We Ranked 14 Great Value Ice Cream Flavors From Worst To Best

There is no shortage of ice cream brands to choose from at the grocery store, including the likes of Ben & Jerry's, Breyer's, and Häagen-Dazs. Some brands, like Salt & Straw, will even ship ice cream straight to your door. You don't have to worry about awkwardly standing in the frozen aisle for 10 minutes asking yourself, "Do I really want chocolate or chocolate fudge?" (The answer is always chocolate fudge). 

Great Value, Walmart's in-house brand, sells an impressive array of ice cream flavors. They range from classics like vanilla and chocolate to peanut butter cup, cookies and cream, and edible glitter-filled Unicorn Sparkle — but could these offerings stand up to similar offerings from premium brands, and which of Great Value's ice cream flavors boasted the best flavor, versatility, and texture? I subjected myself to brain freeze in the name of science and tried all the Great Value-branded ice creams myself so I could rank them from worst to best.

Butter pecan is another one of those flavors that I don't think of much, so it's not one I would order from my favorite local scoop shop. Pecans can elevate so many different ice cream flavors, but butter pecan ice cream never has enough going on to warrant eating it. The same can be said about Great Value's rendition of this, albeit dated, flavor. 

First off, it's clear that Great Value is rationing its pecans — for what reason, I don't know. Heaven forbid someone add more than 12 nuts to a whole quart of ice cream! The paltry add-ins weren't the only thing that was bad about this selection, though. Butter pecan ice cream is supposed to taste like browned butter — not like toffee, not like caramel, and certainly not like the movie theater butter that this one tasted like it was doused in. There aren't enough brown sugar notes in the base to convince me that this is more than plain vanilla ice cream mixed with synthetic butter essence. Add it to your cart at your own risk. 

Going into this ranking, I knew I had to get my bearings and set a baseline for my expectations. In other words, if a brand can't do vanilla ice cream well, should it really be making spinoff flavors with it?

It turns out the foundation of Great Value's ice cream brand is, well, adequate. I personally wouldn't go out of my way to buy it (or any vanilla ice cream in general) — as I think it's a flavor reserved for people who only order cheese pizza from their local pizzeria. There's nothing unexpected here in terms of flavor, and I consider it to be a very safe bet if you're looking for a sweet treat. 

When I went in for a scoop, I didn't think it had much overrun (excess air). It looked more like a premium ice cream, albeit one that was more easily scoopable than, say, Ben & Jerry's. Once I had a chunk of Great Value's vanilla ice cream in my mouth, though, I realized that it definitely wasn't a premium ice cream. The consistency was airy — not like what you'd get from soft-serve, but clearly cheap — and the vanilla flavor was very synthetic. It would be perfectly fine for dousing in toppings or adding to a float, but it's not that good of a vanilla ice cream that I would seek it out. 

Before we get into this, I have an important question to ask: shouldn't strawberry ice cream have whole pieces of strawberry in it? The frozen fruity wads create the perfect textural contrast against a creamy base — it's what makes the ice cream enjoyable in the first place. Without it, it just seems to lack character.

That was foreshadowing. The only evidence of strawberries I could find in this pint were one or two measly pieces in the middle, and a breadcrumb trail of seeds throughout the pint. I don't know about you, but I don't want to have to play excavator to mine the individual strawberry pieces out of a single pint — and for only two pieces of strawberry? What gives?

The majority of the strawberry flavor here is in the base of the ice cream. Great Value could have given it a more synthetic flavor, but I'm glad it went easy in that respect. It's a step above the vanilla, as the fruity essence hides some of that cloying, fake vanilla flavor. However, there is enough of it present to classify this more as a "strawberries and cream" ice cream than a plain "strawberry." 

I guess I missed the memo that this was a BYO peanut butter cup deal, because as-is, this peanut butter cup ice cream was very disappointing. The label boasts all good things: peanut butter cups, peanut butter ribbons, and fudge pieces. However, it neglected to add the fine print that you have to dig halfway down to even get a subtle undertone of peanut butter. The fudge pieces were the best-distributed of its add-ins, which isn't ideal for an ice cream where peanut butter is supposed to be center stage.

The vanilla ice cream base itself is adequate, as I expected it to be. It's nothing cosmic, though it seems like it would have been more effective if Great Value swapped it for a peanut butter base and tripled the amount of peanut butter and cups in it. It could have been more compelling with a chocolate base, too, but something really has to be done about the peanut butter before it can move up on this list. 

I'm starting to sense a theme here. Not only do I have to add peanut butter cups to my grocery list, but it also appears that I need to supply my own cookie dough pieces for Great Value's chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. This was the only Great Value flavor I tried before — for a review of cookie dough ice creams – and my sentiment remains the same: While the base itself is okay, and the cookie dough chunks are pretty tasty, there aren't enough wads of cookie dough in this ice cream to make it worth eating.

The cookie dough pieces are buttery and perfectly gritty (thus gave it the upper-hand against the peanut butter cup ice cream), and it's really a shame that there aren't three times as many in this pint. There are even more chocolate shards than there are cookie dough pieces! Paired with an adequate — but not out-of-this-world-good vanilla base — you get a middling ice cream. 

Fudge tracks is Great Value's version of chocolate ice cream with obstacles. The pint touts that it has fudge ribbons and peanut butter cup pieces, and I expected I was going to like it more than the vanilla-based peanut butter cup because of the chocolate ice cream. While fudge tracks was more enjoyable than its vanilla-based brethren, the idea behind it just felt a little ... unfinished. 

The fudge ribbons are just hard pieces of milk chocolate. I was expecting more of a rich, fudge-like sauce swirled throughout the pint. It was hard to tell the difference between the peanut butter cups and the chocolate, and there honestly wasn't enough peanut butter to make a difference. If this ice cream had a chocolate and peanut butter base with molten fudge, it would have ranked much higher. 

Aside from Unicorn-Sparkle-tracks-magic-adventure (or whatever it's called), I've tried other brands' versions of every other flavor on this list — except root beer and vanilla float. This ice cream brings together a vanilla base and copious swirls of root beer sherbet. At first, I expected the sherbet would be very icy, but it actually blends well into the ice cream. It tastes like root beer and has distinct sarsaparilla undertones with notes of citrus and anise. I never really got a scoop of the root beer sherbet all alone, considering it's swirled so well into the vanilla. Even when I got a bite with a greater root-beer-to-vanilla ratio, I could tell that its soda-like flavor was quite bold for an ice cream. 

The root beer helped cushion the creamy and sugary blow of the vanilla ice cream, but I don't think I'm entirely sold on the "float" part of the name. Part of the experience of sipping on a float is stirring, scraping, and trying to incorporate the gobs of ice cream and the fizzy soda — I obviously didn't get that here. The root beer's taste was also more orange-leaning than a root beer should be. However, it might just be one of those flavors that you have to try and form your own opinion on.

Your reaction to seeing a birthday cake flavor on this list is either going to be "Ew!" or "Let me get my party hat!" I fall into the latter. Despite my general dislike of horribly sweet things, I do like a scoop of birthday cake ice cream from time to time. 

I'll be frank: this birthday cake ice cream is below my standard for a good birthday cake ice cream. For one, there are no chunks of cake in it — only blue frosting and candy sprinkles. The sprinkles are the tooth-hurtingly hard ones you'd find in a shaker jar, though after sitting in a bath of cream and sugar, they soften substantially. The frosting is thinner than what you'd find in a can and was exclusively set in the center of the pint. Since it was goopy, it was easy to spread throughout the pint. While I'm usually for as many mix-ins as humanly possible, I was glad that Great Value expressed restraint here because this ice cream base and frosting are so sweet. The ice cream itself almost tastes like whipped frosting on — you guessed it — a birthday cake. 

Birthday cake ice cream doesn't have universal appeal, and folks who don't like sugar won't like it at all. However, it does at least attempt to offer the flavor listed on its label, and for that I'll give it a B+. 

It felt odd being an adult and adding this colorful Unicorn Sparkle ice cream to my Walmart cart knowing full well that I, not a seven-year-old rainbow-obsessed kid, was going to be eating it. There are two things that are clear: it's not made with real unicorns (as the label asserts), and it is not the same as birthday cake. Instead of a blue swirl of frosting, it has an almost-clear — what I assume to be grape-flavored — frosting, complete with edible glitter. The frosting is mucusy and kind of gross, if I'm being honest, but I liked that this ice cream had a stronger cake flavor than the birthday cake. However, I was missing those cake pieces (and even if Great Value added them, it would probably cap out at nine measly pieces per quart). The sprinkles are too few and far between to notice. 

Overall, I think this ice cream is a step above birthday cake in terms of its cake flavor. Though, if you're not its intended audience of children under seven, you probably won't add it to your cart. It's a sugar bomb — there's no way around that. 

Coffee ice cream is, by far, my favorite base flavor. There's so much to love about it, especially when you pour a shot of espresso over it and turn it to a tasty affogato. I've had some good coffee ice creams in my short life, and I will say that Great Value does a good job of trying to instill a coffee flavor throughout this pint. It's quite sweet, which gives more of a sugary latte vibe than a strong shot of espresso or French press. There aren't any bitter undertones, and it almost tastes like someone added instant coffee granules to Great Value's vanilla ice cream — because those all-too-synthetic vanilla flavors rain on its parade.

While I can appreciate that this pint has a little more going on than the vanilla, I can't say that I was compelled to eat more than a few bites (which says a lot for a self-proclaimed coffee ice cream fiend). This Great Value offering wouldn't even crack my list of the best coffee ice creams, mostly because its flavor isn't very memorable or punchy. However, its still more approachable than flavors only suitable for a children's birthday party. 

I'll be honest: mint chip is not my favorite flavor of ice cream — in fact, it's probably my least favorite. However, this one may have given me a more favorable view of mint chip ice cream than I ever thought possible.

The main reason why I liked (read: didn't despise) it is because it's not as toothpasty as it could have been. Its flavor was minty enough to dance across my tongue, but not so overpowering that I could taste it for hours. You have to like mint to really enjoy it though, which diminishes its universal appeal.

I also really liked that there were ample chunks (not chips ... that's false advertising) strewn throughout the container. It would have been even tastier with a sprinkle of Oreos or a drizzle of hot fudge. It's versatile, though it can stand on its own, which can't be said about some of the lower-ranked flavors on this list.

Chocolate ice cream was the only flavor my dad ate growing up, but I never caught its drift. However, I even I can admit that Great Value does a pretty darn good job with its chocolate ice cream, which is surprising, given how cheap-tasting and synthetic its basic vanilla offering was. But, chocolate ice cream is naturally richer and slightly more bitter — so Great Value took the easy route to success here.

Great Value did a great job balancing both the rich chocolate flavor and the subtly dry bitterness. It wasn't like I was taking a bite of raw cocoa powder at any point, and I liked how the creaminess brought both sweetness and chocolatiness together in every bite. This ice cream would make an excellent base for other toppings, like brownies, hot fudge, or just whipped cream and a cherry, though it has enough universal appeal that I could see myself eating it straight from the pint. Could I down a whole pint in a single sitting? Not exactly — its flavor is kind of boring compared to the others that Great Value offers. But it's like a reliable choice if you need to keep a pint on hand in case of an ice cream emergency. 

I've eaten a lot of ice cream over the years, but never in my life have I ever (nor have I ever seen) anyone order Rocky Road. This ice cream offering is good in theory — chocolate ice cream, marshmallow swirls, and almonds (Great Value coats its nuts in chocolate) — so I wonder why it's so unpopular. After I ate Great Value's version, though, I think I might buy it more often ... just not this exact product. 

We know already that Great Value makes a darn good chocolate ice cream, so adding in crunchy nuts and marshmallow (which is really just for color — you can't taste its flavor at all) seems like a winning move. While the almonds were few and far between, they made the texture of this pint more interesting than the standard chocolate. I didn't have to dodge the tooth-hurtingly hard pieces of fudge like in the fudge tracks flavor. It's not a bad ice cream, but it could still be improved with a drizzle of chocolate syrup, more marshmallows, and almond topping. 

There were two things I was looking for from this Great Value cookies and cream ice cream. The base of the ice cream should taste like an Oreo cookie (or like the milk after dipping Oreos into it), and there needs to be discernible, easily accessible pieces of Oreos. Armed with a strong spoon, I was able to find that the latter was true — to some degree. I felt like a person deep in a coal mine who struck the tiniest piece of gold after digging for hours upon hours. When you get a chunk of the cookie, it's great. The soft chocolate wafer and the cream filling are both detectable and elevate the mouthfeel. However, they are few and far between — you have to savor those moments until you can make another discovery deep in the ice cream mine. 

All in all, this ice cream felt like it had a richer consistency than the plain vanilla. Aside from the fact that it was skimpy with the (what I assume to be knockoff) Oreos, it was pretty good — arguably one of the better cookies and cream ice creams I've had, and certainly the best Great Value has to offer.

I'm a (shamelessly) avid ice cream consumer, so I was excited to see how Great Value's offerings compared. I assumed that the texture of each offering would be similar, but the taste, amount of add-ins, and overall versatility of the ice cream would vary. 

A good ice cream should be able to stand alone — it shouldn't need to be washed out with toppings in order to taste good. Therefore, I ranked flavors that were compelling — meaning that I wanted to take a second scoop — over ones that I could take or leave. The best ice creams had a balanced sweetness that wasn't overly cloying, an ample amount of "stuff" (be it chips, cookie dough, or cookie pieces), and an overall enjoyable flavor that would appeal to the masses.