12 Ice Creams From Aldi, Ranked Worst To Best

Yahoo

16-02-2025

Aldi is a popular grocery store known for many things, most notably for its cost-effective nature and fun selection of items. Among these fun items, you'll find a plethora of snacks, an impressive amount of cheeses (ideal for building the ultimate charcuterie board), and even budget-friendly Winking Owl wine.
Venture to the frozen aisles, and you'll find quite the selection of ice cream, ranging from tubs to pints to pops. As an ice cream lover who has put various brands to the taste test, like Salt and Straw's Halloween ice creams, Melona creamy ice cream bars, and even boozy Tipsy Scoop ice creams, I've established such an ice cream palate to distinguish which Aldi ice creams are best. Though you'll find a few different brands in Aldi's frozen treat section, one brand in particular — Sundae Shoppe — reigns supreme when it comes to straight-up ice cream.
I've put 12 of these Aldi brand ice creams to the taste test to figure out which ones are worth taking up precious space in your freezer. In determining my ranking, I paid close attention to which ice creams boasted the tastiest flavors, which ones had the best texture, which ones were true to the flavors they were meant to represent, and which ones ultimately offered up flavors or add-ins that were particularly delicious or memorable.
Read more: 23 Best Ice Cream Brands Ranked
Chocolate ice cream is an absolute staple flavor, and when in doubt, you really can't go wrong with chocolate. Well, maybe sometimes you can go wrong with chocolate, like when the texture isn't quite right or when the flavor is a little too bitter instead of rich and creamy. Unfortunately for Aldi's Sundae Shoppe chocolate ice cream, it did fall into that slim category where the flavor and texture just aren't very good.
The biggest issue with Aldi's chocolate ice cream is the fact that the flavor is way too heavy on the cocoa powder side. There's nothing wrong with an ice cream that isn't super sweet, but this stuff really just had those bitter cocoa powder notes without enough sweetness or creaminess to back it up. Moreover, the texture of this ice cream was far from amazing. Though it wasn't super icy or anything like that, it was notably less creamy than other options on this list, making for a lackluster ice cream all around. Considering that there are so many superior, popular chocolate brands out there, I don't think it's worth picking up a tub of this stuff at Aldi instead of opting for a better option elsewhere.
I should start out this slide for Aldi's Thank You Cherry Much! cherry-flavored ice cream by saying that I have absolutely nothing against cherries. In fact, I'm a big fan of black cherries, enjoy most cherry-flavored things, and typically enjoy cherry ice cream, too. So, I had high hopes for this flavor, especially since it featured chunks of chocolate amidst all of the cherry goodness. But alas, the cherry flavor was a little too harsh and almost medicinal, making this one far less successful than I had hoped.
Perhaps the biggest hallmark of a successful cherry-flavored ice cream is subtlety. Cherry-flavored things often don't taste like fresh black cherries but rather like maraschino cherries, which are considerably more divisive when it comes to liking them or not. I don't hate maraschino cherries, but I'm not exactly seeking them out either, so I wasn't obsessed with the flavor of this ice cream as a result. Also, as I mentioned, there was such an intensity to the cherry flavor that it almost teetered into medicinal territory, and there was nothing that specks of chocolate could do to save that flavor profile. If you love maraschino cherries or just very strong cherry flavor in general, then there's a chance you'd like this ice cream. Otherwise, I found the flavor of this cherry ice cream to be a bit overwhelming, and not in a good way.
Despite being such a classic flavor, vanilla ice cream can be a bit polarizing. Some people appreciate its neutral, creamy flavor profile and the fact that it's a bit bland (but on purpose). Others despise this blandness, longing for something more exciting, and dubbing vanilla too boring to even bother consuming. I tend to fall somewhere in the middle of these viewpoints; I think vanilla is a fine flavor for ice cream, but am I going to select it amongst a whole assortment of delicious flavors? Not a chance.
Naturally, considering my viewpoint on vanilla ice cream, I could only rank it so high. For what it's worth, however, I think Aldi's vanilla ice cream is a perfectly suitable option for those who really like vanilla ice cream. It was rich and creamy, and I didn't find it to be icy or have a weird texture. I do wish the vanilla flavor was stronger — after all, if you're going to go for a neutral flavor, you should at least nail that flavor. I've had vanilla bean ice creams that really do taste strongly of it, to the point where you can almost feel the texture of the vanilla bean in between your teeth. This ice cream tasted more creamy than anything else, but hey, it's at least a good option for building a sundae upon.
It's hard not to like chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. After all, it's essentially two desserts in one: ice cream and cookie dough (if, of course, you consider unbaked cookie dough to be a standalone dessert). Let me start by saying that there was absolutely nothing wrong or offensive about Aldi's chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. Perfectly tasty with a vanilla base and both chocolate chunks and cookie dough throughout, I enjoyed this ice cream a decent amount. But the chunks weren't prevalent enough, so that's the real downfall of an ice cream that otherwise had a lot of potential.
When I think of an ice cream that features add-ins, I picture something that's absolutely laden with whatever that add-in is meant to be. In the case of this ice cream, there were meant to be two whole add-ins — the chocolate chunks and cookie dough bites — but they were so few and far between. In fact, enjoying a bowlful of this ice cream was mostly just like having a few scoops of vanilla, with the occasional cookie dough chunk here and there. The flavor of this ice cream was fine, but it was drastically lacking on the cookie dough, so I could only, in good faith, rank this one so high.
When I seek out ice cream, I'm really not concerned with the nutritional stats, nor do I feel particularly inclined to opt for the "healthiest" or "lightest" option. That said, Aldi does offer a light sea salt caramel ice cream for those who are perhaps seeking a lighter option. According to the packaging, this ice cream has less fat and fewer calories than typical ice cream. As such, the texture is a little different than your typical full-fat ice cream — but, much to my surprise, not necessarily in a bad way.
Though I thought the low-fat nature of this ice cream would make its texture super icy, it was actually more fluffy than anything else, almost like a whipped texture. I didn't hate this texture at all, though it was definitely lacking a certain creaminess and richness (to be expected, but still a downside). As for the flavor, I really enjoyed the caramel swirl, but the sea salt aspect was nowhere to be found. It's a shame because I think the salt would have helped distinguish the caramel flavor from the general sweetness of the ice cream itself. Overall, this was a pretty tasty ice cream, especially considering its light nature, but it's far from my favorite on this list.
A typical hallmark of mint chocolate chip ice cream is a vibrant green hue — a hue purely decorative, one meant to really reinforce the fact that the ice cream is, indeed, mint flavored. I've always disliked that green color, mostly because it reminds me of toothpaste more than anything else, and I really don't want to think about toothpaste when eating ice cream. So, imagine my delight when I saw that Aldi's mint chocolate chip ice cream lacked that green hue, instead allowing the flavor of the ice cream to speak for itself, and boy, did it speak loud.
The minty flavor of this ice cream was overwhelming, to say the least. I'd imagine that for many mint lovers out there, this overwhelming flavor would come across as a good thing. For me, I didn't necessarily hate how overwhelmingly minty the ice cream tasted, but it's ultimately something that I do wish was tampered down just a tad. A successful ice cream flavor is one that strikes balance, and I think the scales were a little too tipped with this one. Also, the chocolate chip portion of the ice cream pretty much got entirely lost amidst all of the mint, so while I didn't hate this flavor, I do wish the ice cream was a little more balanced in terms of a mint-creaminess-chocolate ratio.
Moose Tracks, a childhood favorite, recently had me wondering something that I never bothered to consider as a kid — what is the actual flavor of Moose Tracks ice cream? Apparently, true Moose Tracks features vanilla ice cream, peanut butter cups, and fudge — all components that were supposed to be present in Aldi's version.
Overall, I thought Aldi's Moose Tracks ice cream was pretty solid, and I really enjoyed the streaks of luscious fudge throughout the vanilla. My biggest gripe is that the peanut butter cups were super difficult to find, to the point where I questioned if they were even there (they were, but barely so). It was disappointing, considering that PB cups are so crucial to the Moose Tracks experience, not to mention texture. Also, I did wish that there was a little more fudge because certain bites were feeling like plain vanilla ice cream more than anything else.
While I have no complaints about the Moose Track flavor itself, I just wish there was more of it. I did enjoy the flavor of this ice cream, but its lack of peanut butter cups meant that it could ultimately only rank so high.
Though I'm not the biggest butter pecan flavor fan, I've come to appreciate the flavor in recent years. So, I was looking forward to trying Aldi's version of butter pecan ice cream, and I found it to be pretty enjoyable. Something I really liked was that this wasn't just a vanilla ice cream with chunks of pecan throughout; the ice cream was distinctly butter (and nutty), which made for something tasty and much more complex than so many other ice creams on this list.
If I have complaints, they're pretty small, and there are only two of them. First, there should have been more chunks of pecan in the ice cream, but that could be said for many of the ice creams on this list. Second, the buttery ice cream was tasty, but after a few bites, it was almost so rich that I had to tread lightly. Ultimately, this richness is what (I'd imagine) most butter pecan ice cream lovers are looking for, so I can't really fault the ice cream for it. So, while I did enjoy the butter pecan flavor, it was a tad on the overbearingly rich side, and there were simply a handful of flavors that I found to be even better.
Though I was left a little bit scorned by Aldi's plain chocolate ice cream, I'd say that it safely redeemed itself with this specialty Make Fudge Not War! flavor. A fudge ice cream with brownie chunks, this specialty pint is every chocolate lover's dream. There's the rich chocolate base, which I found to be creamy and smooth, and chunks of chewy brownie that truly made this ice cream feel fudgy.
Even though this ultimately was a very simple ice cream, despite featuring an add-in, there was something about it that really stuck out. Perhaps it's the fact that I'm hopelessly partial to brownies, or perhaps it's the fact that, compared to the other chocolate ice cream on this list, this one just tasted so much better. There were no bitter cocoa notes to be found here, only rich chocolate flavor with even more chocolatey bites of brownie. Could there have been a little more brownie throughout? Sure, but overall, this fudgy ice cream was a winner in my book, and there were only a few that could beat it.
I often find myself overlooking strawberry ice cream, especially because I'm someone who typically seeks out chocolatey flavors over fruity ones. That said, I was really impressed with Aldi's strawberry ice cream flavor, and though I don't typically go for fruity flavors, I would probably make an exception just to repurchase this tub.
For starters, there was no artificial or fake strawberry flavor to be found in this ice cream. Instead, it tasted like actual strawberry, which is something that made it an immediate success to me. Second, the texture was absolutely perfect. Sometimes, fruity ice creams have a tendency to become icy and hard, but not this one. This strawberry ice cream was rich, creamy, and absolutely decadent. If I have one complaint, if you could even call it a complaint, it's that this flavor is a bit plain overall. Sure, there were chunks of strawberry to make things a little more interesting, but it ultimately is a pretty one-note flavor. As far as strawberry ice creams go, however, I found Aldi's version to be super delicious, making it an easy choice to break into the top three.
Something I've always loved about cookies and cream ice cream is that, despite the fact that I'm not even a huge Oreo fan, it's such an enjoyable flavor nonetheless. I think it's because Oreos have a really hard texture that I don't necessarily love, but when they're broken down into ice cream (or rather, when a brandless cookie sandwich is broken down into ice cream), pure magic happens. That delicious chocolatey flavor shines through but in a softer form, making for an absolutely delicious ice cream with an unbeatable texture.
Aldi's version of cookies and cream ice cream is pretty much as good as it gets. There's the classic vanilla base, along with swirls upon swirls of Oreo-esque goodness. Unlike so many other ice creams on this list that had add-ins (or rather lacked them), cookies and cream succeeded in having adequate cookies throughout. Every bite of ice cream had at least a little bit of cookie flavor, and those especially lucky bites were chock full of the good stuff. Despite being so simple, Aldi's cookies and cream was such an unbeatably tasty flavor — or almost unbeatably, as there was one flavor that just barely edged it out.
The indecisive side of me absolutely loves that brookie dough ice cream is a thing. For those unfamiliar, brookie dough is a combination of brownies and cookies. In Aldi's version of brookie dough ice cream, both brownie chunks and chocolate chip cookie dough chunks come together in a mixture of both chocolate and vanilla ice cream, making for the absolutely perfect flavor for those who can't possibly pick just one.
The idea of combining ice cream flavors is one that could go absolutely wrong, but there's something about brookie dough that just gets it perfectly right. The cookie dough and brownie chunks complement each other while offering up slightly different textures, whereas the vanilla and chocolate ice cream flavors work together in perfect harmony. This brookie dough ice cream really is the best of both worlds, all packed into one little pint. Aldi's version does the iconic flavor duo justice, making it an easy and obvious choice for first place on this list.
Though I didn't find any of the ice creams on this list to be absolutely terrible, I ultimately determined my ranking based on which flavors I found to be the tastiest. I based levels of tastiness on a few key factors. For starters, I considered whether any given flavor felt true to what it was supposed to be, and whether I think that flavor was executed well. I found that Aldi's plain chocolate flavor was not executed well, tasting a little too bitter. On the other hand, I found the cookies and cream and brookie dough flavors to be executed very well, aptly representing their flavors and tasting good while doing so. A good example of an ice cream that I thought wasn't true to the flavor it was supposed to be was chocolate chip cookie dough; because the chunks were so sparse, it tasted more like vanilla ice cream than anything else.
Speaking of chunks, I also heavily considered which ice creams were more loaded than others. I ultimately found myself wanting more add-ins and chunks in many of the ice creams, but the ones ranked higher — like brookie dough, cookies and cream, strawberry, and butter pecan — were the most successful in terms of being more loaded.
Read the original article on Tasting Table.