15 Jeni's Ice Cream Flavors, Ranked Worst To Best

For something so simple, ice cream offers an incredible variety. Across the country, you'll find some of the best ice cream shops featuring enticingly decadent displays — from mom-and-pop stores that pile on the scoops, to artisan markets with trendy names and lines down the block. There's something for everyone, and if unique flavor combinations that shock and awe are your favorite ways to enjoy a cold treat, Jeni's is one of the brands to catch the eye (and palate). Jeni's has been churning out flavor after flavor of ice cream for years, including unique options like goat cheese, candy bar crunchiness, and coconut and lemon, to name just a few. 

Trying an assortment of Jeni's ice creams was simply something I had to do. Comparing textures, flavor boldness, originality, and whether they stand out compared to other brands, I've ranked 15 of Jeni's most classic flavors from worst to best. Gourmet ice cream is competitive — most grocery stores carry more than one brand of pints that vie for your attention — but I broke it down so you'll know which Jeni's flavors are worth buying.

Is discovering vanilla in last place a surprise? Probably not. It's not that it tastes bad, so much as it hardly stacks up to the flavors that bring a bit of pizazz, excitement, or surprise. Eaten on its own, Jeni's Honey Vanilla Bean just doesn't compare to other creative flavors that the brand offers.

Jeni's Honey Vanilla Bean tastes like a standard vanilla ice cream yet sells for about $12 a pint(as do all of the brand's flavors). What baffles me is why vanilla ice cream would cost so much. There are many brands of the flavor available at much lower prices (and we've ranked those for you, too) that taste just as good. Paying so much for a specialty flavor you can't find anywhere else is one thing, but this vanilla bean isn't nearly extraordinary enough to justify its price tag.

There are a few different types of mint you can use to flavor this kind of ice cream — Jeni's Green Mint Chip uses peppermint combined with chips of Fair Trade dark chocolate, a combination that reminds one of Thin Mints in ice cream form. 

It has a lingering coolness that will appease any fan of mint-flavored treats. It's icy in more ways than one and made my breath feel frosty even after I put my spoon down. 

Still, the lingering coolness isn't necessarily unique when compared to other brands with a much lower price tag. The reason the Green Mint Chip ranked lower for me was that it's just not very special compared to other brands that offer the same flavor for less.

Salted caramel is a trend that, once you've enjoyed it, is hard to forget. That hint of sea salt brings everything to life, amplifying the butter and browned sugar and taking caramel to a whole new level. As an ice cream, the added bit of saltiness takes the caramel flavor from basic to bold.

Jeni's Salty Caramel is a silky, pale ice cream in which the caramel flavor takes a moment to kick in. Creamy at first, it finishes with smooth, caramelized sugar flavors and a hint of salt. This is a great pint for the caramel lover, but wasn't as intense as I had hoped; the flavors were more subtle and blended into the cream. It was good, but there are other brands that have a much bolder caramel flavor, and really make my mouth water.

Jeni's Cookies In Cream is part of the brand's gluten-free collection. The cookies are made with buckwheat, oat, and rice flour that tastes great, and there's a fantastic quantity of crumbled cookies mixed in. However, in terms of texture, there's a slight grittiness of the starchy flours that lingered on my teeth as I ate. For someone who's accustomed to these kinds of flours, this would hardly be an issue, but for those used to glutinous grains, this may be more noticeable.

The cookie, mixed with the creamy ice cream, tastes remarkably like an Oreo with its smooth vanilla filling and cocoa-rich biscuits. It's a good cookies and cream flavor, especially for the gluten-free individual, but the grittiness held it back from beating out some of Jeni's other flavors.

Birthday cake ice cream is a classic flavor for a reason: Cake on its own is just okay, but paired with ice cream and sprinkles, it becomes a festive celebration. What better way to make every day feel like a celebration than to combine all three?

Jeni's Buttercream Birthday Cake sticks close to the classic: vanilla ice cream with a bit of buttercream frosting whipped in, golden chunks of cake, and a generous amount of sprinkles. The problem with this flavor is that there isn't much room for creativity. It's a basic birthday cake with vanilla ice cream and sprinkles for decoration, and flavor-wise, it's hard to break out of that. The sprinkles add a nice crunch, the cake has an enjoyably chewy texture, but beyond that, it is like many other versions of the same ice cream, thus landing lower in this ranking.

Most people tend to take sides when it comes to their preferred kind of chocolate, but Jeni's Milkiest Chocolate appeals to any audience by offering both the milkiest and the darkest chocolate flavors. This pint was so smooth that even I, a dark chocolate lover, found it quite enjoyable. The chocolate is silky, and notes of cocoa hold their own against the luxurious cream — it's like drinking a cup of chocolate milk churned up.

Although it has smooth, uninterrupted creaminess, the Milkiest Chocolate is a very basic ice cream. The flavor is exactly what it says it is and perfectly balanced between chocolate, sugar, and cream. For those who are more of a milk chocolate person than dark, you can't go wrong — although there was a chocolate-flavored ice cream with a bit more boldness that really caught my attention.

Have you ever perused an ice cream shop's flavors and found yourself drawn to the most intensely dark chocolate ice cream you've ever seen? Typically labeled 'extra noir,' it almost seems more cocoa powder than ice cream, with a color that appears even more jet-black next to bright yellow sorbets and green pistachio gelatos.

This is what I expected from an ice cream labeled Darkest Chocolate, but its color does not resemble the jet-black ice creams I'm used to. Don't get me wrong — it's still rich with cocoa, and the chocolate flavor is at the forefront, satisfying any craving with its boldness. It will certainly appease a dark chocolate fan and I loved the intensity of this blend as compared to a milkier chocolate — but I would have ranked it much higher had it truly lived up to its name.

There are scientific reasons why peanut butter and chocolate go together so perfectly. The salty peanuts contrast with the sweet chocolate, already making the perfect pair, and once combined with ice cream, it's a magical trifecta. There are many chocolate and peanut butter ice creams on the market in different variations, but what makes Jeni's Salted Peanut Butter With Chocolate Flecks special is how incredibly smooth and perfectly balanced it is. 

The roasted, salted notes of the peanut butter really shine in this ice cream. It's incredibly bold, and the legume's presence is impossible to miss. The chocolate flecks add a bit of crunch and blend seamlessly. Overall, it's very enjoyable and great for chocolate peanut butter lovers, though I wish the chocolate chunks were slightly bigger. As peanut butter ice cream, the flavor is fantastic, but still, some other Jeni's flavors deserve credit for being both delicious and more original, which is why this one ranks in the middle.

Jeni's isn't the only ice cream brand to do a gooey butter cake flavor; it's one of those combinations that just works and keeps the people coming back for more. In the first try, I wasn't overly impressed with this mix, lumping it into the same category as Birthday Cake ice cream, sans sprinkles. But I found myself returning again and again, craving the cake and slightly salty butterscotch sauce.

Where Jeni's Buttercream Birthday Cake ice cream failed, the Gooey Butter Cake succeeded. The ice cream itself has a subtle cream cheese flavor, with a slightly thicker consistency and mild richness that contrasts with the cake and sugary sauce to create a better balance. The cake in this pint also comes in bigger, chewier chunks, which is more enjoyable than smaller pieces. The caramel-butterscotch sauce swirled throughout is better than sprinkles any day and adds a bit of much-needed salt. Perhaps it's an acquired taste, but don't underestimate the Gooey Butter Cake flavor. There may be other Jeni's blends I enjoyed a bit more for their ingenuity and originality, but you can't go wrong with this pint.

A fruit crisp is an ice cream flavor I tend to always reach for. The smattering of crisp dough adds a layer of texture, making the whole experience more interesting than just fruit ice cream. Jeni's Brambleberry Crisp uses blackberries and black currants (aka brambleberries), cooked into a sugary sauce and swirled throughout the vanilla ice cream. But it doesn't stop there — it also has a classic crisp dough of oats, brown sugar, and a hint of cinnamon. There's texture from the bursts of flavor of the slightly sour berries, and creamy vanilla ice cream to round everything out.

While this isn't a particularly unique flavor, and there are other brands that accomplish the same goal at a lower price, it is nonetheless delicious, landing it in the middle of this ranking. Using more than one berry makes the flavor more interesting and harder to place, and the tartness balances out the brown sugar.

The only thing that's better than smooth, sweet, decadent, luxurious ice cream is a really crunchy, rich candy mixed in. The brown butter almond toffees in Jeni's Brown Butter Almond Brittle are so nutty, so toasted in flavor, so salty and sweet, you don't even notice that the ice cream itself is fairly basic. There's plenty of candy to go around, and a delightful crunch cuts through every bite.

This was one of my favorite Jeni's flavors, and it won extra points as I haven't had many other ice creams quite like it. It has just the right amount of candies, whose toffee coating somehow melts into the cold cream, keeping you spooning for buttery swirls. The only thing I was missing (which perhaps isn't really fair to the flavor) was a bit of chocolate. Despite the enjoyment of the almond and brown butter flavors here, after several bites, you might put this pint away in search of more variety, which is why it didn't rank higher.

There are several sweet foods that benefit from a bit of salt, and Jeni's managed to fit four of them into one ice cream with the High Five Candy Bar. That creamy peanut butter ice cream I have already raved about with Salted Peanut Butter pint is used in this flavor alongside swirls of caramel, tiny chocolate-covered pretzels, and individual pieces of chocolate. Sure, many brands make a candy bar-style ice cream — and this one is as good, if not better, than any of them.

First, there's plenty of chunks. You don't take one bite without getting a bit of chocolate, a crunchy pretzel, or a silky bite of caramel sauce. The pieces of chocolate in this are big and fill your mouth with smooth chocolate flavors, balancing the peanut butter. This is the kind of pint that you'll find impossible to put back in the freezer half-eaten. The only reason I ranked it fourth place, despite its addictive flavors, is for originality. There are more than one brand of crunchy, texture-loaded ice creams out there, and while this one is as good as any, I know that Jeni's has a few other flavors that deserve some credit for being more unique.

There are plenty of brands offering cookie dough ice creams on the market, but Jeni's Double Dough tastes the best of the ones I've tried. It's not just about the cookie dough, which is formed into tiny, delicious balls and mixed throughout, but the ice cream itself.

The base of the ice cream is a buttery brown sugar custard, with a flavor so luxurious and so addictive you practically forget about the cookie dough until its texture makes you pause. Initially, I didn't enjoy the size of the cookie dough balls. They're so small that I found myself missing the chewy chunks in other brands. But with the backdrop of that rich, buttery cream, an overabundance of cookie dough would distract more than meld. All-in-all, it works perfectly, and I give extra points to this flavor for being a step above any other cookie dough ice cream I've had.

I was in an optimistic mindset before I cracked into this pint of Jeni's Goat Cheese with Red Cherries, and was not disappointed with the result. If you're a fan of funky flavors, this one is sure to please. That tangy quality that goat cheese is known for is definitely present, but it's not as strong as one might think. Rather than being a punchy goat milk flavor, it's smoothed out by cream and sugar, making it mellow enough to appeal to those who don't typically enjoy a goat cheese on its own. 

The tart red cherries that speckle the blank white slate of ice cream cut through the fattiness and complement the cheese perfectly with their chew. My only complaint is that there aren't nearly enough cherries to get one in every bite. Other than that, it's a match made in heaven for those longing for unique ice cream flavors. But there's one flavor that managed to top it.

Nothing says lemon bar quite like a zesty, luminous, yellow curd with bits of shortbread crust. Layering these flavors into a coconut ice cream is a winning move. In other vanilla ice creams, the delicacy of the citrus flavors would be lost amongst the heavy ice cream, but the coconut cream in Jeni's Lemon Bar is airy, fluffy, and light. In fact, it's so light I barely noticed the coconut flavor at all, as I busily hunted with my spoon for blobs of delicious lemon curd that pop with citrus.

This is the kind of concoction that makes me understand why Jeni's has expanded across the country and become increasingly popular — it's a flavor that's perfectly executed, and one that you can't find anywhere else. The texture of the fluffy coconut ice cream, the smooth shine of the curd, and the chew of the shortbread all play together. This pint is worth the price, and I'll definitely be looking for it again soon.

Jeni's has a long list of ice cream flavors available on the market; some rotate often, and others are tried and true. This compilation of flavors is largely the latter, with the pints labeled as classics and kept on the permanent list.

When ranking these ice creams, I, of course, wanted to find the one that tasted the best. To do so, I focused on the flavor — how balanced or bold it was — as well as its textural enjoyment.

Beyond that, originality and uniqueness were big factors. Jeni's is not a cheap ice cream brand, and to justify the price, it seems that you should be paying for something you can't get at a lower price. Thus, flavors that were distinctly Jeni's won higher places.