Burger King's Iced Coffee Is Easier To Make Than You Might Think

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If you've ever added up how much you spend on iced coffee and realized that, in a year, your Starbucks habit costs you about the same as a new household appliance, it's possible you've looked for cheaper options to get your caffeine fix. Burger King's iced coffee is a good alternative to Starbucks' pricey handcrafted drinks. Significantly cheaper (between $1.99 and $2.79 depending on the size and location), BK's offering is a robust, balanced coffee sweetened with cream that's hard to find fault with, especially with some chocolate or vanilla syrup thrown into the mix. Unfortunately, with fast food getting more expensive across the board, the sad truth is that freshly made iced coffees are going to keep nudging toward being more of a luxury than a harmless little pick-me-up.

The solution, as unglamorous as it may sound, is making iced coffee at home. The good news is, it's quite easy to make it taste like a $5 coffee at a fraction of the cost. It all starts with the coffee you use, and like most popular coffee outlets, including Starbucks, Burger King uses 100% Arabica coffee beans. This is crucial for a well-balanced coffee flavor. Using high-quality coffee also helps simplify the rest of the recipe since you can simply rely on the beans' flavor instead of having to add a bunch of other ingredients to make it taste good. Once brewed, the BK Joe coffee blend is rapidly chilled in a jug full of ice. A TikTok video shared by one of the chain's locations shows BK's mocha-flavored iced coffee made using Dairy Star creamer and Hershey's chocolate syrup. The batch is refrigerated and used through the next day.

Often, it's the convenience and portability that make quickly picking up an iced coffee so irresistible. Having a batch in your fridge, ready to go whenever you crave it, is a great way to recreate a part of that experience at home. While good instant coffee can make a delicious iced coffee, it's best to use a freshly brewed batch for the best flavor. Getting the exact blend that BK uses is tricky, since the company has changed its coffee source and blend a couple of times. The simple idea is to use a high-quality 100% arabica coffee, preferably sourced from Central and South American countries. BK has previously been known to use a custom blend made for it by Seattle's Best Coffee, sold by Starbucks to Nestlé in 2022.

There are a couple of options for how to go about making a batch of BK-inspired iced coffee. You can follow Burger King's process and make it using an ice-chilled fresh decoction, cream, and flavored syrup. However, in case you're making it for later, avoid diluting the flavors and skip the ice; instead, chill the coffee by storing it in the fridge in an airtight container. You can safely keep iced coffee that has dairy in it for up to two days in the fridge, but remember that the coffee flavor starts to degrade over time. For a longer shelf life, use cold brew coffee to make a batch of iced coffee. It's the little touches that elevate the experience, so pour out your iced coffee in a glass with ice and a straw, or make it a to-go beverage with a Contigo Byron insulated travel mug.