GHOST cannot be stopped. After years of dominating the fitness-related supplement space via excellent pre-workout, protein, and greens powders, and their fantastic ready-to-drink Energy cans, the brand is now coming for your breakfast bowl. 

GHOST Protein Cereal has arrived in two flavors — Peanut Butter and Marshmallow — initially as an exclusive limited website-only release with boxes rolling out to major retailers like Walmart beginning this week.. I was fortunate enough to win a giveaway of two boxes through one of the GHOST brand ambassadors, Chef Bob, and got my hands on the cereal, which sold out in less than five minutes.

A serving of GHOST Protein Cereal clocks in at 170 calories with 18g of protein for the Peanut Butter and 17g of protein for the Marshmallow. The peanut butter is a straight forward “peanut butter ball” type of cereal like PB Cap’n Crunch or Reese’s Puffs (minus the chocolate), while the Marshmallow is the same small-ish ball shape but vanilla flavored, mixed with genuine Lucky Charms marshmallows courtesy of General Mills.

Both cereals are truly, and slightly surprisingly, delicious. The cereal balls, mostly comprised of milk protein concentrate, carry a gentler crunch than your typical Cap’n-style berry variety, but still have plenty of crumbly chomp to be more than satisfying. The element that stands out the most with these cereals compared to their actual sugar-laden protein-devoid counterparts, is that they are, not surprisingly, less sweet. The flavor is still very much there, especially the slightly salty and true peanut-y flavor on the PB, but it’s a bit less potently dense and more muted than on the actual sugary ones. 

I don’t mind it, though, because there also isn’t a pronounced protein taste or any strong chemical-y aftertaste, either. The white Marshmallow balls are less flavorful but they’re served next to actual sugary marshmallows, which when eaten in tandem as intended, have a nice sweet vanilla flavor that’s mild but just potent enough to satisfy that breakfast cereal itch.

I am much more of a dry guy when it comes to my cereal, or more specifically a snacking-and-topping kind of guy, putting it on bowls of yogurt, often laced with GHOST protein powder, as opposed to sitting in a bowl of milk. However, understanding that most people will eat this with milk, I took each flavor for a spin in a smaller bowl with some reduced fat Fairlife and was pleasantly surprised. 

The peanut butter gets a much more prominent sweet flavor in the milk, unleashing even more of the nut’s rich fatty creaminess, which boosts this one to an even more impressive level than I already had enjoyed it at as a dry guy. I didn’t expect the PB to perform so well in milk, but it does, and it holds its crunch for a pretty decent amount of time, too.

The marshmallow, which I expected to be the clear winner in milk, wasn’t a loser per say, but wasn’t as impressive as the PB. The light vanilla flavor on the balls gets much more muted in the milk, and the marshmallows have to do all the heavy lifting for the flavor to come through. They can also sit in milk for many minutes without getting aggressively soggy, still bringing a satisfying crunch after a proper soaking next to the marshmallows, which get softer and maintain all of their sweetness.

It’s hard to go wrong with either variety, as both are among the greatest tasting high protein cereal’s I have ever had. The only “healthy” cereal I have ever been impressed with and buy repeatedly is Three Wishes, and GHOST cereal now firmly cements itself next to that brand as a really great, even higher protein option to keep in the rotation among a crowded and often disappointing category of alternative cereals.

Rating: 9/10 (Peanut Butter, 8.5/10 Marshmallow)

Purchased at: GHOST