Dairy-Free Chocolate Milks Ranked From Worst To Best

There are a lot of reasons someone might reach for a glass of dairy-free milk over the cow-based alternative. Whether it is by personal choice or because of dietary necessity, getting the right milk for your needs is important.

Back when I was a kid, we had a dairy-free house because of a severe dairy allergy in the family. That means I've been drinking non-dairy milk since there were only one or two on the market, and you had to go to specialty stores to get them. I distinctly remember the first time trying a commercial non-dairy chocolate milk. It was utterly repulsive, much to my family's dismay. Thankfully, now there are abundant options for non-dairy chocolate milk and they're just as tasty as their dairy counterparts. I decided to put them to the test so no one else has to cry over this milk — spilt or otherwise.

I pitted a variety of non-dairy milks against each other for this ranking. Any kind of non-dairy milk was fair game, and I sampled pea protein, oat, and even banana milk. I judged based on taste and texture, looking for a creamy, delicious milk that would be only too easy to drink down on its own. There'll be more about how I made choices at the end, but for now, here's a selection of dairy-free chocolate milks ranked from worst to best. 

This was the only drink on this list that I found absolutely undrinkable. KiddiWinks is designed to be a healthy drink for kids to help them grow, however, the part they left out of it was making it so anyone would want to drink it. This milk is made with water, oats, chickpea protein, organic cane sugar, chicory root fiber, pea protein, cocoa powder, sunflower oil, gellan gum, natural flavors, sea salt, and a vitamin and mineral blend.

There are two things I can't get past with this milk. First is the flavor. It is earthy and super sweet, which makes for an odd combination, and the chocolate is not present at all. But the thing that makes this undrinkable is the chunky consistency. When I poured the cup, chunks fell in. When I drank it, there were little chunks of something in every sip. I was so concerned that I double-checked the expiration date, which was fine, and I made sure I shook the bottle according to the directions. I am left to conclude this is simply how this drink tastes and that I do not want to try it again.

A bad tasting chocolate milk is something, but this Almond Breeze one has no flavor at all. This chocolate almond milk was made with water, almonds, calcium carbonate, cocoa, sea salt, potassium citrate, natural flavors, sunflower lecithin, gellan gum, and D-alpha-tocopherol. As the name suggests, there is no sugar in this. As such, I expected the cocoa to show through and have a strong dark chocolate flavor. Instead, I got the watery, vaguely almond-flavored nothing.

Seriously, I cannot express how little chocolate there is in this so-called "chocolate" milk. It was the palest milk of the bunch, which perhaps should have been an indication of its lack of flavor. But aside from a slightly warm feeling and a chocolatey smell, there were no hints of chocolate flavor. This was also one of the wateriest milks I tried, and there was no rich or velvety consistency. Overall, this almond milk failed at even remotely resembling chocolate milk, earning it next-to-last place on our list.

Poor Mooala has found itself close to the bottom of this list. Here's the thing: Mooala isn't here because it is bad necessarily; it is here because it is objectively not what you think of when you think of chocolate milk.

Mooala is made with water, organic banana, cane sugar, sunflower seeds, Dutch pressed cocoa, calcium and potassium blend, gellan gum, and stevia leaf extract. However, despite having some additional thickeners, this milk is somewhat thin. That's not even the main problem, though. The problem is that it tastes like bananas and not chocolate. This is perhaps to be expected — given the kind of milk it is — but I cannot overstate just how much this tastes like drinking a banana. There is some chocolate in there, but the flavor isn't strong enough to overpower the banana. If you love bananas, you will most likely enjoy this drink, but if you're hoping for a chocolate milk, you'll likely go away disappointed.

Mooala is doing something new and different, and we commend them for this. However, there is also a reason that banana milk is not as common as some of its other non-dairy options.

Ripple's claim to fame is predominantly for health reasons. It has 40% less sugar than traditional dairy chocolate milk and offers 50% more calcium. The problem is, it just doesn't taste great. The base of this chocolate milk is a combination of pea proteins. In addition it has cane sugar, vegetable oil, alkalized cocoa powder, vitamin A palmitate, vitamin D2, vitamin B12, tricalcium phosphate, dipotassium phosphate, sunflower Lecithin, natural flavors, sea salt, gum arabic, guar gum, and gellan gum. That's a lot of gums. And the various gums do give it a nice thick consistency, but that is where the good features end.

Initially, this was just a mildly chocolatey drink. But the longer it sat on the tongue, the more pea-like it tasted. The best way I can describe it is mildly earthy. It really does taste like ground-up peas, which is not the most appealing flavor in this context. Additionally, it adds a chalkiness that detracts from the creamy texture. The healthy factors are great, but this is chocolate milk; I want it to taste good too.

Trader Joe's has a good reputation for its store brand products. But to me, while the non-dairy milk was good, it didn't reach quite the heights I thought it would. As the name implies, Trader Joe's non-dairy chocolate milk is made with oat milk. This milk contains an oat base made of water and hydrolyzed oats, cane sugar, alkalized cocoa powder, natural flavors, sea salt, and gellan gum. The color of this oat milk is pretty dark, likely due to the alkali cocoa powder. The consistency was fairly creamy and it was noticeably thicker than some of the other options, which was nice.

The thing that keeps it from jumping higher, though, is the flavor. While other milk was chocolate forward, this was oat forward. Instead of the oats simply acting as a vessel for the chocolate, the oats became the prominent flavor. This is great if you like oats, but it detracts from the overall flavor.

Friendly Farms is Aldi's store brand. As many shoppers will know, Aldi is great at providing its own version of items, often at a fraction of the price. While this chocolate almond milk was definitely on the cheaper side, it was not my favorite. Still, it was a perfectly serviceable chocolate almond milk on a budget. This almond milk was made with water, almonds, cane sugar, alkalized cocoa powder, calcium carbonate, sea salt, potassium citrate, natural vanilla flavor, sunflower lecithin, gellan gum, vitamin A palmitate, vitamin D2, and D-alpha-tocopherol.

The chocolate in this milk is mild but present, which is more than can be said for many of the ones toward the bottom of this list. This milk did feel excessively sweet, though. It is rocking 18 grams of sugar per serving, which is a little higher than most of the other milks we tried. The consistency is also a bit thin. Still, there was a better blending of the almond flavor and the chocolate than the Trader Joe's option. The sweetness and somewhat milk flavor may appeal more to children, so if that is your primary audience, this is not a bad option.

If you are looking for a safe, if somewhat unexciting, option, Elmhurst Milked Oats Chocolate is the way to go. This milk is simple – some may say basic — in just about every sense. It is made with just water, oats, sugar, cocoa powder, natural flavors, and salt. The result is a mild chocolate milk that is incredibly drinkable but isn't necessarily something to write home about.

I liked that there were not a lot of ingredients in this milk, though it does mean you miss out on some of the added vitamins that are in some other brands. My main complaint, though, is that it is just a little boring. The chocolate is not punchy, but it is also not overly oat flavored like the Trader Joe's. This milk is creamier than the Friendly Farms Almond Chocolate, though, which gives it a slight advantage over the Aldi store brand. These few milks in the middle are all very close, and the differences come down to just a few key details.

Prior to conducting this taste-test, Oatly was my go-to chocolate oat milk. When I think of just a generic chocolate oat milk, this is what I think of. This milk is made from a combination of water, oats, cane sugar, cocoa powder processed with alkali, low erucic acid rapeseed oil, calcium carbonate, natural flavors, sea salt, tricalcium phosphate, dicalcium phosphate, riboflavin, vitamin a acetate, vitamin D2, and vitamin B12. While I appreciate the additional vitamins, especially B12 which is hard to get without animal products, the laundry list of ingredients was a bit shocking.

Trying this chocolate milk compared to others, however, there were some things that stood out. The first was the mild flavor of this milk. It seemed less chocolate heavy than other milks. However, the nice thing was the oats were not overly present. This created a merely mildly flavored milk with hints of vanilla.

This oat milk was also not as thick as the Trader Joe's oat milk, which remains the thickest of the oat milks that I tried. However, the flavor of the Oatly was better. The milk and the chocolate worked harmoniously in a way the Trader Joe's one did not. Still, I would have preferred a higher chocolate ratio.

Silk's dark chocolate almond milk is an excellent example of a milk that lets the chocolate shine through. As you can tell by the color, this milk was indeed darker than many of the competitors, and it had a chocolaty kick to back up the look. This almond milk was made with water, almonds, cane sugar, cocoa, a vitamin and mineral blend, sea salt, locust bean gum, ascorbic acid, gellan gum, and natural flavor.

Despite having some thickeners in it, this was one of the thinner almond milks I tried. There is only so much you can do with almond milk to give it additional viscosity that pea protein milk and oat milk tend to have more naturally. Still, this beat out most of the oat milks simply because the flavor is that much better. Leaning into the dark chocolate flavor was a smart move by Silk. The additional sugar and nut milk are already going to cut the chocolaty flavor. Really bumping up the dark chocolate allows this milk to shine and be infinitely drinkable. There is some hint of almond, but it is not overpowering. This is a milk I would happily sit down and drink.

This milk came out of nowhere and really knocked it out of the park. This milk is made in partnership with Willa's and the bean-to-bar chocolate company Raaka. The ingredients of this one were a little different. This Dark Chocolate Oat Milk was made from water, organic whole oats, maple syrup, organic cacao powder, vanilla extract, and sea salt.

First things first, the chocolate. The Raaka cacao powder used is single origin Peruvian chocolate, and let me tell you, you can taste it — the chocolate flavor is present and surprisingly fruity. Instead of most mass-market chocolate that has a giant homogenous flavor, this milk brings out all the delightfully fruity notes of the Peruvian chocolate. It did not taste like any of the other chocolate milk I had. The Willa's chocolate milk was noticeably paler than some of the other options, possibly because this cocoa powder does not appear to be alkalized like others, such as the Trader Joe's one. There was no hint of the bitterness that is so common in dark chocolate here.

Without thickeners, it was slightly thinner than some of the other milks I tried, but only slightly. It still had a lovely velvety consistency.

This was a chocolate milk that hit all the right notes. It was chocolate, not oat, forward. It was rich, and the flavor was complex. It was truly an incredible drinking experience — rich, decadent, and sophisticated. No other milk could beat it in the end.

Each chocolate milk was chosen based on two criteria. One, it had to be a non-dairy base and two, it had to contain chocolate. The kind of chocolate didn't matter, and it also didn't matter what the non-dairy milk base was — although I tried to get a variety. For the judging, the number one thing I took into consideration was the taste. I looked for a creamy and not grainy milk, ideally one that had a bit of viscosity to it and wasn't too thin. From a chocolate perspective, I wanted a chocolate flavor that was present but not too bitter, and one that wasn't over or underwhelmed by the other flavors. This should be a luxurious treat that does not just taste like cocoa powder mixed with water.

All the drinks were judged cold. Several do suggest warming them up to drink as hot chocolate which sounds lovely in the colder months, but this was a chocolate milk ranking, not a hot chocolate one, so I decided to drink them in their purest form. Other factors, such as the price, was only considered when a tie-breaker was needed between two milks. Otherwise, this ranking was based entirely on the sensory experience.