12 Easter Peeps Flavors, Ranked Worst To Best

It's great fun assembling an Easter basket. There are so many different Easter candies to pick from, and with new additions each year, companies are none too shy about revealing new innovations or variations on favorites. I love putting together my Easter basket for my son, and though it definitely features a whole lot of Thomas the Train and Hot Wheels, finding fun and colorful snacks among them is always a highlight. That's where marshmallow Peeps come in. They certainly bring a spark of color and flavor to his basket and our Easter snack spread.

Though I seem to remember Easter Peeps being much simpler as a kid, offering so many fun flavors has helped the company compete with other candy candies in the ever-competitive seasonal candy market. One of the best parts about there being so many different flavors is that it's easy to find ones that suit the theme of your Easter basket and the taste preferences of your Easter basket recipient. The 2024 Peeps lineup for Easter brings a little bit of tart, a whole lot of sweetness, and plenty of color. Personally tasting each one, I ranked them based on how much I enjoyed each flavor, how authentically they replicated the intended flavor on the label, and the striking color of each. (It's a key aspect of Peeps.)

Some recommendations are based on first-hand impressions of promotional materials and products provided by the manufacturer and distributor.

The fruit punch box is a more recent addition to the official Peeps lineup, but it isn't the first time the brand has offered this flavor. In 2015, as part of a promotion, Peeps sold two different varieties of mystery flavors. Both were white, but each had a different taste. In the end, the bunny flavor was a sour green apple, while the chick flavor was fruit punch. These specialty, mystery flavors were a Walmart exclusive item, and Peep loyalists had a few months to try the Peeps before the flavors were revealed right before Easter. However, this one would have been better as a one-off.   

Ultimately, we found the fruit punch option to be extremely sweet and even a little stifling. The taste was so strong it felt like a weird spin for Peeps because the marshmallow candy tends to be quite mild in flavor.

All told, we didn't really enjoy this flavor as much as we thought we would. Even though it successfully accomplished the task of mimicking the taste of fruit punch, it just wasn't a good fit for Peeps. Perhaps it's because we like our fruit punch to be extra icy cold, and a Peep just can't be that.

When you imagine a brood of Peeps, chances are that you're picturing little yellow chickies all in a row. It turns out, there's a good reason for this. The standard sugar flavor comes in a variety of colors, the classic sunshine bright version is actually the best-selling variety of these marshmallow treats.  

As you might expect, the yellow Peeps taste just like a sugared marshmallow. If you've had a Peep before, you know that this is just a slightly sweeter taste than a normal marshmallow, with a little bit of a gritty mouthfeel, thanks to the coating. In fact, our biggest beef with this variety of Peep is, in fact, sugar. The original flavor had much more sugar fallout than most of the specialty options. As soon as you hold on to one of these little Peeps, you instantly have little crystals on your fingers and on the table. We found it interesting that most of the varieties avoided this mess, but the original Peep is still stuck with it.

In 2024, the Peeps brand expanded its range of Easter treats with several new flavors, including the Sour Strawberry flavor. This addition feels similar to the Sour Watermelon variant with a delightful tanginess. However, with one bite, the Sour Strawberry is much more subtle than the boldness of the watermelon flavor.

Beyond even the sour part, the strawberry aspect of the flavor itself is nuanced, offering a soft hint of taste rather than an overwhelming fruity burst as we had hoped for. This understated approach might leave Peeps fans wanting.

Nonetheless, it's hard not to love these charming, ruby, strawberry-colored Peeps. They're striking in the package and would undoubtedly make a beautiful addition to an Easter basket, even if we wish the flavor were a little heartier and sour. With the tastiness of the Sour Watermelon, it's just disappointing how this compares to other flavors in taste tests.

Delights Peeps are a cool spin on the classic treat. When they debuted in 2011, these dipped marshmallows were available in milk or dark chocolate, but now, there are more varieties to choose from. In fact, you can even get your own Peeps customized with a coating and crunch topping to suit your tastes.

With such a squishy treat, chocolate can give the Peep an odd-mouth feel, so we appreciate that the whole chick isn't drenched in chocolate. That said, the chocolate was thicker than expected, similar to an ice cream sundae's shell. We were hoping for something thinner that would cling more to the Peep rather than providing that crunch. All told, we enjoyed this one and think the chocolate taste complements the marshmallow well. However, we do wish the chocolate was a little thinner. It does make us wonder about the crunchy customization coating because this would make for an even thicker shell.

When it comes to ICEEs, the first thing that comes to mind is those frozen treats from the movie theater, not marshmallowy treats. Though the cherry ICEE was always my favorite, I admit that the blue raspberry flavor is certainly more visually striking. Not to mention, since a red-colored Peep is already joining the 2024 collection, including this flavor instead makes sense

This Peep tastes like blue raspberry and certainly has that smallest tang of the sour and tart notes beloved in the ICEE version. Instead, the Peep has a sweet artificial raspberry taste that calls into mind pretty much every other electric blue candy that you've ever eaten, which doesn't necessarily live up to the specific association with the ICEE it invokes. Even still, ICEE's frozen consistency and Peeps have wildly different textures; this might have benefited from Peeps trying something new and studding the marshmallow with something that replicates the pleasurable crunchiness of an icy beverage. Overall, this seems like a failed attempt to associate with another well-known product. Though I may have chosen a different brand to link to this blue raspberry flavor, ICEE is certainly one that will interest shoppers when spotted on the shelf.

Many children celebrate their birthday with a white cake covered in sprinkles, and chances are good that you've seen, eaten, or prepared the celebratory dessert yourself. The Party Cake Peep attempts to capture this flavor combo, and though the texture is entirely different than a typical cake, it tastes oddly familiar.

Party Cake Peeps offers mild notes of vanilla and batter. Although we were fans and appreciated the flavor didn't go overboard, this was a case where the taste could have been amped up to separate this option more from the typical Peep. 

While the flavor falls a bit short, the decoration on Party Cake Peeps is just festive enough. They come primarily creamy white but are absolutely covered in multicolored sprinkles. If nothing else, in appearance, they remind us quite fervently of a brightly decorated birthday cake. If these marshmallows brought a bit more to the party in the flavor department, they would definitely land higher on this list.

Using leftover Easter candy is a delicious way to stretch your sweets further, and Peeps are some of the easiest to recycle. In fact, one of the best ways to use up those lingering, brightly colored Peeps after the Easter holiday is to use them to make Rice Krispie Treats. So, naturally, seeing that as a new flavor included in the 2024 Easter lineup feels slightly strange. We didn't know what to expect and even thought that perhaps this was the year that form and taste just weren't on the same page, but then we opened up the package.

Though there's some of the dissonance that ICEE suffers from here, and given that a major draw of the Rice Krispie treats we love comes directly from the crunchiness of the snack, opening a package of these Peeps somehow smells exactly like making Rice Krispies smells. It's honestly a little remarkable how precise the resemblance here is. The flavor wasn't quite as exact, but it was pretty good. These are less Rice Krispie flavored and more slightly sweetened marshmallows. Enjoyable, but still not capturing that flavor in its entirety.

We are total suckers for rainbows and unicorns, so that's probably why we were immediately drawn to the Sparkly Wild Berry Peeps. This variety comes exclusively in little bunnies and is lavender with darker purple speckles throughout. And just as the name promises, it is also just a little sparkly.

After our first bite, it became evident that the sparkles ran all the way through and gave just got a little zip on the tongue for a sour taste. We found the fruit to be an unidentifiable mix of several different fruits and berries, but we couldn't really pin it down to just one or two. Because we enjoy sour things, we liked these, but if you are not partial to a little bite, these might be ones you want to avoid. 

Like other unique flavors, these bunnies were a little heavy-handed on the flavoring, so that is another thing we didn't love about them. On the other hand, sometimes, the cuteness can just override that, and if there's one thing Sparkly Wild Berry Peeps has, it's a cute factor. For that reason, we think these would be the perfect addition to an Easter basket.  

Of all the food partnerships out there, one of the weirder ones we've seen is that between Peeps and Pepsi. In fact, Pepsi has even come out with a Peeps flavored soda. So perhaps it's not too much of a stretch to imagine flavoring going the other way. That's where the Dr. Pepper Peep comes into play.

While many sodas are experiencing a dip in dollar share, Dr. Pepper's is on the rise. Though it's certainly a delicious soda, we had no idea what to expect from this unusual flavor of Peep. After the first bite, we were fascinated by the fact that the flavor is spot on. A Dr. Pepper Peep tastes just like the soft drink only without all the carbonation. Although we did like this flavor of Peep, we simply enjoyed other flavors a little bit more. The flavor did get to be a little overwhelming after a while, and like some of the other specialty flavors, it did leave us with a weird aftertaste.

While many Peeps make for excellent ingredients in recipes around the holidays, we don't think that would necessarily be the case with the Dr. Pepper-flavored Peeps. That's okay though because they are fascinating all on their own.

Cotton candy is one of those iconic flavors many of us enjoy from our youth. It has the benefit of being fun to eat and super sweet — the perfect combination for a childhood favorite. Since Peeps are themselves a sweet treat, the transition from regular to cotton candy Peep doesn't seem like too far of a leap.

Upon first taste, we noticed how light and mild the flavor is. We certainly get a cotton candy taste, but it isn't overpowering at all. Instead, it seems to simply enhance the already delicious taste of a Peep. Since we aren't big fans of all of that extra sugar falloff you can sometimes get from the original Peeps, we are happy that the coating on these remained intact. In addition to the pink exterior of the Peep, it's covered in blue sparkles that look like little crystallized bits of sugar.

As much as we enjoyed eating these on their own, we also think this would make a fabulous addition to a Peep recipe. Including this instead of marshmallows in your Rice Krispie treats or even as an accent piece on the perfect Easter cupcake would be an ideal use of the cotton candy Peep.

The most impressive of the Peeps sampled in the 2024 set was the Peep-ified classic S'Mores option. These Peeps are slightly different from the typical Peep you imagine when shopping in the Easter aisle. Instead of coming in rather large packs with all the little brightly colored creatures pushed right up next to each other, resulting in rather smushed Peeps, the Delights line has the little chickies on their own, dipped with chocolate that forms a firm bottom.

In this case, the marshmallow itself has a graham cracker taste — I imagine due to the coating on the outside — while the inside is a classic marshmallow. The chocolate feature is, naturally, that dipped bottom. I quite liked how well-formed these are, and the color of the slightly pale yellow chickie is really sweet here, too. Though I really only got the smallest hint of graham from the topping, it's an enjoyable inclusion that rounds out a faithful rendition of a traditional treat. The texture difference between the dipped chick and the rest of the Peep was also quite satisfying.

We are an absolute sucker for sour treats, so it's no surprise that our favorite Peeps flavor offers plenty of pucker. The Sour Watermelon Peeps is certainly a departure from the traditional Peep. However, we love this crazy flavor. If you enjoy sour candy as much as us, you will appreciate these Peeps. On first taste, we noticed the sweet, fruity, refreshing notes of watermelon. This flavor is quickly followed by a delightful sour punch to make your mouth pucker and your taste buds tingle. We love that the sourness adds complexity to the Peep, making it more interesting and exciting than just plain watermelon. 

This one has every bit of that weird sensation you come to love from sour candy, all while enjoying a squishy Peep. It reminded us of the watermelon Warheads we once loved and that nostalgia was greatly appreciated. What's more, we think the coloring on this Peep is amusing. On the outside, you get a bright green color, while the inside is pink, just like you would find in a regular watermelon.

All that said, this Peep is excellent on its own and should definitely not be used in your Peep baking this Easter. We encourage you to give it a try outside of your normal recipes and enjoy the sour faces you get from friends and family.

The efforts to rank these sweet treats began in 2023 when Peeps sent me a sampling of the lineup for that season. It has remained mostly unchanged, but in 2024, I reached out to see what the company was planning for its Easter lineup. The goal was to update the list of treats soon to grace baskets over the spring holiday. With these samples in hand, I ranked them based on my firsthand tasting of the flavors, considering taste, how well they captured the advertised flavor they claimed to represent, and their appearance — because Peeps should be nothing if not completely adorable. Once the new flavors were evaluated, I revised the ranking order as it stacks up to the previously evaluated flavors that remain available for this season.