In Search of the Best Grocery Store Ice Cream

7 min readDec 29, 2020

I’m a huge ice cream addict. Since December, I’ve been going through a phase of aggressively eating grocery store ice cream, during which on average I eat 1 jar of ice cream per day. I’ve gone through 12 flavors from Ben & Jerry’s, 3 flavors from Dolcezza Gelato, 5 from WholeFood’s own home brand, and 2 from Talenti, and 1 from Museum of Ice Cream (a famous NYC ice cream shop).

Typically, I only eat ice cream from smaller shops. After hitting up most of the iconic ice cream shops in the city, e.g. Chinatown Ice Cream Factory, Oddfellows, Ice & Vice, Morgenstern’s, I decided to try some every day grocery store ice cream for a change. Though they are not handcrafted ice cream of unique and exotic flavors, there are still a lot of good quality jars in the ice cream section. They are consistent, relatively cheap, and range from a variety of flavors.

After eating 20+ jars this month, here are the full reviews of all the ice cream I tried!

Quality Brands

Dolcezza

The best grocery store ice cream I have ever had! The texture is super creamy, the ingredients taste authentic, it’s not full of sugar and artificial flavors. I’d say its very gourmet ice cream.

Flavors Rundown:

Mascarpone & berries (4.8): This is a very unique and sophisticated flavor. The mascarpone is soft and creamy, the berry jam is a bit sweet but you should consume it by swirling everything together. It’s heavenly!
Chocolate (4.7): Super rich and dark chocolate. Its the most chocolatey ice cream I’ve had, it feels like eating real chocolate. You can easily tell the difference between the chocolate used in this ice cream compared to other grocery brands.
Stracciatella / Cookies & Cream (4.6): This flavor is less original, but still it’s probably the finest and classiest cookies & cream you can find from a grocery store. It’s very authentic Italian gelato style. I love it!
Vanilla (4.6): Another high quality vanilla flavor, the same vanilla you can taste in Stracciatella without the cookies.

Museum of Ice Cream

I’ve walked passed their ice cream shop on Broadway in SOHO dozens of times, but I never tried their ice cream as it seems very touristy. I came across a jar in my local grocery store — the flavor was PB & P, which stands for Peanut Butter and Pretzels. I didn’t have high hope, but was pleasantly surprised!

PB & P (4.4): This ice cream have some very interesting toppings: chocolate covered pb pretzels. The PB ice cream tastes almost savory compared to the regular sweet PB ice cream. I find this brand very interesting and adventurous. Open to try more of their ice cream in the future!

Ben & Jerry

This is a staple ice cream brand that is probably the most familiar to people living in the northeast. B&J is kind of a cliche but its also classic. I haven’t had their ice cream since college, but once I started again I just couldn’t stop. It’s the most addicting ice cream I’ve had, and also the most unhealthy one.

Classic Flavors

Phish Food (4.4): chocolate ice cream base, with marshmallow and caramel swirl and chocolate chunks. The chocolate chunks add an interesting texture, great for chocolate lover. Though I don’t really like caramel and marshmallow swirl with my chocolate, as its too sweet. Also chocolate itself is rich enough, I don’t want more caramel with it.
Half Baked (4.5): chocolate and vanilla ice cream, with cookie dough and brownies. Nothing can go wrong with this combo, it’s a classic best selling flavor. That being said, I think the dough pieces here are too big and I actually prefer the new PB half baked to this original one.
Americone dream (4.5): vanilla ice cream with chocolate waffle & caramel swirl. It’s a twist on the classic cookies & cream that uses chocolate waffle instead of chocolate chips. The texture is definitely more interesting with the waffle cone pieces — makes it more exciting than a regular vanilla ice cream. However, the ice cream is as usual too sweet, very sugary, but also creamy. I’m not a caramel fan, but I can see a lot of people loving this flavor.
Milk n’ Cookies (4.6): vanilla ice cream with Oreo swirl and cookie dough. This is exactly what I expect from an American cookies and cream ice cream!! This is very decadent and addictive, very sugary. I love the chocolate chip cookie dough, Oreos and all the good stuff in it. This ice cream is too dangerous. I feel like it’s an elevated version of the McFlurry.
Chocolate Therapy (4.5): chocolate ice cream with chocolate pudding. Well, its all about chocolate, nothing special, but a chocolate junkie like me would still happily consume it in one sitting.
New York Super Fudge Chunk (4.6): chocolate ice cream with a chunky walnuts and almonds. Great texture with all the nuts, its a very typical B&J flavor. I just love all the nuts with my ice cream.

Special Flavors

Glampfire Trail Mix (4.7): chocolate ice cream with pretzel, marshmallow swirls & almonds. Salty and chocolaty, it’s the best chocolate base ice cream I had so far at BJ. Reminds me of sea salt caramel chocolate and strikes a perfect balance of salt & sweetness that makes it very addicting.
Brewed to Matter (4.7): coffee ice cream with chocolate chunk & brownie batter. This definitely tastes more subdued and tamed compared to other bright and extraneous B&J flavors full of crazy toppings. I can taste the bitterness in the coffee flavor. It’s not as sugary and sweet as other traditional flavors. I’d say it’s a too tasteful for B&J, and I would not be able to tell it’s B&J if there were no brownie batter in it.

Non-Dairy

PB half baked (4.5): dairy free almond milk chocolate and PB ice cream. It’s actually really creamy for a non-dairy ice cream. Has a very strong PB flavor, the cookies doughs are amazing, also have brownies pieces in it. I cannot even tell its non-dairy, very impressive. My favorite non-dairy flavor so far.
Milk & Cookies (4.3): vanilla ice cream with chocolate chip cookies and Oreos. It uses sunflower milk, although it’s very creamy, but has a distinct nutty taste from the sunflower butter. It’s definitely on the sweet side, and very different from the original milk n cookies although similar ingredients and concepts. Personally not a fan of the sunflower butter so I don’t like it.
Chocolate Salted’ n Swirled (4.5): chocolate ice cream with oreo and caramel swirl. An almond milk based chocolate ice cream. Since its almond so its not as creamy as the sunflower ones, but it also doesn’t have the nutty flavor which makes it lighter on the body. This would be my go-to for non-dairy B&J chocolate ice cream.

Froyo

Half-Baked: they only have 2 flavors for froyo but this tastes amazing!! Just like the original, but slightly lighter texture and way less calories. Great options if you crave half-baked but don’t want all the calories.

Amateur Brand

WholeFoods Gelato & Ice cream

Relatively healthy and cheap, it’s only 3.99 per jar compared to 6.99 for most other brands. Also lower calorie. I’m glad its not that sweet compared to most ice cream brands. On the flip side, it’s very lacking on the texture creaminess and thickness.

The WholeFoods gelati are all lacking in good texture the a real gelato has — I wouldn’t even call these ice cream gelato. They are made of non-fat milk and coconut oil, so it’s relatively healthy. It just doesn’t compare to the better ice cream brands like Dolcezza or even B&J. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend their ice cream if you are looking for something special and high-quality.

Pistachio (4.4): very generic, but a decent ice cream that is pistachio flavored.
Madagascar Vanilla & Plum (4.5): a good combo of flavors, balance of sweet and sourness.
Raspberry cheesecake (4.6): sour raspberry is refreshening, and pleasant. The cheesecake pieces are pleasant.
Sea salt & caramel (4.3): this tastes straight like sweet butter, a bit too heavy and not a fan.
Chocolate Valencia Orange Ice Cream (4.3): not as creamy as B&J, the orange taste is overwhelming the chocolate. I prefer chocolate to have that dark chocolatey flavor, but couldn’t find it in this ice cream. The ingredients are not very authentic. The orange tastes more like a jam and chocolate also tastes very bland. One good thing about this ice cream is that I can put it down without feeling like I want to finish the whole jar.

Talenti Gelato

This is even worse than WholeFoods but more expensive. I think it’s the most unworthy mainstream ice cream brand, despite its popularity and nice packaging. I would never recommend buying anything from this brand.

Chocolate Mousse (4.3): no where near Dolcezza’s gelato as its not creamy or thick, the chocolate flavor has no depth, but it has a nice bittersweetness to it. It’s very mousse-like, where it’s velvety, but not creamy.
Black Raspberry Vanilla Parfait (4.3): Sigh… I really don’t like this brand. It’s overpriced and subpar. The raspberry & vanilla flavor tastes very artificial and bland. Nothing special about it. A bit too sweet with the jam.