Not all vanilla ice creams are created equal—some are creamy dreams, while others taste like sweetened freezer burn.
We tasted the most popular grocery store brands so you don’t have to suffer through disappointment (or questionable aftertastes).
Spoiler: A few deserve a one-way ticket to the trash can.
1. Great Value Vanilla Ice Cream: Walmart’s Frozen Mistake
Bland doesn’t begin to describe this budget disappointment! Great Value’s version tastes like they forgot the vanilla entirely.
Imagine scooping into ice cream only to find it morphs into a weird, rubbery goo instead of smooth creaminess. The texture’s closer to icy paste than anything remotely indulgent.
2. Friendly’s Vanilla Ice Cream: Nothing Friendly About This Flavor
How could a restaurant chain known for ice cream fail so spectacularly in grocery stores? Friendly’s retail version tastes suspiciously artificial, with a chemical aftertaste that lingers uncomfortably.
Though the packaging promises creamy goodness, expect a grainy texture that scrapes against your palate like sandpaper on silk!
3. Turkey Hill Original Vanilla: A Frozen Wasteland of Flavor
If disappointment had a taste, Turkey Hill Original Vanilla would be its poster child. The flavor vanishes faster than ice in summer, leaving only sweetness behind.
Mysteriously, this brand manages to be simultaneously icy AND gummy. Ever wondered how something can taste like vanilla-scented air? Share your Turkey Hill horror stories below!
4. Hood Vanilla Ice Cream: New England’s Biggest Dairy Letdown
Where’s the vanilla? Hood somehow created ice cream that tastes like sweetened cold air with milk undertones.
Inexplicably popular in the Northeast despite its watery consistency and tendency to develop ice crystals faster than polar caps. Hence, many consumers find themselves scraping frost off what should be creamy goodness!
5. Lucerne Vanilla Ice Cream: Safeway’s Frozen Folly
Safeway’s store brand commits the cardinal sin of ice cream – an artificial flavor so strong it resembles cleaning products! The aftertaste lingers like an unwelcome houseguest.
Though reasonably priced, Lucerne fails the basic vanilla test with its oddly fluffy yet simultaneously dense texture. What mad science created this paradoxical frozen anomaly?
6. Kroger Deluxe Vanilla: Nothing Deluxe About This Disaster
Kroger’s audacity in labeling this as “Deluxe” deserves a special award for misleading marketing! The flavor profile resembles cardboard that briefly met a vanilla bean in passing.
If you enjoy ice cream that transforms into a grainy slush within minutes of serving, you’ve found your match. Otherwise, save your dollars for literally anything else!
7. Market Pantry Vanilla: Target’s Tasteless Target Miss
Target usually hits the bullseye with store brands, but their Market Pantry vanilla ice cream shoots wildly off-mark! The texture resembles whipped styrofoam more than cream.
However did they manage to create something simultaneously airy yet lacking any mouthfeel? The vanilla flavor ghosts your taste buds faster than a bad date!
8. Halo Top Vanilla Bean: Diet Disappointment in a Pint
Low-calorie shouldn’t mean low-flavor, yet Halo Top somehow manages both! This protein-packed pretender tastes like vanilla-adjacent chemicals with a distinctly chalky finish.
Though marketed as guilt-free indulgence, the only guilt you’ll feel is wasting money on this frozen fraud. Eating ice cubes sprinkled with artificial sweetener would provide a similar experience!
9. Blue Bunny Vanilla Bean: Hopping Down the Mediocrity Trail
Blue Bunny should hop back to the drawing board with this vanilla travesty! Despite visible bean specks, the flavor vanishes like a magician’s rabbit.
Curiously aerated to the point of resembling frozen whipped topping rather than ice cream. Those black specks? Merely visual props in this theater of dairy deception. Try their chocolate instead!
10. Breyers Natural Vanilla: Nature’s Biggest Blunder
Breyers once represented quality, but their current formula produces a bizarre gummy texture that’s anything but natural! The ice cream mysteriously doesn’t fully melt, raising concerning questions about its ingredients.
If science experiments disguised as dessert intrigue you, Breyers might be your jam. For everyone else, this strange concoction belongs in a laboratory, not your bowl!
11. Häagen-Dazs Vanilla: Highway Robbery in the Freezer Aisle
Absolutely awful doesn’t begin to describe this overpriced impostor! Despite the premium price tag, Häagen-Dazs vanilla tastes astonishingly flat and lacks the rich complexity one expects.
Marketed as super-premium, yet blind taste tests consistently favour budget-friendly brands. You’re shelling out top dollar for what tastes like a knockoff. It’s like paying for caviar and getting fish sticks—highway robbery in a pint!
12. Edy’s/Dreyer’s Vanilla Bean: The Emperor’s New Ice Cream
Remember when Edy’s/Dreyer’s was actually good? Those days are long gone! Their reformulated vanilla tastes like the ghost of ice cream past – a sad shadow of its former glory.
Inexplicably, this once-beloved brand now produces a product that feels like eating frozen air with occasional ice crystals. Has anyone actually spotted the alleged beans?
13. Baskin-Robbins Vanilla: 31 Flavors of Disappointment
Shocking truth: Baskin-Robbins’ grocery store vanilla tastes nothing like what’s scooped in their shops! This pale imitator has a strange artificial note reminiscent of cheap birthday cake.
Where’s the creamy richness their brand promises? Instead, expect a weirdly fluffy texture that dissolves into watery puddles faster than you can say “31 flavors.” Save your grocery dollars!
14. Tillamook Vanilla Bean: Oregon’s Frozen Tragedy
Tillamook makes excellent cheese but should stick to their dairy lane! Their vanilla bean ice cream presents a confusing flavor profile – simultaneously too sweet yet oddly bland.
For a premium-priced product, the mouthfeel disappoints with a greasy film that coats your tongue. Though the packaging screams farmhouse quality, your taste buds will scream for a different brand!
15. Ben & Jerry’s Vanilla: Vermont’s Vanilla Villain
Ben & Jerry’s built their empire on chunky, funky flavors – perhaps explaining why their plain vanilla falls catastrophically flat! Despite the premium price, this vanilla tastes bizarrely artificial.
Inexplicably, the texture feels gummy rather than creamy. Could Vermont’s ice cream heroes have created their most villainous flavor? Leave your vote in the comments – is this the most overrated vanilla ever?