv Averett / Instacart

Rating:

10/10

Sporks



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  • I purchased a few variety Halloween bags from Sam’s Club and am baffled with the inclusion of Hershey’s Kisses, in one of the mixed bags! It has Heath, Kit Kat, Rolo’s, Reese’s PB Cups and Hershey’s Kisses. In my opinion, Hershey’s Kiss approved holidays are Christmas and Valentines only. Not Halloween.

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