I Tried Ben & Jerry’s 10 Most Popular Flavors—This Is the 1 I’ll Keep in My Freezer Forever

As the grocery store freezer aisle seems to get increasingly crowded with new ice cream brands and flavors, one section always stands out: the Ben & Jerry’s pints. The Vermont-based ice cream company is the best of both worlds, giving you the delectable flavors and quality you’d find at one of its scoop shops in the comfort of your home. 

Sure, Ben & Jerry know how to keep up with the times, rolling out new flavors often—like Impretzively Fudged and Marshmallow Sky, but there’s nothing quite like one of its classics. And, no, I’m not talking about mint chocolate chip or vanilla, but rather one of the best-selling favorites unique to the brand.

You know which ones I’m talking about—offerings like Chunky Monkey, Phish Food, and Americone Dream. But with all those tasty flavors (and amazing flavor names), which one is the actual best flavor? I tried them all to find out.

How I Chose the Ice Cream Flavors

Ben & Jerry’s shared its top 10 permanent pint flavors purchased in 2023 with me, and I tested them against one another. The best-selling flavors, in order, are: Half Baked, Cherry Garcia, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, Strawberry Cheesecake, Chocolate Fudge Brownie, The Tonight Dough, Phish Food, Americone Dream, Chunky Monkey, and Milk & Cookies.

How I Tested the Ice Cream Flavors

Ben & Jerry’s is known for its signature chunks, swirls, and pieces, so when testing, an additional tester and I ensured we had a little bit of everything in every bite. We found a definite winner and some tasty alternatives for all ice cream cravings—yes, it was a great day on the job. Here are the results.

The Best Ben & Jerry’s Flavors, Ranked

10th Place: Chocolate Fudge Brownie

Chocolate Fudge Brownie is, just as it sounds, a chocolate ice cream with real fudgy brownie pieces. There’s no surprise here, but my notes for this flavor simply read “chocolate, chocolate, chocolate.” 

They say you can’t have too much of a good thing, but this flavor just about proves that wrong. It’s incredibly rich, almost to the point that one bite was more than enough. Additionally, we found the brownie pieces to be a bit cakey rather than fudgy, so the texture was a little off.

9th Place: Half Baked

Ben & Jerry’s top-seller, Half Baked, combines vanilla and chocolate ice cream with chocolate chip cookie dough pieces and brownie chunks. Unlike Chocolate Fudge Brownie, this chocolate flavor was light and easy to enjoy. The cookie dough pieces are about as classic as they come, but again, something about the brownie texture was just not right. The cakey swirls of brownie, rather than fudgy pieces, knocked this flavor to the bottom for us.

8th Place: Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough

This flavor is just a good, classic chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream—which is why it’s been on Ben & Jerry’s menu since 1984. It’s simply a vanilla ice cream with chocolate chip cookie dough pieces. There’s nothing wrong with this flavor, in fact, it was delicious, but there are better and much more interesting Ben & Jerry’s pints out there.

7th Place: Milk & Cookies

Milk & Cookies is Ben & Jerry’s mash-up of cookies and cream and chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. The flavor blends vanilla ice cream with a chocolate cookie swirl, chocolate chips, and chocolate chip cookies.

I’m not sure if all of my chocolate chip cookie pieces were at the bottom of the pint, but this was essentially just a cookies and cream ice cream. It was a great cookies and cream ice cream, though, but the chocolate chip cookies would have made it that much better, I’m sure.

6th Place: Americone Dream

“The Late Show’s” Stephen Colbert’s Americone Dream flavor starts with vanilla ice cream loaded with a heavy caramel swirl and fudge-covered waffle cone pieces. While it’s marketed as vanilla ice cream, it’s extremely caramel-forward, which we really enjoyed. 

The caramel was delicious, and the chocolate-covered waffle cones are a fun addition. Our only complaint was we wanted the cone pieces to be crunchier. It’s all about the texture, and the choco-cones were just a bit too soggy for our liking—but not enough to not want to go back for more.

5th Place: Phish Food

Ben & Jerry’s loves a good pop culture reference, so what better way to honor the band hailing from Vermont than with a flavor filled with actual fudge fish? Phish Food consists of chocolate ice cream with marshmallow and caramel swirls and chocolate fish. 

This ice cream is perfect for chocolate lovers. Unlike some of the other chocolatey flavors, it was not too rich, thanks to the caramel and marshmallow that balanced it out. 

We did really enjoy this flavor, but we ranked it in the middle of the road because it could use a hint more caramel (take a note from Americone Dream), and the marshmallow “swirl” was more like a marshmallow glob. A good mix through the entire pint could have served Phish Food well.

4th Place: The Tonight Dough

Jimmy Fallon’s Ben & Jerry’s flavor, The Tonight Dough (a play on his late-night “The Tonight Show”), has it all: caramel and chocolate ice cream, chocolate cookie swirls, chocolate chip cookie dough, and peanut butter cookie dough. It’s what Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough wishes it could be, which is why we loved it so much. 

The Tonight Dough is the perfect upgraded chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream for those who want a little more from the flavor—which is definitely us. The addition of peanut butter cookie dough and chocolate ice cream took this ice cream to the next level. But, be warned, if you’re not a chocolate fan, this isn’t for you because it is r-i-c-h, rich!

3rd Place: Strawberry Cheesecake

Strawberry Cheesecake has all the components of the beloved dessert, including strawberry cheesecake-flavored ice cream, strawberries, and a graham cracker swirl. 

You might be surprised at this pint’s top-three placement, and honestly, so was I. Strawberry Cheesecake blew me away with its light flavor that was spot on to a real strawberry-topped creamy cheesecake with graham cracker crust. The strawberries tasted fresh, and the actual ice cream was balanced, but what won us over was the graham cracker swirl. It somehow stayed crisp to give you the impression of eating a real cheesecake straight from the freezer, which, let’s be honest, we’ve done before, too.

2nd Place: Chunky Monkey

Besides its fun name, Chunky Monkey is beloved for the banana ice cream, fudge chunks, and walnuts packed into the pint. I’ll be the first to admit that I know banana-flavored ice cream can be a divisive flavor, but, man, is this stuff delicious. 

If you are one of those people who gets a chocolate-dipped banana at the fair, this is your ice cream. The banana ice cream was fresh-tasting, and the chunks of chocolate were just big enough to stand up to the walnuts—which we thought were a great addition to an otherwise plain chocolate-banana ice cream. 

Sorry to the Chunky Monkey haters, but there will always be extra space in my freezer for this pint.

1st Place: Cherry Garcia

You can’t tell me when you think of Ben & Jerry’s, you don’t instantly think of Cherry Garcia. It was the pals’ first time naming a flavor after something in pop culture—Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead—and it stuck. The cherry ice cream is loaded with real cherries and fudge flakes and is still Ben & Jerry’s second-best-selling pint after more than 30 years.

What can I say except I have no notes. Cherry Garcia is the perfect, old-fashioned scoop shop flavor with the right amount of pizazz. Who needs the bells and whistles of multiple add-ins when you can enjoy the cherry ice cream with huge chunks of cherries and chocolate? Not me.

While we thoroughly enjoyed many of the Ben & Jerry’s pints we taste-tested, Cherry Garcia is the one we’ll always go back to—but, of course, there’s always that basement freezer if we need extra space.