Our Favorite Chocolate Candy At Trader Joe's Is Better Than The Name Brand

Trader Joe's might be your favorite wine store or the place you get your go-to frozen meal, but the stores are also brimming with sweet treats. Some are seasonal, like the chocolate-pretzel-peanutty Jingle Jangle, while others are everlasting, like our number one overall candy pick out of TJ's huge selection — Milk Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups. In fact, if you're a brand-name peanut butter cup fan, we'd wager you'll like TJ's version even better.

Trader Joe's is bold enough to present its own competing version of other popular chocolate candies, like M&M's (both plain and peanut), that are admittedly tasty, but the Milk Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups rise to another level altogether. Maybe it's the bite-sized format of TJ's candy, fun to pop in the mouth with a better ratio of chocolate to peanut butter. Maybe it's the more savory flavor of the peanut butter filling — less sugary and bland than those original Reese's cups. It could be the rich, melty quality of the milk chocolate that's not waxy. Most likely, it's the convergence of all these advantages that make this treat worth a trip to TJ's, even if you don't live nearby.

It's hard to argue with success, which is why our love for TJ's peanut butter cups is worth noting. Hershey's says they make an astonishing 25 million of those OG peanut butter cups each day in their Pennsylvania factory, with sales over $100 million annually. That's a tough competitor to beat! TJ's hasn't released similar sales figures, but we do know that the dark chocolate version of their peanut butter cups hit the illustrious "Hall of Fame" category in 2023 — meaning they've won the Customer Choice Award so many times they've finally been retired from the vote.

Trader Joe's offers a wide range of peanut butter and chocolate snacks — granola, pretzels, cookies, and even protein bars, to name just a few. They've definitely locked down the winning profile for this sweet and savory combination, so we're not surprised at all that the little Milk Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups were at the top of our tasting list.