I Tried 9 Strawberry Ice Creams, and This Is the Only One I’ll Buy From Now On

While I prefer chocolate and vanilla ice cream over most other flavors, I do have a soft spot for a really good strawberry ice cream. Especially on a hot summer day when I want a cool treat that’s creamy, but also fruity. But which store-bought brand is the best? To find out, I grabbed nine brands and put them to the test. Here’s what happened.

How I Chose the Strawberry Ice Creams

In order to qualify for the test, the ice cream needed to be widely available. That means you can find them at your local grocery or big-box store. They needed to be ice cream, so no gelato, frozen yogurt, or anything made with an alternative milk. I chose ice cream with “strawberry” in the title, but also included a few that have “cream” in the title, so that I’d have enough variety. 

How I Tested the Strawberry Ice Creams

There’s no way I’d test these alone, so I brought in a select group of testers to do the hard work. I served them each ice cream in unmarked bowls, then asked them to comment on flavor, texture, and appearance. Once they’d tried them all, I asked them to rank them from their favorite to their least favorite, and here are the results.  

The Best Strawberry Ice Creams, Ranked

As always, the results from these taste tests are subjective. If we dissed your favorite, we’re sorry, it just wasn’t our jam. Take our findings with a grain of salt, but we bet you’ll like our winner as much as we do!

9th Place: Blue Bunny

Even though the ice cream was aesthetically pleasing, with its fluffy, pink appearance, Blue Bunny’s soft serve-style strawberry flavor wasn’t a winner. While most people enjoyed the creamy, soft texture, there was almost no flavor. And what little flavor there was, it was deemed “obnoxiously artificial.” It left all of us wondering, was this even strawberry ice cream?

8th Place: Breyers

This is a very vanilla-forward ice cream. If you’re hoping to taste any strawberry, you’ll need to dig deep and locate one of the few big pieces buried within. My testers were disappointed overall, so this one landed in 8th place.

7th Place: Dean’s Country Fresh 

It looked kind of like there were strawberries in this ice cream, thanks to the few pink flecks, but this was another disappointment. Most of us couldn’t taste the strawberry flavor, making this a rather underwhelming option.

6th Place: Aldi 

We were on a roll with ice cream that didn’t taste like strawberries, and unfortunately, Aldi’s house brand couldn’t compete either. While it was sweet, it tasted “basic” according to one tester who also claimed that the strawberry flavor was hard to detect. The texture was good, and it was creamy, but testers agreed that the mild strawberry flavor was disappointing and didn’t care for its artificial taste.

5th Place: Häagen-Dazs  

Everyone agreed the ice cream was delicious and ultra-creamy, but the strawberry flavor tasted a bit “off.” One tester wanted nothing to do with it, but another was intrigued by the uniqueness of the strawberry, saying it tasted like cooked strawberries versus fresh. We all appreciated the large pieces of strawberry strewn throughout, though—even the taster who wanted nothing to do with it. 

4th Place: Kemps

The big hunks of strawberry were all anyone could talk about when it came time to sample this ice cream. Testers appreciated that the large pieces of strawberry were plentiful and also sweet, which provided “a lovely contrast to the creamy ice cream.” We all enjoyed this one, and it only landed in 4th place because we loved the top three just a bit more. This is still a solid choice for strawberry ice cream, and we recommend it, especially because it’s a “good-value” option.

3rd Place: 365 

“This is a strawberry ice cream that tastes like it was made with real strawberries,” exclaimed one of my testers. In fact, all of my testers loved this ice cream, and everyone wanted more! The flavor was spot-on, though some felt it was slightly too subtle. Otherwise, everyone agreed that this is a delicious strawberry ice cream.

2nd Place: Tillamook  

“Oh, that’s good,” said one of my testers upon her first bite. Tillamook always delivers a delightfully creamy and rich ice cream, and this one is no different. All my testers felt this was perfectly sweet and had a good amount of strawberry. And even though a few of them felt this leaned towards artificially flavored, it was still delicious.

1st Place Winner: Ben & Jerry’s 

In truth, there was no real competition, because this was the favorite among all of my testers. It was creamy, and the swirls of strawberry tasted like summer strawberries. There were lots of “mmmms” as they sampled, and one tester even exclaimed, “It tastes like strawberry bubble gum!” which he said was an ultimate compliment. While one of the more expensive ice creams on the list, it truly has the most strawberry flavor, so buy it as a treat or grab it when it’s on sale!