Nick’s Ice Cream Ranked: Best and Worst Flavors Reviewed

Review

Despite being lower in calories, I couldn’t tell much difference in texture between these and regular ice cream. It’s more or less your creamy, fulfilling ice cream; however, it’s not extraordinarily creamy or thick like the super high-end milk-based brands, nor is it cheap or lackluster — in fact, N!ck’s is a tier above average overall. Then, in terms of taste, nothing is artificial or sweetener-tasting, so don’t worry!

Interestingly, despite the lack of sugar, these are sweeter than your average ice cream, which often brings out their flavors even more. Lastly, I appreciate the number of mixins they throw into each flavor — seriously, how do they keep the calories down while having them so loaded?!

If I had to compare competitors, for example, Halo Top, N!ck’s is better in every metric. It’s creamier, they’re substantially more mixins, the ice cream is richer and more flavorful, and the sweetness level is higher. As I said earlier, these are a tier above your standard ice cream.

Flavor Ranking

1. Triple Chocolate Brownie

This looks so loaded and extra chocolately! You have the chocolate ice cream with a generous amount of thick fudgey swirls, crunchy chocolate chips, and chewy brownie piecess. How did they get the calories so low in this?! It genuinely looks like a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream–so much going on here!

The taste is exactly how it looks and what I described above. It sports a moderately dark, fairly sweet, very chocolatey flavor; the two balance each other well. There are also hints of a fudgy taste alongside the embedded bits, which give it a light, mild, brownie-batter-flavored crunch and an appreciatable amount of chewiness. Essentially, this ice cream is super chocolately as advertised, and you do get some nuance of all the chocolates combined; still, overall it’s a darker, sweeter chocolate ice cream. No bitterness, nothing too off-balance. It reminds me of Friendly’s forbidden chocolate, if you’ve ever had that, except this has a better mouthfeel thanks to embedded chips and brownie chunks tothat contrast with the creamy texture. If you want something super rich, chocolatey, and loaded, this ice cream is for you!

2. Peanut Butter Cup

A few chocolate and peanut swirls and mini peanut butter cups are part of this tanned vanilla-looking ice cream. There are a good number of these mini cups in there, especially as you dig through. 

I love how, when I spoon more through this, I’m invited to even more of these many chocolate peanut butter cups and swirls. It feels really loaded to say the least. In terms of flavor? As a peanut butter lover, this has my full approval. The ice cream has a smooth and sweet peanut flavor, all complimented by the darker peanut butter chocolate fudge swirls and mini dark chocolate peanut butter cups.

In my opinion, it’s perfectly balanced, definitely resonating a darker peanut butter cup with the peanut butter flavor at its forefront. It kind of reminds me of a Reese’s, but more authentic and nearly just as sweet! The crunchiness of the peanut butter cups and the creaminess of all the swirls and ice cream itself… This might be one of the best-tasting peanut-based ice creams I’ve had!

3. Peanut Butter Cookie Dough

Surprisingly, when I opened it, it had a uniform milk-chocolate look. No embedded bits or anything like that, just straight-up milk chocolate-looking ice cream. Interestingly, after burying my spoon halfway, I found some chunks of cookie dough! More on that later.

Speaking of its looks, it does initially taste a lot like how it’s presented. Without even reading the label, I get a regular milk chocolate with some mild peanut butter. It wasn’t until I hit the fairly generous amount of chewy cookie dough pieces towards the center and bottom that I got the cookie dough flavor, which also added more sweetness and let the peanut and chocolate stick out more. What was really interesting was that these cookie dough pieces were decent in size and tasted like a mix of cookie dough and peanut mixed together, very tasty while providing a nice contrast! Really, I initially thought this was going to be a very boring, generic ice cream experience, so it was a very nice surprise when I finally found all those peanut butter cookie dough pieces!

Also, to note, nothing comes across as artificial or overblown. The three flavors complement each other well, and the overall sweetness is about average compared to typical ice cream. This is a good, solid ice cream that blends several flavors and has a good mouthfeel from the generous amount of chewy cookie dough bits and creamy ice cream. Don’t get me wrong, though, it’s not necessarily loaded by any means, but there is a good amount of cookie dough pieces that make for a good eating experience… Just weird that they were all centered below the top layer.

4. Cookies & Cream

What I noticed was that when I initially opened it, it looked like regular cookies-and-cream ice cream with specs of cookie, but as I spooned it, it yielded a fairly reasonable amount of smaller to medium-sized cookie chunks. 

I love the taste of this, and it might be one of my favorite cookie-and-cream ice creams I’ve ever had. Its fairly sweet vanilla base is complemented by a light dark chocolate cookie flavor, which is brought about by the embedded bits. Notably, what I really appreciated were the smaller but still fairly large chewy cookie pieces. It reminded me of what happens when you chop up Oreos and leave them in the ice cream: they become a little chewy and soft, contrasting the ice cream’s texture perfectly. This, coupled with a sweetness that brings out its flavors even more, makes this an exceptionally good cookies-and-cream ice cream.

5. Strawberry Swirl

(No picture of this): Just, wow. This is not only sweeter than any other strawberry ice cream I’ve had, but its quality is phenomenal. It feels like you’re actually eating a solidified creamy strawberry shake, as if they blended together real cream and strawberries!

My favorite part is the surprisingly small strawberry chunks, which add much more than they present; it made me say out loud, “Wow, was that a piece of strawberry?! Whatever I just ate was amazing!” These pieces, while not super abundant, add so much. They’re chunky, chewy, and authentic tasting, adding even more to the already amazing ice cream. Lastly, this goes great with (low-calorie) chocolate syrup!

6. Vanilla Bean

This is by far the sweetest vanilla-based ice cream I’ve had; some may even find it too much, though I suspect most will be “this is so, so sweet… I’m still going to finish it.”

Aside from the sweetness, it’s a pronounced vanilla bean flavor. It’s not your typical boring vanilla; it’s much more pronounced and bold. Together with the sweetness, it’s definitely a tasty experience. Notably, I didn’t taste anything artificial, and if you blindfolded me, I wouldn’t have guessed they even used a sugar-free sweetener.

Personally—and I say this as someone who thinks vanilla ice cream is the most boring—I would absolutely get this again. Simply put, the vanilla flavor is so sweet and tasty that it outshines most other vanilla-based ice creams by a mile.

7. Cheesecake Brownie

As advertised, it has a mild, cheesecake-like vanilla flavor with tiny bits of chewy brownie embedded throughout. The overall flavor leans more towards vanilla than cheesecake—the cheesecake flavor isn’t overly strong by any means, falling on the lighter side. Basically, this feels like, “I’m into neutral flavors like chocolate and vanilla, but don’t want to branch off too far into something different.”

Additionally, unfortunately—at least for me—it doesn’t have nearly as many brownie pieces as I’d like; it’s definitely not “loaded” by any means. Although the average person would likely think it’s sufficient. Plus, more brownies would likely increase the calorie count and defeat the purpose of this ice cream.

8. Mango Strawberry

A smooth, uniform ice cream with a sweet twist of mango and strawberry. To me, the mango comes out a little more, although the combination with the strawberry is very refreshing. Overall, I’d like to see some embedded elements to break up the monotony.

9. Brownie Cookie Dough

To me, it does nothing right. The mix of vanilla and chocolate ice cream dilutes both, making both flavors feel too mild. At the same time, the mixins are small and rare, making them largely unnoticeable. Overall, it’s a mildly sweet vanilla-chocolate ice cream with minuscule toppings. It’s inoffensive and, frankly, boring.