Grocery Store Hot Chocolate Mixes Ranked From Best To Worst

Even though it's possible to drink hot chocolate at any time of year, the best way to enjoy a cup of cocoa is undoubtedly when the wintertime chill hits. And when it's cold enough for hot chocolate, leaving the house probably feels like a bit of an ordeal. It's in these instances that an at-home hot chocolate mix is especially handy.

Hot chocolate mixes are in ample supply at grocery stores, with virtually every major chain stocking at least a few different options. This ranking of grocery store hot chocolates ranges from generic store brands to some artisanal options in order to best capture the range of products on the market. I prepared each one with water rather than milk, largely for logistical reasons — even if milk tastes better, making them all the same way ensured an even playing field. So, based on my experience trying 14 different hot chocolate products from five chains, the following is a ranking of grocery store hot chocolate mixes from best to worst.

The single best hot chocolate I tasted from my field of 14 was the Sprouts Farmers Market store brand Organic Milk Chocolate Flavored Hot Cocoa Mix. One bag contains 12 ounces of loose hot chocolate powder, equaling about 12 servings. By happenstance, I tasted the Sprouts hot chocolate last, so my determination that it was the best of the bunch was pretty instant, having just tried 13 alternatives. 

Simply put, it tasted like a quality chocolate bar in liquid form. The chocolate flavor was milky and complex, rather than merely sugar-forward or thin like a mediocre chocolate bar. On the whole, I found that I enjoyed cheaper store brands more than fancier hot chocolates, but Sprouts managed to split the difference between both extremes, pulling off a viscerally satisfying chocolate flavor with a small list of organic ingredients. Connoisseurs with access to the shop should visit their local Sprouts Farmers Market for the best hot chocolate from any grocery store.

Whereas the Sprouts hot chocolate is something of a premium product — albeit still at a pretty reasonable price point — Nestlé's hot chocolate is decidedly not. But cheap and full of not-so-great ingredients as it may be, the Nestlé Mini Marshmallow Rich Milk Chocolate Flavor Hot Cocoa Mix is a bona fide classic, tasting kinda like the Platonic ideal of hot chocolate made from a mix. One box contains eight single-serving packets.

First off, the mini marshmallows in my Nestlé hot chocolate were hardly a deciding factor, but they were a textural positive that added to what was already a great product. The hot chocolate itself delivered on its "rich milk chocolate" descriptor, each sip jam-packed with indulgent, flavor-rich sweetness. This is hardly a sophisticated product, but it's a classic for good reason, tasting precisely like how hot chocolate is supposed to taste, with some little marshmallows to sweeten the deal.

Signature Select (the Albertsons corporation's store brand) doesn't typically inspire much confidence. Buying store brands can be a way to save money at the cost of a bit of quality. In a Mashed review, Signature Select landed among the 8 worst marinara sauces under $5. As it turns out, however, the Signature Select Rich Milk Chocolate Hot Cocoa Mix doesn't merely stand toe-to-toe with its competitors — it's a better product than most of them. I got mine loose, in a 20-ounce container, which included about 16 servings.

Similar to Nestlé's product, my Signature Select hot chocolate was defined by an uncomplicated but viscerally satisfying chocolate flavor. If my Sprouts hot chocolate tasted like an artisanal chocolate bar, the Signature Select hot chocolate was like a Hershey's bar. With that said, it delivered in spades on its Hershey's-adjacent experience, between a perceptibly milky flavor and an explosion of sugary, chocolatey goodness. It's certainly not great for you, but healthiness isn't the deciding factor when it comes to enjoying hot chocolate anyway. All in all, Signature Select's Hot Cocoa Mix is a widely accessible product that produces a genuinely excellent sweet treat.

I tried my Kroger Milk Chocolate Flavored Hot Cocoa Mix early on in my tasting, and found that it made for a solid benchmark against which I compared subsequent products. The Nestlé, Signature Select, and Kroger products all ultimately fell in the same general category of unequivocally basic, but especially tasty. One box includes eight individual packets.

While my Nestlé, Signature Select, and Kroger hot chocolates were all pretty comparable in taste, a pronounced milky flavor set the Kroger product apart. It was plenty sweet and chocolatey, but a thick, milky character was especially prominent. That came at the expense of a bit of chocolatey richness, hence this product's position at the lower end of the triad. Nevertheless, the Kroger Milk Chocolate Flavored Hot Cocoa Mix makes a delicious hot chocolate that punches well above its weight class.

Also from the always-unique Sprouts Farmers Market chain, I picked up a packet of Four Sigmatic Mushroom Hot Cacao Mix With Reishi. As a mushroom-based, hot cacao — not cocoa — health product, this was decidedly different in character than every other item on this list. Nevertheless, I felt it belonged given that it's from a major grocery store and falls under the general hot chocolate umbrella. I was able to pick up a single sachet from the vitamin aisle, and for fans of the stuff, Sprouts sells boxes of 10 packets as well.

Bitter dark chocolate and cinnamon were immediately prominent in the Four Sigmatic Hot Cacao. It contains cardamom too, bolstering that bitter, spice-driven character. That all wouldn't have sounded appealing to me on paper, but in practice, I enjoyed this cacao mix quite a bit. It confidently did its own thing, and even if the idea of classic chocolate sounds better, I preferred Four Sigmatic's unique vibe to plenty of hot chocolates that missed the mark to some degree. I'm not enough of a nutrition expert to know whether or not the mushroom content is beneficial to one's health, but that aspect may well be a bonus given the product's genuinely enjoyable flavor.

The presentation of Sillycow Farms' Hot Chocolate Mix screams artisanal. Rather than a standard cardboard box or plastic cylinder, Sillycow Farms packages its hot chocolate in a miniature glass milk jar. Plus, it's made with just sugar and cocoa. The brand produces a wide variety of flavors, but for a baseline, I opted for the simple "Chocolate-Chocolate" option. Each jar contains 27 servings.

The taste of the Sillycow Farms Hot Chocolate Mix reflects its high quality, dominated by a complex chocolate flavor that leaves an intriguing aftertaste. It's not driven by simple sugariness, but the nuance of good cocoa. That said, high quality isn't always an important factor when it comes to hot chocolate. The same way gastropubs inevitably have a hard time topping french fries from McDonald's, crafting a truly, viscerally gratifying artisanal hot chocolate is an uphill battle. Sillycow Farms has done an admirable job with its standard, Chocolate-Chocolate Hot Chocolate Mix. Nevertheless, the undoubtedly cheaper and less nuanced hot chocolates from the likes of Nestlé, Kroger, and Signature Select satisfy in ways this fancier product cannot.

Starbucks Double Chocolate Hot Cocoa Mix can be found in most major grocery stores, but at the same time, it's meant to replicate the somewhat elevated experience of visiting a Starbucks cafe. That latter notion is reflected in its higher-than-average price point. As is pretty standard, one box includes eight packets of powder.

Anyone familiar with a Starbucks mocha will immediately recognize the taste of the Starbucks Double Chocolate Hot Cocoa Mix. For what it's worth, Starbucks' hot chocolate — both in-store and from the mix — is not overtly sweet. Rather, it splits the difference between sugary and bitter in a way that blends well with the chain's stronger-than-average coffee. On its own, I found that such a pronounced bitterness wasn't quite ideal, but it was, at least, something unique. The at-home Starbucks hot chocolate mix ultimately delivers on the in-store experience. Whether or not that's a good thing hinges on an individual's enjoyment of the unconventional bitterness of Starbucks' recipe.

Cocoa Classics is unique among grocery store hot chocolate brands in that its primary offering is flavored hot chocolate. A seemingly standard "Chocolate Supreme" option exists in the brand's range of flavors, but my local Albertsons only stocked French Vanilla, Raspberry, and Mint Chocolate. Based on the fact that I expected to like it the most of the three, I chose Mint Chocolate. Each of these varieties was only available in a single-serving sachet.

What my Cocoa Classics Mint Chocolate Cocoa Mix did not deliver was a satisfying chocolate flavor. It was, however, very minty to the extent that I found it made for a pretty solid warm, sweet mint drink. Plus, it had a pleasantly thick consistency. I like the idea of pure chocolate better than a mint-dominant flavor, hence this product didn't land higher on this list. Nevertheless, anyone compelled by the idea of a mint hot chocolate-adjacent drink may well find the Cocoa Classics Mint Chocolate Cocoa Mix to be plenty satisfying.

Abuelita is a Mexican hot chocolate brand owned by Nestlé. It's clear from the taste of the two products that the formulas for Nestlé hot chocolate and Abuelita hot chocolate are entirely separate. While that's a net positive for maintaining the distinct identity of the Abuelita brand, I found that it fell just a bit short of the Nestlé hot chocolate I so thoroughly enjoyed. My local Smith's grocery store sold Abuelita hot chocolate in a few different sizes, and I opted for a box of eight single-serving packets.

Mexican hot chocolate is one of the numerous ways people around the world drink hot chocolate, unique for its grainy consistency. Besides the iconic Abluelita hot chocolate mascot, the packaging on the box features cups of chocolate sporting full sticks of cinnamon. I didn't taste any cinnamon, though I assume it's included in the product's "natural flavors." Instead, I tasted a relatively mild chocolate fortified by a unique, almost corn-like textural element. It was nice and committed no crimes by any means, but its lack of a pronounced chocolate character is why it fell to the bottom half of this list.

Above all else, the Trader Joe's Hot Chocolate Stirring Spoon is a lot of fun. Trader Joe's sells each Stirring Spoon in a single pack that costs a little over a dollar, making it a sort of bespoke impulse buy. Functionally, it's a wooden spoon with chocolate and marshmallows on one end that can be stirred into heated liquid to make hot chocolate.

Rather than a sugar bomb, the 2025 edition of the Hot Chocolate Stirring Spoon splits the difference between dark and milk chocolate. Its flavor is a product of pure chocolate and not much else. It tastes clean and high quality, but significantly lacks the sense of indulgence that makes a good hot chocolate so satisfying. In theory, the idea of pure, high-quality chocolate sounds like it should make for a positive experience, but in practice, it was just not quite as tasty as it was fun. Even if the marshmallow accompaniment added to the overall experience, a merely semi-sweet flavor just wasn't all that compelling.

The single strangest hot chocolate I tasted was the 365 by Whole Foods Market Organic Hot Cocoa. While boxes of portioned sachets were available, I opted instead for a bulk, 12-ounce cylinder of 12 servings.

Upon first sip, I thought I loved the bold and complex flavor. But the longer that flavor sat on my palate, the more that complexity turned out to be a bad thing. At fault was a sugary note I found kind of off-putting, which I would describe as fruity. So, even if there was a nice milk chocolate flavor at the forefront, the taste that lingered was fruity sugar. Some, of course, may find the flavor that I disliked to be negligible, in which case the otherwise bold taste of the 365 chocolate could be a big plus. But in this particular ranking, 365 by Whole Foods Market Organic Hot Cocoa had a relatively poor standing.

Numi is predominately a tea brand, touting organic and fair trade products. Numi Organic Jasmine Green Tea, notably, ended up pretty high in a Mashed ranking of the best store-bought tea brands. I picked up my Numi Organic Dash of Salt Drinking Chocolate from Whole Foods in a 5.11-ounce bag that makes about nine servings.

This product certainly deserves a place in the hot chocolate aisle, but it just wasn't for me. In short, it delivers on the promise of dark chocolate with just a dash of sea salt. However, liquid dark chocolate isn't very exciting to me, especially up against sweeter, richer alternatives. Anyone who finds the idea of liquid dark chocolate compelling will most likely find that Numi's drinking chocolate is exactly what they're looking for. Since I would still consider it to be niche under those circumstances, this product doesn't rank any higher, but it's not bad by any means — it just compares unfavorably to its competition.

Trader Joe's customers looking for more than just a single serving of hot chocolate can forgo the Stirring Spoon and opt instead for the standard Organic Hot Cocoa Mix. Each box contains 10 single-serving packets.

Chocolatey snacks are among Trader Joe's strengths — its signature label chocolates are among 10 ways Trader Joe's beats Costco, for example — so I was surprised at how disappointed I felt by the Trader Joe's Organic Hot Cocoa Mix. Initially, it lacked a pronounced chocolate flavor. It tasted sweet, but not like chocolate. Then, in the aftertaste, I picked up some of that same fruity sugar character that brought down my experience with the 365 by Whole Foods Market Organic Hot Cocoa. So, the experience began with subpar chocolate and ended with what I would describe as a subtle off-note. On the whole, hot chocolate is simply not a strong suit for Trader Joe's.

Swiss Miss, of course, is among the most readily available grocery store hot chocolate brands. The company produces a pretty wide variety of standard and flavored hot chocolates. I went with a simple eight-packet box of classic milk chocolate. Based on the fact that cheaper hot chocolates were otherwise among my favorites, I was expecting to enjoy the Swiss Miss Milk Chocolate Flavor Hot Cocoa Mix. However, I ultimately felt it to be subpar in every key metric. 

The chocolate was mild, lacking both richness and a milky character, defined instead by an apparent chemical artificiality. A general sugary sweetness was somewhat apparent but far from satisfying. What made this product particularly disappointing was that it hinted at some of the hallmarks of a good hot chocolate but failed to deliver on them, resulting in an overtly unsatisfying experience. While Swiss Miss surely has its share of proponents, I found the Milk Chocolate Flavor Hot Cocoa Mix to be uniquely disappointing.

Selecting my field of 14 grocery store hot chocolate mixes first meant searching the online inventories of the five major grocery stores closest to me — Smith's, Trader Joe's, Sprouts, Whole Foods, and Albertsons — and selecting what I felt was the most diverse variety of products possible. I tasted them all in one evening, preparing each cup with a full serving of hot chocolate mix and near-boiling water, mixed with an electric frother. I took at least three sips of every cup.

My decision to use water across the board was intended to make it easier to try every hot chocolate in quick succession and better compare them to one another. While this approach may have asymmetrically impacted the products lacking milk powder, I didn't take the resultant watery thinness of those hot chocolates into account, focusing purely on the flavor that did emerge, even if it was a little muted. The following day, I tried a couple of those same products with warm milk for fairness sake, and found that my characterizations still held true. My rankings are based entirely on my assessments after tasting each product during this experiment, and not any experience with these products at any other point in time.