An Updated Ranking of the Best Chocolate Ice Cream

The best chocolate ice cream is a powerful thing. It can improve moods, change minds, make bad days suck way less. If you need proof of its power, just try this:  Crack open a 1.5 quart container of Neapolitan, toss it on the counter in the break room, and see which flavor goes first. (Confession: I actually like strawberry ice cream best, but I keep quiet since I’m generally not in the mood to have people tell me all the reasons I’m wrong.) Chocolate ice cream is good! The best chocolate ice cream is even gooder!

But what separates the best chocolate ice cream from the rest of the pack? It should be creamy, have a distinct chocolatey flavor—we want deep cocoa flavor—and you should be able to eat a lot of it. I should know! Over the course of two taste tests, I tried roughly 20 chocolate ice cream brands and varieties. Some of them just don’t pack a punch. After our second taste test, we even replaced some brands’ regular chocolate offering with a more chocolatey chocolate offering. That’s right. We want to be punched by chocolate. Grab a spoon and put on a shirt you can stain—it’s time to dig into the best store bought chocolate ice cream.

Best Keto

Enlightened Triple Chocolate Brownie Dough French Ice Cream

Instacart

If you eat keto, this ice cream is a revelation. A lot of keto ice cream is hard; this is soft and airy. In fact, in his ranking of the best keto ice cream, Sporked contributor Danny Palumbo wrote, it’s “decadent, fatty, and rich” and kind of tastes like a Fudgesicle. It’s not the best chocolate ice cream if you can eat regular ol’ sugar-packed ice cream, but it’s the best keto chocolate ice cream if you’re watching your carbs.

Credit: Merc / Instacart

Rating:

6.5/10

Sporks

Best with Cake

Turkey Hill Belgian

Instacart

Belgian chocolate is typically dark and bitter, but we got a nice nutty flavor from Turkey Hill’s chocolate ice cream, with just a little bit of the Belgian bite on the finish. A bowl of this solo might not wow you, but it would make a great accompaniment to another dessert component. Sporked editor-in-chief Justine Sterling called it a “maybe-not-quite-enough-on-its-own-but-good-with-something ice cream.” We say it’s the best chocolate ice cream to eat with cake.

Credit: Ryan Martin / Instacart

Rating:

7/10

Sporks

Best Budget

Great Value Chocolate Ice Cream

Walmart

“I like that it’s the Yoo-hoo of ice cream,” Sporked senior writer Jordan Myrick said when they tasted Great Value. If you like a basic, tasty, and highly affordable chocolate ice cream (seriously, they sell it by the gallon pail for less than six bucks), this is your jam.  Danny likened it to the milk that’s left behind after you eat a bowl of Cocoa Pebbles (our favorite chocolate cereal, by the way). It’s the best store bought chocolate ice cream if you’re feeding ice cream to a lot of people.

Credit: Ryan Martin / Walmart

Rating:

7.5/10

Sporks

Best Dairy Free

Cado Deep Dark Chocolate Non-Dairy Avocado Frozen Dessert

Instacart

Vegan ice cream can be pretty hit or miss, but if you’re a chocolate lover, this is the best vegan ice cream you can buy. When they taste tested non-dairy ice cream, Jordan only had good things to say about it: “This chocolate ice cream is truly deep and dark, just like the name promises. It’s smooth, creamy, and rich. It tastes like it’s made with full-fat dairy and there’s no weird aftertaste.” Vegan ice cream that actually tastes like dairy ice cream is a rarity. If you’re vegan or your constitution just can’t handle dairy, buy this asap.

Credit: Liv Averett / Instacart

Rating:

7.5/10

Sporks

Best White Chocolate

Tillamook Udderly Chocolate Ice Cream

Instacart

White chocolate is a hard flavor to nail down. It’s not vanilla but it’s not chocolate either—it’s just creamy and tasty, like a good bar of white chocolate. This Tillamook ice cream, which combines white and milk chocolate, gives white chocolate lovers and, er, brown chocolate lovers something they can agree on. This ice cream is so creamy and fluffy—it’s truly as close as you can get to soft serve without hitting up a Mister Softee truck. If you love chocolate-vanilla swirl ice cream but you sort of wish it was all chocolate, this is the best chocolate ice cream at the grocery store. Oh, and it has chocolatey bits! All hail chocolatey bits!

Credit: Liv Averett / Instacart

Rating:

8/10

Sporks

Best Cheap Dark Chocolate

Private Selection Chocolate Ganache

Instacart

Chocolate ganache is elegant. I know that because I first learned about it from Ina Garten, and they don’t call her a contessa for nothing. This chocolate ice cream sent Jordan’s taste buds straight to a damn ball. “It feels like a velvet gown slipping over my tongue,” they said. “The flavor is nice and dark and deep.” We also loved the dreamy, silky texture. This was a close second for best dark chocolate ice cream (and it’s way cheaper than the ice cream that took that spot).

Credit: Ryan Martin / Instacart

Rating:

8.5/10

Sporks

Best Over-the-Top

Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Therapy

Instacart

If we’re doling out a superlative for an ice cream being, like, a lot, there’s a couple of zany guys from Vermont who have quite the contender. Their Chocolate Therapy ice cream is a lot and it’s really, really good. We liked the contrast of the traditional chocolate ice cream and the chocolate pudding ice cream swirl, but Jordan thought it under delivered a little because they couldn’t detect any chocolate cookie bits in her bite. Still, everyone agreed that it’s very tasty and highly chocolatey. 

Credit: Ryan Martin / Instacart

Rating:

8.5/10

Sporks

Best Texture

Haagen-Dazs Double Belgian Chocolate Chip

Instacart

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Haagen-Dazs ice cream is basically perfect. It’s low ingredient, so all you taste is milk, cream, and chocolate. Last time we ranked their regular ol’ chocolate ice cream, but readers hipped us to this Belgian chocolate chip version, which takes everything we love about their original chocolate ice cream and turns it up to 11. You’re getting that smooth, high quality Haagen-Dazs ice cream, but with the added textural fun of chocolate flecks. The experience of eating it is kind of like eating ice cream covered in chocolate shell. It’s incredible. Thank you for the tip, readers! 

Credit: Liv Averett / Instacart

Rating:

9/10

Sporks

Best Dark Chocolate

Jeni’s Darkest Chocolate

Target

Do you ever crave ice cream when it doesn’t make sense to eat ice cream? Not, like, at a funeral, but when the weather is frigid or overcast and moody? Well, we think Jeni’s Darkest Chocolate would be a good option when it’s cold outside because of its nice, warm dark-chocolate flavor. We love the creamy mouthfeel and the way the flavor evolves as you eat it. It’s very chocolatey. I’d like this one with some whipped cream to cut that dark chocolate bitterness just a bit. This is the best dark chocolate ice cream—milk chocolate lovers need not apply.

Credit: Ryan Martin / Target

Rating:

9/10

Sporks

Best Chocolate Chip

Alden’s Organic Chocolate Chocolate Chip

Instacart

Alden’s chocolate ice cream was number two on our list following our first taste test, but I’m replacing it with the brand’s chocolate chocolate chip ice cream because, well, chocolate chips. You get that excellent Alden’s chocolate ice cream flavor and high quality, but with a little bit of added texture from the delicate chips (these are more like shards or flecks—they’re smaller than chips you’ll find in cookies, that’s for sure). I noted last time that Alden’s ice cream takes forever to soften enough for easy scooping, but if you love chocolate ice cream with some texture, this is worth the wait. 

Credit: Liv Averett / Instacart

Rating:

9.5/10

Sporks

Best of the Best

Straus Organic Dutch Chocolate

Instacart

I’ve never been to the Netherlands, but sitting at home and googling what makes Dutch chocolate different from regular chocolate has to be the next best thing, right? What I learned: Dutch chocolate contains alkali to neutralize the cocoa’s acidity, giving it a smoother flavor. And this ice cream is certainly smooth. In two separate taste tests, it was the best chocolate ice cream we tried, hand down. For Justine, it sparked a Proustian sense memory. She was Anton Ego and this was her plate of ratatouille. “I’m back at the county fair and a man gives me an ice cream cone and I’m off to the races,” she said, praising its almost fluffy texture. “It tastes like childhood.” That seems like a pretty good endorsement.

Credit: Ryan Martin / Instacart

Rating:

10/10

Sporks

Other chocolate ice cream we tried: Breyers, Edy’s/Dreyers, Real Good Foods Chocolate Ice Cream, Kroger Chocolate Paradise, Halo Top Chocolate, Trader Joe’s Ultra Chocolate Ice Cream, Haagen Dazs Chocolate, Alden’s Chocolate

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