If your kids have strong opinions about snacks — and mine definitely do — here are the eleven from Five Below that earn a genuine reaction every single time I bring them home.
1. Amos® Peelerz® Mango Gummy Candy 3oz – $2.00
Peeling candy before eating it sounds like a gimmick, and yet here I am, restocking these every time I’m in Five Below. You actually peel back a fruit-roll outer layer to reveal the soft, juicy candy inside — my kids will sit at the table and work through them one by one instead of inhaling the bag in two minutes. The real fruit juice mango flavor makes the whole experience feel more fruit than candy, which is a nice selling point when you’re trying to say yes.
Taste: Bright, sweet mango flavor comes through clearly, and the two-texture combination — that peel-away outer followed by the chewy, slightly sticky center — makes each piece more interesting than your average gummy bear. It’s genuine fruit-juice sweetness rather than the fake-tropical note you get from cheaper candy.
Make It Better: Pop them in the fridge before serving — the peeling layer firms up slightly and the whole experience becomes even more satisfying.
Parting Thoughts: If your kid is a hands-on eater who needs something to fidget with, these are a genuine hit.
2. Toxic Waste® Slime Licker 2.0 Sour Liquid Candy (Flavors May Vary) – $3.00
Sour candy with a novelty factor so high that my nephew has requested it at every birthday for the past two years — you roll the rounded applicator across your tongue and get a blast of liquid sour gel in strawberry or blue razz, with the specific flavor being a surprise when you open it. The 2.0 version comes in a resealable container, which is smarter than it sounds because no one finishes this in one sitting. Ages 4+ per the package, but the extreme sour intensity makes this more of an 8-and-up experience in practice.
Taste: Powerfully sour up front with a sweet fruity finish — strawberry and blue razz both lean hard into that face-scrunching pucker before the sugar catches up. The texture is slimy liquid gel, which sounds unappealing but is entirely the point.
Make It Better: Turn it into a party challenge: see who can hold it on their tongue for five full seconds — it stops being just a snack and becomes an event.
Parting Thoughts: Hands-down the best $3.00 you’ll spend on a guaranteed reaction face.
3. Meiji® Hello Panda Chocolate Creme Filled Cookies – $5.00
Eight individually wrapped bags of tiny panda-head cookies, each shell stamped with a fun panda activity design and filled with chocolate crème — the individual pouches make these perfect for lunchboxes or for doling out one bag at a time on a long car ride. Contains milk, soy, and wheat; made in a bakery that also uses peanuts and tree nuts, so check for allergies before buying.
Taste: A delicate, airy crunch gives way to smooth chocolate crème that’s genuinely good — more like a sophisticated small cookie than a sugar bomb. The shell is crispy without being brittle, and the filling-to-cookie ratio is balanced enough that you get both textures in every bite.
Make It Better: Hand one pouch per kid and let them read all the panda poses before eating — it buys a solid few extra minutes of quiet at snack time.
Parting Thoughts: Sweet, shareable, and genuinely cute enough that adults will quietly sneak one too.
4. Gupperz® Poppin’ Pickles Gummy Liquid Filled Candy 2.54oz – $4.00
Liquid-burst candy is nothing new, but the Gupperz version leans harder into the sour-then-sweet combination — a sour-coated outer gummy with a liquid candy center that actually bursts when you bite down, packed into a 2.54oz bag. The flavor is fruity, and the fun comes from not knowing exactly when the burst hits, which makes kids eat slowly and dramatically. Think of it as a Gushers cousin that turned up the pucker.
Taste: The outer layer delivers a tart, sour coating, and when the liquid center pops through you get a sweet, juicy fruity rush — the contrast between the tangy exterior and the sweeter fill is what keeps you going back. Soft gummy outside, liquid candy inside, with a satisfying burst in the middle.
Make It Better: Keep these somewhere cool if you’re packing them for an outdoor event — the heat-sensitive liquid centers hold up better when they start firm.
Parting Thoughts: The burst moment sells it; kids who’ve had Gushers will absolutely be obsessed.
5. Mr. Beast Feastables Milk Chocolate 1.24oz – $2.00
Yes, it’s the MrBeast chocolate bar, and yes, your kids already know about it — this 1.24oz milk chocolate bar is made in the USA, and at $2.00 it’s an affordable way to say yes to the thing they’ve been asking for since they spotted it in a YouTube thumbnail. It’s not groundbreaking as chocolate goes, but that was never the point.
Taste: Smooth and creamy milk chocolate without much complexity — crowd-pleasing in a simple, reliable way, the kind of bar that disappears fast because it’s genuinely pleasant to eat. The milk chocolate version is straightforward and sweet, and some variants include a crunch element.
Make It Better: Save it for a reward moment — the combination of the branding and the buildup makes it taste better than it would cold off a random shelf.
Parting Thoughts: Worth exactly what it costs as a treat they’ll feel proud of, even if you quietly know it’s just good milk chocolate.
6. Fun Works Edible Paper Candy Set 1.16oz – $4.00
Part craft project, part snack — you write or draw on edible paper using a strawberry gel pen, then eat your creation. The 1.16oz set is the kind of thing that buys fifteen minutes of quiet at a birthday party table or keeps a restless kid occupied at a restaurant in a way that plain candy simply cannot. It’s more activity than candy, which either makes it brilliant or slightly absurd depending on your perspective.
Taste: The edible paper itself is mostly neutral with a light crunch that dissolves quickly — the real flavor comes from the strawberry gel pen, which delivers a mild, fruity sweetness. Expect novelty experience first; intense candy flavor is not the main event here.
Make It Better: Set these out at a birthday party table alongside other snacks — kids will spend more time writing secret messages to eat than actually snacking, which is entirely the charm.
Parting Thoughts: The $4.00 activity-to-sugar ratio is unmatched — it’s a party trick that happens to taste like strawberries.
7. Meiji® Chocorooms 5oz – $5.00
Every single mushroom in this bag looks like it belongs in a fairy ring — a crispy cracker stem topped with a cap that blends milk and dark chocolate. The 5oz resealable bag is the right size for sharing, though you’ll find yourself reconsidering that plan once you’ve had three. Kids pull them out one at a time to examine the shape before eating, which is the mark of a genuinely fun snack.
Taste: The milk-and-dark chocolate cap is sweet without being cloying, and the crispy cracker stem adds a lightly salty contrast that makes every bite feel balanced. Light enough to eat a dozen before you notice what’s happened.
Make It Better: Stand them upright on a plate before serving — a little forest of chocolate mushrooms is genuinely charming and makes the snack feel like something special rather than something you grabbed off a shelf.
Parting Thoughts: One of the few snacks in this list that’s as fun for parents as it is for kids — grab two bags.
8. Dum-Dums® Flavor Vault™ Lollipops 13.7oz – $5.00
This isn’t the bowl of Dum-Dums you find sitting at the bank — the Flavor Vault bag is an exclusive Five Below mix of discontinued and adventurous flavors including pickle, fried banana, spicy pineapple, and blueberry donut, plus the classic mystery flavor. The 13.7oz bag is large enough for a party bowl or a whole week’s worth of after-school lollipops, and the variety makes it genuinely fun to pick one without looking.
Taste: Each flavor is clearly distinct and often surprising — fried banana hits differently than any lollipop you’ve had before, and the pickle is exactly as divisive and fascinating as it sounds. Classic hard candy texture, long-lasting, with flavors that range from comfortingly familiar to legitimately weird.
Make It Better: Run a flavor-rating challenge: kids blindly pick one and try to name it before looking — the mystery flavor creates its own separate argument every single time.
Parting Thoughts: Snatch these fast — exclusive novelty bags like this have a habit of disappearing once word gets out.
9. Amos® TastySounds™ Strawberry Flavor Audio Lollipop 0.42oz – $5.00
A bone-conduction lollipop that plays Hip Hop audio through your jawbone while you suck on it — yes, that’s real, and yes, kids lose their minds over it. The 0.42oz strawberry candy acts as the conductor, delivering music vibrations through your teeth and skull while you eat. This is the one I hand to skeptical adults just to watch their face change.
Taste: Straightforward hard candy with a clear strawberry flavor — pleasant and sweet, but entirely secondary to what’s happening audiologically. Standard hard candy texture that lasts a solid amount of time.
Make It Better: Bite down firmly to amplify the vibration effect; the included earplugs can take the experience even further if your kid will actually use them.
Parting Thoughts: At $5.00 for one lollipop it’s a novelty-priced splurge, but watching a kid figure out what’s happening mid-lick is worth every cent.
10. Jelly Belly® Boba Milk Tea 4.25oz – $5.00
Jelly Belly took the boba tea trend and packed it into a 4.25oz box of jelly beans — flavors include mango, matcha, taro, strawberry, and Thai, each calibrated to actually taste like the drink it’s named after. For kids who are already boba-obsessed, this is a natural lunchbox treat; for kids who aren’t yet, it’s an easy and tasty introduction.
Taste: The flavor accuracy is surprisingly good — taro comes through as distinctly floral and earthy, and the mango reads bright and tropical rather than generic. Classic Jelly Belly texture, dense and chewy with that satisfying pop, but the flavors are what set this box apart from anything else in the candy aisle.
Make It Better: Lay out one of each flavor and work through them in order from lightest to most intense — mango and strawberry first, then taro and matcha — as a mini tasting flight.
Parting Thoughts: A must-grab for any kid who already orders boba, and a sneaky way to introduce new flavor vocabulary to one who doesn’t.
11. Sheila G’s® Brownie Brittle® M&M’s® Minis 4oz – $5.00
Thin, light, crispy brownie edges — the best part of any pan of brownies — covered in M&M’s Minis for a colorful crunch hit in every bite. The 4oz bag is perfectly sized for a snack bowl that requires zero prep and disappears fast at movie night. Nobody in this house has ever managed to stop at one handful.
Taste: Rich, chocolatey brownie flavor in a wafer-thin crisp that shatters satisfyingly before melting into chocolate on your tongue — the M&M’s Minis add a candy shell crunch on top that plays off the brittle base perfectly. Sweeter than a plain brownie bite, in the best possible way.
Make It Better: Crumble a handful over vanilla ice cream for a five-second upgrade that tastes like you actually tried.
Parting Thoughts: Probably the most universally crowd-pleasing item in this list — kids, teens, and the adults who claim they’re not having any will all keep reaching back in.
