We Tasted 12 Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Creams, These Are the Best

It’s entirely possible mint chocolate chip ice cream is the most divisive flavor ever created. Should its base be pastel green or a soft ecru? Should it be flecked with standard chocolate chips, bigger chocolate chunks, or lithe flakes? Is mint chip ice cream even good? These questions and more were hotly debated just moments before our latest blind tasting began.

The flavor is at least 80 years old. One of Baskin-Robbins’ original 31 flavors, “Chocolate Mint” made its debut in 1945 in Glendale, California, at Irv Robbins’s Snowbird Ice Cream before Robbins merged concepts with brother-in-law Burt Baskin to create the frozen dessert juggernaut we know today. Now codified in most people’s minds as “mint chocolate chip,” the combo is the seventh most popular ice cream flavor in the United States, according to a 2024 study from the International Dairy Foods Association, ranking ahead of chocolate chip, rocky road, and peanut butter cup.

These days mint chocolate as a flavor concept has gone international, particularly in South Korea, where it has gained popularity in recent years. You can find the combination in cookies and ice cream, of course, but the duo has also joined forces in savory dishes, such as fried chicken and steamed buns.

Not ready to dive into the wider world of minted-chocolate treats? Stick around. We’ll be focusing on ice cream from here on. In our latest blind taste test, we sampled 12 brands of mint chocolate chip ice cream to find our favorites. What we found out is that one pint won’t suit all.

How we picked the products

We began our search for the best mint chocolate chip ice cream by soliciting recommendations from the Bon Appétit staff. We combed through our vanilla ice cream taste test and cookies and cream ice cream taste test for tried-and-true favorite brands. We also scoured mint chocolate chip ice cream roundups across the web and kept an eye out for lesser-known brands when shopping, like Alec’s Ice Cream, a relative newcomer.

Just as important are the brands we chose not to test. We excluded some brands with limited distribution that could be difficult for many of our readers to find. We also eliminated any brands that included nontraditional chocolate elements (such as Oreo cookies or fudge swirls) and avoided any plant-based formulations.

How we set up our blind taste test

About 30 minutes before testing, we scooped the ice creams one by one into individual bowls and returned them to the freezer in turn. When our testers were ready, we presented one sample at a time for tasting. Each taster tried a spoonful of ice cream before discussing its pros and cons. In the end, our panel named three favorite mint chip pints—each with their own merits—as well as one ice cream deserving of an honorable mention.

How our editors evaluated

Our tasters had strong opinions on the proper color for mint chocolate chip ice cream, but not all shared the same opinion. Some insisted it should be green. (“That’s just how things are; how they have always been!” being the implied takeaway.) Others thought a more natural white hue was the better option. On other facets our panel was more aligned. A great mint chocolate chip ice cream should be creamy and rich with a robust, refreshingly minty flavor. Ice creams deemed too saccharine or that veered too into toothpaste territory weren’t welcome.

There should also be an even distribution of chocolate throughout—and that chocolate can make or break the ice cream. It should be high-quality dark chocolate, nothing waxy or overly sweet. Our tasters preferred thin chocolate shards that shattered when chewed, creating a textural riot with each bite. No unwieldy chocolate chunks, overwhelming ripples, or unpleasantly gritty, grainy bits of chocolate.

The Nostalgic Pick: Edy’s Slow-Churned Mint Chocolate Chip

Known as Dreyer’s on the West Coast, this brand has been making ice cream for nearly a century. The dual names, according to the company’s website, honor founders William Dreyer and Joseph Edy. Many Edy’s flavors are sold as “frozen dairy desserts” because the FDA requires ice cream to have a minimum amount of dairy fat and regulates weight per gallon. Edy’s “Slow-churned” line is a “light ice cream,” which is reflected in the products’ fat and calorie content compared to the standard. The way many of these types of ice cream fill out a pint is through overrun—that’s the amount of air mixed in to make the ice cream soft and scoopable.

Why it won us over: For tasters who expected a shock of fluorescent green when they pop the top off a carton of mint chocolate chip ice cream, Edy’s hit the mark. Scattered throughout were formidable shards of dark chocolate that pleasantly contrasted the creamy base and balanced mint flavor. “This is what I expect from mint chocolate chip ice cream,” beamed associate visuals editor Marc Williams. Senior cooking and SEO editor Joe Sevier appreciated how light and scoopable the ice cream was, even directly from the freezer, and other tasters said Edy’s cool, creamy flavor took them right back to childhood.

We’d love it in: Sandwiched between two thin chocolate wafer cookies in homemade ice cream sandwiches.

The Highfalutin Favorite: Jeni’s Green Mint Chip

Bon Appétit has ridden hard for Jeni’s for years—it also placed in our cookies and cream ice cream taste test—so it’s not wildly surprising to see this pint among our winners. Jeni’s sets itself apart from other ice creams in that it doesn’t use eggs; instead, it builds luxurious creaminess from extra-high-quality milk and cream. It’s worth noting that Jeni’s uses natural food coloring (spirulina makes for a gentle sea green hue in this mint chip).

Why it won us over: Mint chocolate chip ice cream fanatic and food director Chris Morocco was Jeni’s biggest advocate in this tasting. He described its color as a delicate turquoise (pronounced “tur-kwaz”), comparing its color to the Caribbean Sea and describing its flavor as measured and well-calibrated. Other tasters were less effusive but agreed that Jeni’s refreshingly minty yet incredibly creamy base benefited from a contrast of really good bittersweet chocolate shards. “That feels like an adult ice cream,” said director of creative development Ian Stroud, “I feel classy eating that.”

We’d love it in: An ice cream like this deserves to be the main character in your dessert. Try it bathed in hot fudge, layered in an ice cream cake, or tucked into a baked Alaska.

The Mint Chip Champ: Trader Joe’s Mint Chip Ice Cream

Trader Joe’s mint chocolate chip ice cream carton is emblazoned with the words “super premium,” which is ice cream parlance for “there’s a lot of dairy fat and very little air whipped into this ice cream.” The list of ingredients is short: cream, milk, cane sugar, chocolate-flavored chips, sugared egg yolks, peppermint extract, and a few stabilizers.

Why it won us over: Interestingly, Trader Joe’s mint chocolate chip is the only ice cream among our three top picks that isn’t green. Do we finally have an answer to the green vs. white mint chip ice cream debate? Perhaps.

What really put this ice cream over the top was its chocolate. Like the chocolate in Italian stracciatella, this ice cream boasted thin, wide flakes that shattered with each bite before gloriously melting away. Joe praised their “rich chocolate flavor,” and associate test kitchen manager Ines Anguiano said the way the thin shards melted made each bite an “integrated experience.” Other tasters loved this quart’s luxe creaminess and its balanced mint flavor.

We’d love it: Substituted into a Cookies and Cream Ice Cream Cake or nestled into a banana split with a scoop of chocolate and vanilla to round it out.

Graeter’s Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream features large, irregular pieces of chocolate. While some tasters loved the fudgy bits (“I think the irregular chunks are charming,” Chris said), others found them slightly overwhelming: “The piece I got was big enough to be a brownie,” Joe said. Still, Graeters won enough ardent fans that the panel agreed it was worth recommending.

• 365 Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream: Although it had a nice scattering of chocolate shards, tasters didn’t detect enough mint flavor.
• Alden’s Organic Mint Chip Ice Cream: The texture was simply too light; tasters missed the dense, creamy consistency found in other contenders.
• Alec’s Ice Cream Mint Chocolate Chip: Although tasters had a lot of nice things to say (good flavors, big chunks of chocolate), ultimately the elements didn’t work well together.
• Breyers Mint Chocolate Chip: With its delicate flavor, Breyer’s lost out to more robustly minted competitors.
• Häagen-Dazs Mint Chip Ice Cream: Tasters praised Häagen-Dazs on first bite, but ultimately deemed it too sweet, with unbalanced flavor.
• McConnell’s Fine Ice Creams Mint Chip: Tasters found the chocolate here too finely ground, which made the ice cream taste gritty instead of luxe.
• Tillamook Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream: With a slightly gummy ice cream base, Tillamook fell short in texture.
• Van Leeuwen Mint Chip French Ice Cream: With a higher egg yolk content than traditional ice cream, Van Leeuwen’s French ice cream is ultra creamy and sweet, but its chalky-tasting chocolate didn’t deliver.

Or you could always make your own