10 Pop-Tarts Varieties Everyone Should Try At Least Once (Plus the Retro Toaster I’d Actually Buy)

The best Pop-Tarts varieties to try right now are Frosted Strawberry, Frosted Brown Sugar Cinnamon, Frosted S’Mores, Frosted Hot Fudge Sundae, and the newly returned Frosted Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, along with a handful of newer flavors that deserve more attention than they get.

I keep a box of Pop-Tarts in my pantry the way some people keep a fire extinguisher, just in case. It’s the breakfast I fall back on when I’ve got five minutes before I need to walk out the door, and after buying probably forty boxes over the years, I’ve landed on strong opinions about which flavors are actually worth the shelf space.

My relationship with Pop-Tarts started the same way most people’s did, with the strawberry ones my mom packed in my lunchbox. A couple years ago I decided to actually try every flavor I could find in a store instead of grabbing the same box out of habit. Some earned a permanent spot in my cart, and a few were genuinely disappointing.

This list covers ten Pop-Tarts varieties I’d actually recommend, why each one works, and a few notes on how I like to eat them. I’m also answering the questions I get asked most, like whether toasting actually matters and what happened to the flavors that vanished off shelves.

Key Takeaways

• Pop-Tarts started in 1964 with four unfrosted flavors, and frosting didn’t show up until 1967, which is why some of the oldest flavors still come in both versions
• Frosted Strawberry and Frosted Brown Sugar Cinnamon are the two flavors that have stuck around the longest and still sell the best
• Frosted Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough was discontinued in 2022, then brought back as a permanent flavor in November 2025 after years of fans asking for it
• A standard pastry runs close to 200 calories, so the usual two-pack serving lands around 400
• Toasting isn’t required. Plenty of people eat Pop-Tarts straight out of the pouch, and the package itself just calls for a light toast, not a full one

10 Pop-Tarts Varieties Everyone Should Try At Least Once

I ranked these based on flavor, how well they hold up toasted, and honestly how often I find myself actually reaching for the box again. A couple of these are the flavors everyone already knows. A few are the ones I think get slept on.

1. Frosted Strawberry

This is the one most people picture when they hear the word Pop-Tart, and it’s also one of the four original flavors from 1964, though it started out unfrosted. The filling is a bright, jammy strawberry that leans more candy-sweet than real fruit, and the white frosting with pink sprinkles is basically the brand’s logo at this point.

I used to think Frosted Strawberry was the boring, default choice, the one you pick when you can’t decide. Then I went a few months buying other flavors and came back to it, and it’s just genuinely well balanced in a way some of the newer flavors aren’t. It toasts evenly too, since the filling doesn’t get as runny as some of the fruitier flavors do.

Best way to eat it: toasted just until the edges start to firm up, not until the frosting cracks.

2. Frosted Brown Sugar Cinnamon

Brown Sugar Cinnamon is the other flavor from that original 1964 lineup, and it’s the one I reach for when I want something that tastes more like a pastry than a fruit snack. There’s no filling in the traditional sense, just a cinnamon and brown sugar paste running through the middle with a matching glaze on top.

This is the flavor I’d hand to someone who claims they don’t like Pop-Tarts, because it tastes closer to a toaster version of a cinnamon roll than anything artificial. It also holds its shape better in the toaster than most of the fruit flavors, since there’s no jammy filling that can leak out the seams.

Best way to eat it: toasted a little longer than usual, since the sugar inside benefits from getting slightly caramelized.

3. Frosted S’Mores

Frosted S’Mores pairs a chocolate filling with little bits of marshmallow flavor baked in, topped with chocolate frosting. It’s built to taste like the campfire dessert without needing an actual fire, and it mostly delivers.

The marshmallow flavor is subtler than I expected the first time I tried it, more of a background sweetness than an actual bite of marshmallow. I still keep this one in rotation because the chocolate crust underneath the filling gives it a texture the fruit flavors don’t have, almost like a cookie instead of a plain pastry shell.

Best way to eat it: toasted, since the chocolate frosting gets slightly glossy and the crust crisps up in a way that plain reheating in a toaster oven doesn’t quite match.

4. Frosted Hot Fudge Sundae

Hot Fudge Sundae goes even further than S’Mores on the dessert theme. It’s got a chocolate crust instead of the usual plain one, a smooth vanilla filling, and frosting striped with both vanilla and fudge, finished with little rainbow sprinkles baked right onto the top.

It’s easily one of the most dessert-like things in the whole Pop-Tarts lineup, closer to a hand pie than a breakfast pastry. I don’t eat this one often because it’s rich enough that one is usually plenty, but when I want something that feels like a treat instead of just breakfast, this is what I grab.

Best way to eat it: cold or at room temperature, since toasting can make the sprinkles lose their color and the sundae look gets muted.

5. Frosted Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough

This flavor has the best comeback story of anything on this list. Kellogg’s discontinued it back in 2022, and the fan reaction was loud enough that Reddit threads and a Change.org petition kept the demand visible for years. It came back for good in November 2025, and it’s officially a permanent flavor now.

The filling actually tastes like raw cookie dough, with tiny chocolate chip specks mixed through a vanilla-cookie base, and the frosting has the same warm, doughy sweetness. I understand the fan campaign now that I’ve tried the return version. It’s one of the few flavors here that doesn’t taste like it’s trying to copy something, it just tastes like cookie dough.

Best way to eat it: slightly under-toasted, since a fully toasted crust can make the cookie dough filling taste more baked than doughy, which kind of defeats the point.

6. Frosted Cookies and Crème

Frosted Cookies and Crème takes the chocolate-cookie-and-cream flavor combo and runs it through the Pop-Tart format, with visible little cookie crumb pieces mixed into a vanilla-forward filling. It’s not trying to be subtle about what it’s going for.

I was skeptical this would just taste like generic vanilla with some crunch thrown in, but the cookie crumbs actually come through, especially once it’s cooled a minute or two after toasting. This is the flavor I hand to people who say they only like chocolate desserts, since it’s chocolate-adjacent without being a full chocolate flavor.

Best way to eat it: toasted, then let it sit for a minute before eating so the filling isn’t scalding and you can actually taste the cookie pieces.

7. Frosted Wildlicious Wild Berry

Wild Berry is the flavor I go to when Frosted Strawberry feels too one-note. It blends several berries into one filling instead of leaning on just strawberry, so it comes across a little tarter and less purely sweet than the classic fruit flavors.

The color inside leans more purple than red, which threw me off the first time since I expected it to taste more like grape. It doesn’t. It tastes like an actual berry blend, and it’s become my go-to when I want something fruity that isn’t just strawberry again.

Best way to eat it: lightly toasted, since over-toasting can make the berry filling taste slightly scorched around the edges.

8. Frosted Confetti Cupcake

Confetti Cupcake is the birthday cake flavor of the lineup, with a vanilla cake filling, white frosting, and actual rainbow sprinkles baked into the pastry itself instead of just sitting on top. It’s the most visually fun flavor on this list, which makes it a good pick if you’re setting these out for a kid’s breakfast or a party spread.

Flavor-wise, it’s sweeter than almost everything else here, closer to eating actual cake than a fruit or chocolate pastry. I don’t reach for this one every week, but it’s the one I buy specifically when I want that specific birthday cake taste without baking an actual cake.

Best way to eat it: cold, straight from the pouch, since toasting tends to dull the vanilla cake flavor and doesn’t do much for the sprinkles baked into the crust.

9. Frosted Chocolate Fudge

Frosted Chocolate Fudge is the straightforward chocolate option, no marshmallow, no cookie dough, no sundae toppings, just a rich fudge filling under chocolate frosting that’s dense in a way some of the other chocolate flavors aren’t, closer to a brownie filling than a light chocolate pudding. This is the one I keep around for late afternoons when I want something chocolate and don’t want to deal with actually baking.

Best way to eat it: toasted just until warm, since the fudge filling can get almost too soft and hot if you push it further.

10. Unfrosted Brown Sugar Cinnamon

Unfrosted Pop-Tarts still exist, and Brown Sugar Cinnamon is the one I actually think holds up best without the glaze on top. It’s basically the same cinnamon and brown sugar filling as the frosted version, just without the sugary top layer, which makes it noticeably less sweet overall.

I didn’t expect to like this as much as I do, since I usually assume unfrosted means it’s missing something. It doesn’t feel like a lesser version, it feels like a different pastry entirely, closer to a plain cinnamon toast than a dessert. This is the one I buy when I want the flavor without the sugar crash twenty minutes later.

Best way to eat it: toasted well past what you’d do for the frosted version, since there’s no glaze to burn and the extra crisp makes up for the lower sweetness.

Which Pop-Tart Am I Actually Buying Next

If I had to pick just one box for the rest of the year, I’d probably still land on Frosted Brown Sugar Cinnamon, but Frosted Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough has genuinely earned a permanent spot next to it since it came back. The rest rotate in and out depending on my mood, which is honestly the fun part of a brand with this many flavors.

If you’re stocking up for school lunches or a snack box, grabbing a couple different flavors instead of a single box tends to work out better anyway, since not everyone in the house wants the same thing every morning. I do the same thing when I’m putting together back-to-school lunch and snack ideas in general, mixing in a couple of wildcard picks along with the reliable ones. Grabbing a Pop-Tarts Frosted Variety Pack does a lot of that mixing for you in one box, if you’d rather not build your own assortment out of single flavors.

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