12 of the best vegan Easter eggs for 2023
These are the best vegan Easter eggs in the shops this year, from rich and dark options to white and creamy eggs
The best vegan Easter eggs should be just as satisfying, delicious and decadent as their mainstream counterparts. And with so many options now available, there's no reason why this can't be the case.
Over the past few years, veganism has become a much easier diet to follow when shopping in supermarkets, with a plethora of dairy-free alternatives available to those who are plant-based, or who have certain allergies. At woman&home we take chocolate very seriously: it’s one of life’s great indulgences, so Easter is a particularly important time of the year. We’ve tested hundreds of the best Easter eggs for 2023, as well as all the best vegan alternatives below.
From the top chocolatiers to the most affordable supermarket options, there are now lots of choices when it comes to buying a vegan Easter egg, whether you're gifting to a loved one, setting up an Easter egg hunt for kids, or just treating yourself. Tested against our rigorous methodology, there really is something for everyone here.
How did we test the best vegan Easter eggs?
If you’re familiar with our recipes on woman&home you’ll know that we have a talented in-house team of experts on hand to take care of all our foodie FAQs. Happily, these FAQs include finding the very best Easter eggs in the shops this year. With years of experience under their belts, our Deputy Food Editor Rose Fooks and our Senior Food Writer Jessica Ransom put their heads together to come up with a tried and tested shortlist of standout treats.
Each of our vegan eggs were blind taste tested against other similar eggs to ensure they stood up to Rose and Jess’s high standard. Tasting each egg on a blind basis also means removing any brand bias ensuring that there’s an even footing, whatever the price point. As well as this, our Shopping Writer Hannah Holway, who follows a vegan diet and has tried countless vegan chocolates, tested additional Easter egg options for this list. Some of the things we looked out for were...
- Quality of chocolate: How well did the chocolate melt in the mouth? Did it have a satisfying snap when breaking or biting into it, or did it fall to pieces?
- Taste: How rich was the chocolate? Were there any unique flavour characteristics?
- Presentation and packaging: While we try not to judge a book by its cover, the packaging and the look of the box is undeniably important when buying an Easter egg, especially if gifting to children or planning to present the egg in some way during the festivities.
The best vegan Easter eggs in 2023
1. H!P Salted Caramel Oat M!lk Chocolate Easter Egg
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A vegan oat milk Easter egg with a delicious salted caramel taste, this egg from H!P was a clear winner for us. The thick, creamy chocolate has a good bite to it and a lovely rich flavour, without being too heavy. In fact, we’d find it hard to differentiate this from a milk chocolate one made with dairy – it really is stand-out. The plastic-free packaging adds another string to this sustainable Easter egg's bow, and while the box is quite a simple affair with just one egg inside and no extras, the tastiness of the egg itself means you won't need anything else.
This was well-balanced with a good hit of salt carefully counteracting the sweetness of the chocolate. The caramel notes add deep butterscotch tones and we loved that this didn’t feel like something from a ‘free from’ range, where sometimes chocolate can feel like it’s missing a certain something. The premium packaging makes this ideal for gifting and with its bright, playful illustrations this would make the perfect treat for the kids (big or little) in your life.
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2. Hotel Chocolat Unbelievably Vegan Ostrich Easter Egg
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Nutmilk replaces the need for dairy in this impressive Easter offering from Hotel Chocolat, home to the best eggs and Easter hamper ideas year in, year out. This is only the second year that the brand's iconic 'Ostrich' egg design has been made without milk, making it suitable for vegans. The results are exceptionally good - a lightly creamy milk-style chocolate that has layers of depth to its flavour profile.
Things start sweet and vanilla-rich before mellowing to aromatic cocoa and there is a nice crunch from nut and cereal clusters throughout. It’s sort of like the ultimate upgrade on the cornflake cakes of your childhood. It’s a delicious Easter egg whether you’re vegan or not and the size of it makes it an ideal sharing egg for the whole family (ideal if you’re a group of mixed diets). There’s only one slight problem with the size of this one, it might make it extremely difficult for the Easter bunny to hide. The additional two-tiered box of chocolates go some way to soothing the sting of the £86 price point. One if you're looking for Easter basket ideas for adults, rather than kids, perhaps.
3. Waitrose No.1 Dark Chocolate with Dark Chocolate Truffles Easter Egg
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This vegan treat by Waitrose has a white chocolate Easter egg counterpart of a similar design, and we struggled with the same thing for both: the overt use of branding. While most other eggs on this list have plain or decorated chocolate shells, this one brandishes a large 'No 1'. Looks aside and we were pleasantly surprised by the quality of the chocolate here for a supermarket find. Yes, at £11 it’s not super cheap, but the quality stood up against some much pricier options.
Sculpted out of 65% single-origin chocolate from the Dominican Republic, this design had a rich and luxurious mouthful that melted slowly for the ultimate indulgence. There’s a slight bitterness that’s lifted by caramel and burnt sugar undertones here, so it’s not too potently biting for those who prefer their dark chocolate Easter eggs. The shell is well-tempered with a shiny, smooth exterior and it had a nice snap to it when it was broken into for testing. The four additional truffles hidden under the egg are a nice surprise and make it feel a little bit more special when compared to other similar offerings.
4. Wicked Kitchen Benny The Bunny
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It’s well known by now that Tesco’s Wicked Kitchen range is the go-to for fun, convenient vegan food that’s packed with flavour. This Easter, the supermarket giant has also come up with a range of seasonal treats to complement its offering. One of our favourites is Benny The Bunny. This classic but cute design sees a rabbit in a bow tie crafted out of chocolate, and just because it’s a novelty shape doesn’t mean that the chocolate isn’t taken seriously.
Here, rice powder is used to lighten an otherwise dark chocolate to great effect. While this might not win any big awards for bean-to-bar style chocolate, it does what it sets out to do and that’s appealing to the masses. It’s sweet and creamy and has a lovely variation in thickness throughout the design. We think this one would be particularly good for kids, popped in a personalized Easter basket, given its combination of lighter chocolate and novelty design. Our only slight issue would be that the price point is steep when compared to more premium products on a per-gram basis.
5. Montezuma's Peanut Butter Dark Chocolate Mini Eggs
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Our food team also rated these smaller eggs one of their favourite Easter egg options for this year: they loved the thick, crunchy shell as well as the salty, rich peanut butter filling. As they’re made from 74% dark chocolate, these eggs have a fairly strong flavour, so would probably best suit a more mature palette. They’re definitely made for peanut butter fans, too, as the nutty flavour is also very strong. While they might deserve a place among the best healthy Easter eggs, the one downside is that the eggs don’t come individually wrapped, which might make sharing a little bit more difficult, and it also means they’re not suited for an Easter egg hunt.
While the vibrant Montezuma’s box is filled with several ‘mini’ eggs, these sweet treats are actually quite large, with our testers all impressed by the larger size, with woman&home Food Writer Georgia Sparks noting that this is a major plus. While there’s lots of vegan dark chocolate to choose from, and plenty of vegan dark chocolate Easter eggs, the addition of a peanut butter flavour is a nice plus for those who want a bit more variety to their egg this year.
6. Butterm!lk Plant-Powered Honeycomb Blast Choccy Egg & Bar
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Despite the name, this definitely isn’t a super creamy Easter egg option, so if you’re not a fan of vegan chocolate that tastes very 'milky', this might work for you. The honeycomb is laced throughout the shell in small lumps, as opposed to the Cutter and Squidge option featured here, where it's in much larger chunks. With a medium thickness to its shell, this egg has a slightly oily taste, with more saltiness than you’d expect from honeycomb, reminiscent of a salted caramel flavour. As someone who doesn’t like their chocolate overly sweet, though, this suited me well.
The Butterm!lk option isn’t a universal crowd-pleaser, with some of our testers finding the egg to be a little oily. As I’ve been vegan for over six years, I’ve tried a lot of vegan chocolate, with some being questionable at best, but I found that this option had a pleasant taste, though it’s definitely not as creamy or dairy-like as some other vegan Easter eggs. Plus, the accompanying ‘Honeycomb Blast’ chocolate bar was really delicious, and loved by all of our testers. If you’re a honeycomb fan, this bar will definitely hit the spot, as the chocolate coating is fairly thin in comparison to the crunchy block of honeycomb inside.
7. Cutter and Squidge Cookies & Cream Vegan Easter egg
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If you’re looking for an ‘extra’ Easter egg, this Cutter and Squidge option definitely ticks the boxes. Certainly not an egg that could be finished in one sitting, this ridiculously rich egg is truly a sight to behold, lovingly decorated and presented. The half-filled egg has a shell of dark yet creamy chocolate, which is wrapped around a layer of oozing caramel, chunks of sweet honeycomb and a rich, thick ganache. There’s mini chocolate eggs, themselves filled with a thick ganache, on top of the half-filled egg’s ganache layer, as well as Oreo pieces; chocolate sprinkles cover the ridges of the egg, with the thick shell being firm yet not a struggle to bite down on.
If you’d prefer your vegan Easter eggs more low-key, or you’re buying one for someone who doesn’t have a sweet tooth, this might not be the egg for you. That said, considering how many different types of chocolate are featured on this egg, the dairy-free cocoa is never sickeningly sweet, with the honeycomb balanced by a darker chocolate shell. I actually had to double-check the box that this egg arrived in to ensure that it was definitely vegan - not only does the box not use the word ‘vegan’ on its front, the chocolate was also so creamy and velvety that I couldn’t believe it was dairy-free.
8. Bettys Venezuelan Dark Chocolate Easter Egg
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If you don’t want to opt for a traditional supermarket Easter egg, this is a suitably decadent, elegant option, made from Venezuelan criollo beans and delivered in simple packaging. The egg’s shell has a very impressive, visually appealing geometric shape and pattern, with a subtle shimmer to it, as it sits upright on a plaque in the box. Crafted from 65% cocoa, this is a dark chocolate option that isn’t too heavy. The food team praised the “bronze lustre” of the shell, while stating that the “very nice dark chocolate” is “not too dark”, and features “slight gingery notes, which are nice and light”.
It should be noted that the egg was made in a factory where dairy products are present, so if you’re buying an egg for someone who’s vegan due to allergies, there’s always a risk of cross-contamination. But if the vegan recipient of this egg doesn’t suffer from any allergies, this is one of the best Easter gift for adults - although they might not want to bite into it, considering how stunning the shell is!
9. ASDA Extra Special Free From Dark Chocolate Egg with Vanilla Flavour Truffles
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We named this the best dark chocolate Easter egg in 2023, but this Asda Free From egg is also a delicious vegan option. For a dark chocolate egg, there’s not too much bitterness in flavour here, and the box also contains five gold foil-wrapped dark chocolate truffles, which are filled with salted caramel. So even if you’re not a huge dark chocolate fan, you can still indulge in the sweeter truffles (this also provides a nice contrast between the two flavours).
Vegan chocolate often errs on the side of darker and more intense cocoa flavours, but the chocolate here is rich without being overpowering, and the use of coconut oil in this recipe makes this egg melt in your mouth. Jen Bedloe, Future Plc Food Director, said that “the chocolate has a lovely mouthfeel and a notable creaminess that is hard to achieve with vegan chocolate”. Plus, this egg is just £5, making it a super affordable option. The only downside to this egg is that the packaging is a little unappealing, considering how tasty the egg inside is.
10. Happi Oat Milk White Raspberry Chocolate Egg Bar
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If you’re partial to a fruity flavoring with your Easter egg, this affordable option from Happi has a subtle hint of raspberry to its white chocolate shell, which has a creamy taste to it that white chocolate-lovers will enjoy. It can be hard to find white vegan chocolate in general, so there’s a certain amount of novelty with this unique option.
Our food team noted that the raspberry flavor was “refreshing”, while the egg itself is “very thick and chunky”. They also compared the taste of this egg to popular choccy brand Tony Chocolonely, and this is definitely an egg that can be gifted to, and enjoyed by, adults and children alike, especially considering its funky packaging.
11. Booja Booja Hazelnut Crunch Truffles in Hand Painted Easter Egg
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While this is not a traditional Easter egg, some might prefer the combination of decadent truffles and a gorgeous, reusable egg-shaped box that is hand-painted and made in Kashmir. The hazelnut crunch organic truffles are simply divine.
We really enjoyed the contrasting textures of rich, smooth chocolate and crunchy hazelnuts. Use the box to gift some homemade truffles or add it to your Easter table decor as a luxurious Easter decoration idea.
12. Wicked Kitchen Poppin’ Candy Orange Flavoured Choc Egg
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Another option from Tesco’s vegan range, this egg can easily be gifted to and enjoyed by adults, as well as being a fun egg for kids to find on their Easter egg hunt. I’ll admit that the idea of popping candy did initially daunt me, with flashbacks to sickly sweets that uncomfortably popped in the mouth as a kid. But here the popping element is very subtle, and is more of a barely-there crackle on the roof of your mouth when you take a bite into this creamy egg. Crisped rice is used alongside rice powder, to bring an added depth to an otherwise very ‘milky’ flavour, and the hint of orange is ultimately not too overpowering; there’s also a distinctive suggestion of sea salt, which balances out the sweetness of the popping candy and the zesty orange.
Whether it’s the popping candy factor or just how yummy the flavour is, I did find that this egg was quite addictive, with a satisfying crunch to the shell that makes this option stand out against some of the more basic eggs in Tesco’s vegan Easter range. When it comes to the presentation, the Wicked Kitchen branding is immediately recognisable, and just as pleasing is the price: at only £5, this is a great budget egg that has the taste of a much more premium option.
Hannah is the UK Shopping Writer for woman&home. As a shopping writer, Hannah has written on everything from period pants to wine subscriptions, and is especially interested in sustainable alternatives to well-known products, as well as books and homeware accessories.
Before she joined the team at woman&home Hannah headed up the social media accounts for Wonderland in 2019, where she was also a Contributing Editor for the magazine’s sister titles. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Hannah also explored evolving shopping trends at New York Magazine’s The Strategist UK, researching everything from face masks to status candles and even pens.
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