The best Premier Protein flavors are tasty, sweet but not too sweet, not too sugary (or artificial sugary), and, perhaps most importantly, choc full of protein. Ideally, the best protein shakes taste like melted milkshakes that just happen to be fueling your workouts and giving you energy instead giving you a stomach ache and a sugar rush.
And here we are: It’s almost summer, which means it is time to get muscle-y and go to the pool, at least according to all the companies that market stuff to us. But ask any gym bro and they will tell you that there is one essential prerequisite a person needs in order to acquire the aforementioned muscles. You guessed it: protein. As the age-old (definitely not made up by me) saying goes, “Ya gots to get the macros if you wants to gets the gains.” There are a lot of protein shakes out there, but Premier Protein is—sorry—one of the premier brands. We stocked up on all the Premier Protein shake flavors we could get our hands on and sipped them back to back to find the best Premier Protein flavor of them all. Which shakes shook things up (in a good way) and which shakes made us shake our heads (in a bad way)? Read on to find out.
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- Premier Protein Cookies & Cream
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We wanted this Premier Protein flavor to taste like cookies and cream ice cream, but we are sorry to report that it does not. What it does taste like is the faintest hint of chocolate. Almost like a chalky and significantly less chocolatey version of the milk left over after you have Cocoa Puffs. This Premier Protein shake tastes what I imagine a Cocoa Puff milk LaCroix would taste like.
Credit: Merc / Premier Protein
- Premier Protein Vanilla
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If you’ve ever had a vanilla-flavored cereal (think: Special K Vanilla & Almond), this Premier Protein flavor tastes like that, plus a bit of artificial sweetener. This Premier Protein flavor (and a lot of the other Premier Protein shake flavors) has an odd smell that’s like a cross between milk, cereal milk, and something funky and fermented. Could it be all the vitamins and minerals in the mix? Maybe. It’s strange all the same! And it was especially pronounced in the vanilla flavor.
Credit: Merc / Premier Protein
- Premier Protein Strawberries & Cream
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A lot of strawberry-flavored protein shakes are bad. So bad, in fact, that this Premier Protein flavor made our ranking of the best protein shakes in the best strawberry category. And I gotta say, this isn’t very good. There is a strong strawberry flavor at first and the smell has a Froot Loopy note to it, but then there is a strange, almost black licorice-y or Play-Doh-y aftertaste. Worth noting that some of our taste testers liked this Premier Protein flavor better than chocolate (that’s next on our list), and others didn’t. This certainly isn’t gross, it just isn’t great either. I just want my protein shakes to taste like strawberry In-N-Out shakes but without any of the consequences—is that too much to ask?!
Credit: Merc / Premier Protein
- Premier Protein Chocolate
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This one should have been a no-brainer. All you have to do (I assume) is take chocolate milk and pump it full of protein. As an armchair food scientist (aka a rando who saw a science TikTok once) I have to assume it cannot be that hard to make a creamy chocolate drink taste good. But here we are, and here you are, reading this review telling you that this Premier Protein shake flavor is fine. Okay? It’s fine. It’s not quite sweet enough for our taste, and this was the only flavor that was a little bitter and astringent. It’s a strange chocolate flavor, but, I’ll give them this: It does taste like chocolate. And that is a win in our book.
Credit: Merc / Premier Protein
- Premier Protein Peaches & Cream
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Yes, this is a creamy drink that tastes like peaches. Does it have the hint of vanilla that peaches and cream-flavored things typically have? Not really. The Premier Protein flavor tastes like canned peaches or peach rings, or if you’ve had a peach Kit Kat, that is a pretty spot-on comparison to this bad boy. None of this sounds particularly flattering, but we really liked this one. If you crave fruity flavored protein shakes, this is one of the best Premier Protein flavors.
Credit: Merc / Premier Protein
- Premier Protein Bananas & Cream
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Banana flavor really works in a creamy format, and Premier Protein shake flavors are certainly creamy. This one tastes a bit like Laffy Taffy banana or tutti frutti gum, but the smell almost reminded me of a real banana. It’s pretty good! It’s unique and that’s part of what makes it one of the best Premier Protein flavors.
Credit: Merc / Premier Protein
- Premier Protein Caramel
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This is one of only two Premier Protein flavors that doesn’t taste a little bit off in one way or another. Yes, the caramel flavor is aggressively nutty and similar to a butter pecan ice cream, Dulce de Leche Yoplait Whips (RIP, gone but not forgotten), or a caramel coffee syrup. But if you like any of those things, this might be the best Premier Protein flavor for you. The artificial flavor of artificial sweetener is less strong in this shake than it is in some of the other flavors (it is quite strong in many of the above flavors), and there is less milky funk to it. This one may just be the closest Premier gets to milkshake territory so far, and hey, props to them because a protein shake making it to the outskirts of milkshakeville is no small feat.
Credit: Merc / Premier Protein
- Premier Protein Café Latte
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If you have read this far, congrats, you have reached the premier Premier Protein, aka the best Premier Protein flavor. This shake is the only one of the bunch that actually smells like the flavor and not like strange milk. That said, it sort of smells more like instant coffee than drip or espresso. And it tastes like an instant coffee milkshake—still, it was good enough to land the top of the pack. It reminded us a bit of dalgona coffee. (Remember that trend? Can you believe it’s been five years? I guess time flies when the world is bonkers.) This flavor tastes the best, plus it has about a cup of coffee’s worth of caffeine in it, so you can kill two morning birds (the need for gains and the need to combat sleep deprivation) with one milky brown stone. And while this was the most palatable of all the Premier Protein flavors we tried, we do legally have to tell you, as your friends, it is still just sort of okay. But if you try any Premier Protein flavor (and are not a coffee hater), let it be this one. Trust us.
Credit: Merc / Premier Protein
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