16 Protein Bars, Ranked Worst To Best

Protein bars are one of the definitive foods of the 2010s. And you probably don't need all that extra protein they pack in, but they're a great meal replacement even for people not actively training for an athletic event, and they can be kept as snacks in a go bag, or populate an office worker's snack drawer. This food has become almost mundane, to the point of saturation. There are probably too many protein bars, and many taste awful because manufacturers stress function: They offer tons of shelf-stable protein for as little as money as possible and are eaten quickly and on the go. Some of these protein bars need better names, even.

The act of even getting down a protein bar can be an ordeal or a pleasant experience. They're nutritional tools first and foremost, meal replacements or supplements, but that doesn't mean they have to taste like the dietary medicine they purport to be. Here then are some of the most popular protein bars, ranked from least to most palatable.

The protein bar industry leader and virtual category inventor, PowerBar has long since been surpassed by literally every other product for which it laid the groundwork. No matter the flavor, which is only ever a mere suggestion on the wrapper, eating a PowerBar is an endurance test, or a chore that must be overcome, on par with the kinds of tasks PowerBar's producers and marketing materials suggest that a PowerBar ought to fuel.

Regardless of the particular line or flavor, a PowerBar is an inordinately dense and heavy brick of blatantly, lovelessly, and scientifically concocted brown matter. Chalky, chunky, and imparting an overwhelming dryness, there's nothing inside that's reminiscent of natural ingredients. Its existence is purely functional and joyless — anyone who eats a PowerBar does so to acquire a lot of protein (and sugar) all at once, so they can get on with their day. There's little to savor about a PowerBar, which tastes like aftertaste before the aftertaste even kicks in.

When I ripped open the wrappers on these certified organic protein bars made by GoMacro, I was pummeled by a potent and discouraging smell that I can only liken to that of artificially-sweetened nail polish. And while that ugliness mostly fades into a background note when I actually bit into a GoMacro protein bar, particularly on the oatmeal chocolate chip style, it's still a bit of a factor to the overall taste. because this product doesn't really taste like anything.

A GoMacro doesn't taste like oatmeal, despite the reliance of oats, and the chocolate chips do little more than provide texture — tiny, crunchy islands in a soft and pillowy protein bar. All told, a GoMacro reads like an imitation of an original-style Clif Bar. But instead of being overly sugary, it's merely gently sweet, which doesn't altogether mask the odd, vague tastes of mixed fruit, tree bark, and smoke.

I sure do wish that these protein-forward offshoots of Kind Bars were more like their parent product. Original Kind Bars pack a moderate level of protein thanks to a generous use of nuts. By and large, there are less nuts in Kind Protein bars, which is inexplicable. While the peanut butter flavoring contributes some protein, it doesn't add much peanut butter taste, or at least not enough to cover up the awful taste of the rest of the bar.

The Protein Kind Bar doesn't much remind me of anything natural, and using those is something that Kind has historically embraced. Any chocolate used is rich in flavor but seems artificial, which brings on a strong and difficult aftertaste. Leading the nutritional charge here is also what dominates the flavor profile, unfortunately: those tiny, crispy nuggets of processed soy protein that resemble grains but taste medicinal that bar manufacturers seem to love to use. The nuggets utilized here are particularly dry and sour.

It's not a good omen that a Builders bar, a high-protein, lower-carbohydrate alternative product made by the same company that makes thin, sticky-sweet Clif Bars, is a rock-solid monolith that requires serious effort and torque to break off a chunk. But once inside, I can see a nice cross-section of the different tastes and textures — like a real candy bar, a Builders bar may contain a nougat-esque truffle layer (where the individual flavor of the bar actually lives, like chocolate-mint), and then a bottom layer that's all business. That's where the solid crunchy protein nuggets reside, suspended in a dark sea of thick, rough, and bitter chocolate-like substance.

The chocolate covering everything is light but fruity, so it tastes chocolate-flavored more than the genuine article. But the act of eating an energy-giving Builders bar takes a lot of energy itself. One bite takes an agonizing while to chew, but then swallowing leaves behind an aggressively bitter sensation so off-putting that it's difficult to want to take another bite and repeat the process.

A name like MET-Rx, with the shorthand for a doctor's prescription right there, suggests a protein bar that's going to be strictly nutritional — full of important, healthy ingredients meant to be absorbed into the body with seriousness and efficiency. Indeed, a MET-Rx bar packs an absolute wallop of dietary needs — one bar contains around 400 calories, a genre-leading 30-plus grams of protein, and nearly 20 vitamins and minerals. The problem is that all of those feature prominently and negatively in the taste of a MET-Rx bar, regardless of variety.

While unexpectedly and pleasingly soft, like a big homemade cookie, a MET-Rx product tastes like a can of soy-based protein powder that's been formed into a bar and baked in an oven until it was a bone-dry cake. While a representative bar contains plenty of sugar, the end product isn't sweet, which is baffling to both my brain and taste buds. That works out in MET-Rx's favor: Because the bar isn't extraordinarily sweet, it's easy to get one of these eaten quickly, with the aftertaste from the poorly-flavored bars quickly going away. It's just not something anyone is going to savor.

There are certain things that I expect from a protein bar, for better or for worse, and that's generally the overuse of sugar (or a series of stomach-upsetting sugar substitutes) that rarely even cover up the taste of the industrial-grade protein source, usually a bitter-tasting soy derivative. The Aloha protein bar falls prey to all of those tropes, looking and smelling just like a PowerBar, but thinner and stinking of chemicals. I just wouldn't think that a product that goes out of its way to remind the consumer how natural, healthy, and plant-based it is would smell, and also taste, faintly like a cleaning product.

Imagine a puckering but tangy flavor coupled with a texture like a raisin. Neither the peanut butter nor all-chocolate varieties taste much like what the wrappers promised they'd taste like. The Aloha bar isn't nice to eat, and it's not horrendous either — plowing through one of these organic items is purely an act of self-care and protein consumption.

Before the days when numerous health bars were available at most any grocery, drug, and convenience store, one of the limited options available to the sugar-avoidant and protein-seeking customer was Tiger's Milk. A chocolate-covered snack bar purporting to be peanut butter-flavored, it was dense but bouncy, mildly sweet, and very creamy, providing a pleasing method of protein consumption. Tiger's Milk in its original form is hard to find in the 2020s, but the aggressively and notably healthy TruBar makes for an uncanny replacement.

Beneath a very thin and efficient layer of decent chocolate, the inside of a TruBar is soft and smooth, and it's as sweet as a candy bar but because of its density, feels more substantial than a candy bar and boasts a tangy, milky, nut-like sensibility. It's a filling protein bar, but that might be because a TruBar takes a long time to chew. On the other hand, it leaves a coating in the mouth and the taste can be sensed more after eating than during. But at least it's undoubtedly healthy, with 12 grams of protein delivered without any dairy, soy, egregious sugar substitutes, or animal products.

The makers of NuGo avoid the use of gluten and genetically-modified ingredients in these bars. This automatically sets these bars apart from the competition, saving the product from the pitfall faced by so many others: that uncomfortable, chemical sensation that adds to the unpleasant and often unavoidable taste, smell, and aftertaste often present in the creation of such laboratory-created, scientifically nutritionally balanced meal and snack replacements. That works particularly well in the chocolate-covered varieties, because NuGo also uses actual milk or dark chocolate. That creates an outer layer that's velvety and sweet without being overwhelming, complimenting the protein-rich insides of the bar.

The non-GMO soy bits are noticeably light and fluffy, airier and better tasting that those generally used by the competition. The long, narrow construction of a NuGo bar allows for a bite as wide as your mouth, making for an overall better and more even distribution of flavors.

It would be hard to come up with a more generic name for a protein bar than "Probar," but it fits the product, a middle-of-the-road, just-okay nutrition bar. As of 2025, these bars built around plant-based protein carry a "new and improved" label promising a better texture with the same taste, which producers apparently felt didn't need to change.

These very hard bars are tough to break or bite through. Probars are the crispy kind of protein bars, made with the soy nuggets that collapse under your teeth. The flavor is fine — by and large, varieties are reminiscent of flavored or chocolate-covered granola bars. The chocolate used is decent and lacks a strong aftertaste as well as any significant flavor. That's all subsumed by the middle, a dry granola impersonation with an evocative but not exact taste. The peanut butter flavor carries a plain, roasted peanut taste, for example. Probars are weirdly not very sweet, despite containing more than 12 grams of sugar to offset and hide the 20 grams of displeasurable soy protein isolate.

No matter which one of the vast number of Quest protein bars you're eating — standard chocolate versions, baked goods impersonators, or fruit-flavored ones — it's always going to taste like a granola bar. This is a bit odd, because Quest doesn't outwardly use grains (or any substantial source of traditional carbohydrates) in its bars. The give and sweetness are so generous that whatever Quest bar you eat it tastes like the stated flavor imparted onto a Quaker Chewy granola bar. Cookies and Cream, for example, tastes faintly like Oreos, but also like tiny bites of sweetened oat clusters.

Also universal across the Quest line of bars both soft and moist (both rare in protein-rich products) is that there's no aftertaste. They're a testament to the sugar-imitating powers of artificial sweeteners and what can be accomplished in a food lab. Some products reach those heights more than others; the lemon cake just tastes like fake lemon frosting, while the chocolate brownie is rich, chocolatey, and even gooey.

Both the chocolate-oriented and fruit-flavored options from the think! series are refreshing and refreshingly different from the usual protein bar. Light in texture, weight, and flavor — particularly those wrong note-sounding artificial ones that almost seem like a necessary part of the supplemental protein world — think! bars are understated through and through.

The "Lemon Delight" flavor is the think! line's best offering, tangy and bursting with an initial dose of natural-tasting citrus flavor that gives way to a candied, imitation sweetened lemon. One bite winds up tasting like lemon yogurt, thanks in only small part to the white film covering that's supposed to be yogurt. This think! bar does have an aftertaste, but rather than bringing on a bitter taste of soy, it's a brief hit of sweet lemon. Altogether, it tastes like grocery store packaged lemon cake. I could hardly taste the powerful punch of 20 grams of lab-isolated protein, and that's think!'s real achievement here.

The food scientists that create protein bars seem to spend most of their efforts on nutrition, figuring out new ways to get as much protein into a tiny bar as possible. The team at One devoted just as much work into making their products taste uncannily like nutritionally vapid sweet treats. One bars, with an above-average 20 grams of protein and 1 gram of sugar per serving, represent calorically reasonable and otherwise wholesome desserts.

A One bar feels like an indulgence. A S'mores-flavored bar offers all the textures and flavors (graham cracker, marshmallow, sweet and light milk chocolate) of the campfire classic (albeit uncooked), while the Birthday Cake bars manage to smell like both canned vanilla frosting and a yellow cake made from a boxed mix. The baked good sensibility in the Birthday Cake fades into the ether a bit while the frosting tastes center stage. The bars are a good mixture of crunchy and soft and offer some give, so there's a disconnect between flavor and mouthfeel, but otherwise, One bars are a delight.

The industry standard for protein bars leans toward density — solid, tough to chew, thick chunks of scientifically-manipulated soy protein covered in low-sugar almost-chocolate. Power Crunch defies both of those dictums, producing a line of carefully flavored bars that are light, airy, and crispy in the middle and nailing candy bar-level chocolate everywhere else.

Power Crunch seems to take inspiration from those bargain wafer cookies of yore, as waffle-patterned, lightly sweetened, paper-thin slabs are layered between flavored pastes. They're so lightweight that they melt in your mouth along with the light, milky chocolate outside that comes in just the right level of thickness so as not to overtake the interior tastes. Several of the Power Crunch flavors even succeed in emulating the less healthier sweets they aim to supplant — the mint chocolate bar tastes not just like mint and chocolate (in equal measure no less) but akin to a Keebler Grasshopper or a Girl Scouts' Thin Mint.

Nick's makes two types of things, both of them protein rich, low in sugar, and high in protein: ice cream and protein bars. This is a company that wants to make things that taste good that just happen to be rich with filling, muscle-building, clean protein without using fats or too much sweetener, and as far as the bars are concerned, it has succeeded.

Nick's markets its bars as candy-like snacks, downplaying the protein, and these live up to the self-generated hype. The Swedish-style "Triple Chocklad" bar looks and tastes like a high-price, imported, small batch candy bar. It's very sweet without being cloying, and even though it's mostly made of chocolate, it gives off notes of caramel along with the smooth, light outer coating. The "Karamell Choklad" style matches the caramel to the chocolate at the level of a Rolo. The 15 grams of protein in each type are barely detectable, with no bitterness, crunch, or even an aftertaste.

It's a minor miracle for candy fans that the chocolate and salted caramel Fulfil bar is a barely detectable dupe of a 100 Grand Bar. That candy is one of the most sugary candy bars going, a version of the Nestle Crunch bar — milk chocolate and puffed rice — with the addition of caramel and made bigger. A Fulfill bar fits the description of a 100 Grand Bar, as all the elements are there. It just happens to have five grams of sugar and a lot of protein, at 14 grams.

Fulfil's makers replaced the rice with soy crisps that lack the taste or texture of other protein sources found in so many other bars, and they mix it with a smooth, sweet caramel, and a chocolate that doesn't leave behind an aftertaste. I usually feel bogged down after eating a sugar-loaded regular candy bar, but the Fulfil actually imparts some energy, on account of the protein. This makes a Fulfill bar a great choice for both flavor and function.

The bold claims and big promises of collagen-infused foods notwithstanding, adding such a dietary supplement that builds elasticity works to impart a terrific taste and create a light, fluffy, and soft texture hard to come by in protein bars. The interior of a Built Puffs bar is as squishy and creamy as a fresh marshmallow, and all that comes inside a light, semi-sweet, semi-dark layer of chocolate in the brand's best varieties. That contributes to a luxurious flavor and mouthfeel reminiscent of the chocolate-covered marshmallow eggs one can usually only find around Easter.

While maintaining a similar nutritional profile as other protein bars — around 200 calories and 12 grams of protein — the overall effect is a novelty and revelation. There's no trace of that telltale protein twinge nor any aftertaste beyond a rich, chocolatey sensation. Built Puffs are the best protein bars out there because they don't taste anything like protein bars — they're just exceptionally healthy candy bars.

To determine what protein bars to assess, and rank relative to one another, I purchased a selection that are widely commercially available. I wanted to create a structure of objectivity that looked at the most omnipresent national brands, and rated bars found commonly at supermarket, drug, and convenience store chains. There are a lot of nutrition bars on the market, and I examined only those with a moderate to high protein content. The bars tested contain at least 12 grams of protein per serving.

Then, I rated them on the basis of taste, and factors related to taste, such as odor, mouthfeel, and satiation. Bars that tasted unreasonably bitter, or like medicine, fake sugar, or soy isolate, tended to fall low on the list. Bars that had a could balance of flavors, or that masked the icky protein taste, or were tough to differentiate from protein-lacking regular candy bars, scored highly.