The Worst M&M's You Can Buy Are Also The Most Well-Known

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The history of M&M's begins during World War II, when their namesake founders Forrest Mars and Burce Murrie engineered the candy-coated chocolate discs for consumption by U.S. soldiers. As designed, M&M's still melt in your mouth and not in your hand. But they've come to encompass dozens of flavors. We tasted and ranked 11 M&M's flavors, and found that the worst M&M's you can buy are the candies that started it all.

We ranked the milk chocolate M&M's as the worst flavor despite being the most well-known and widely available. While we can't deny that M&M's has mastered the textural contrast of crunchy exterior and creamy interior, the chocolate actually tasted a little dry. But the taste and quality of these milk chocolate M&M's landed them in last place. Milk chocolate should have a balanced trifecta of sweetness, cocoa notes, and a milky richness. All we got with these M&M's was sweet, which could've come from the candy coating for all we know. The cheap quality of the chocolate is glaringly obvious because there's no other filling to enhance those imperceptible milky, cocoa notes.

We recognize that the last-place ranking of these classic and original milk chocolate M&M's is controversial, or as they say nowadays, a hot take. But, you can consider it an invitation to explore M&M's newer and better flavors, a testament to how far the product has come over the past 80 years.

While you might consider our last-place spot for milk chocolate M&M's fighting words, there are still negative reviews that back up our claims. Similar to our principal complaints, reviews on Influenster focus on the poor quality and taste of the chocolate which ranged from cheap and gross to boring. Another common theme in negative reviews focused on the chemicals and artificial colors used in M&M's, many of which, reviewers asserted, are banned in Europe for their detrimental effects on health.

Even milk chocolate M&M's lovers acknowledge that the chocolate isn't the height of quality. Still, they are beloved for their nostalgia, textural contrast, and the many ways we enjoy them in other sweet and savory recipes. You can upgrade them by using them as an ice cream topper; serve them over one of our highly ranked popular name-brand vanilla ice creams like Haagen Dazs' vanilla bean or Wegman's Madagascar Vanilla Premium French ice cream. The ice cream makes for cold, extra-crunchy M&M's, while the vanilla flavor will enhance the chocolate notes. We use them in these M&M's pinata cookies and these Christmas wreath cookies.