The best keto ice cream should be creamy, sweet, and rich—just like regular ice cream. We gathered more than a dozen keto pints and bars to find out if any come close to the real deal.
Quick! Use a single word to ruin the phrase ice cream. “Shortage” is a good answer. “Fat-free,” while hyphenated, is also a contender. But, after this taste test, I think the best answer of all might be “keto.”
The phrase “keto ice cream” confuses the hell out of me. It’s like saying low-fat Big Mac or carb-free pasta. Ice cream is made with three key ingredients: milk, sugar, and cream. If you nix the sugar, can ice cream even be called ice cream? How about if it’s made with ultra-filtered milk and protein concentrate? With monk fruit? I set out to find out.
For this taste test, the best keto ice cream had to mimic actual ice cream. Good ice cream should be creamy, fatty, and rich, so we were looking for that heavenly texture and flavor. Good ice cream should make your eyes roll back in your head as you savor every last bit clinging to the cold spoon. Can keto ice cream mimic that experience? The answer is decidedly, “Nah, dawg.” Still, though, these five do something right.
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- Halo Top Sea Salt Caramel Keto Pops
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When it comes to keto ice cream, we discovered we’re bigger fans of what comes on a stick than what comes in a pint. In pop form, keto-fied ice cream holds together much better and achieves a creamier texture. Pints of keto ice cream tend to be so rough and hard that you have to dig for a bite with a John Deere excavator. Halo Top’s Sea Salt Caramel ice cream pop has a lovely, smooth-ish (for keto ice cream) texture, and a delightful salted caramel taste. This didn’t strike me as overly keto, which is a good thing. Read: We don’t want keto ice cream to taste like keto ice cream. This can trick you into thinking it’s just like any other ice cream bar. That’s impressive. This is the best keto ice cream, but it was nearly a toss up between this and the next ice cream on the list.
Credit: Sarah Demonteverde/Instacart
- Enlightened Keto Dark Chocolate Bar
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This is like a big ol’ keto Fudgesicle and it’s damn delightful. Like a real-deal Fudgsicle, there’s something wonderful about this dark chocolate ice cream bar’s delicious sameness. It’s a single texture and flavor through and through; it’s cool, soft (for keto ice cream), chocolatey, and delicious. There’s no outer edge of chocolate to crumble off and fall onto the floor (a problem with keto ice cream bars). I’ll take the smooth, creamy decadent consistency of a Fudgesicle every time, and this keeps the spirit of that classic frozen dessert alive.
Credit: Sarah Demonteverde/Instacart
- Rebel Mint Chip Ice Cream
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This is a damn fine mint-flavored ice cream, in spite of it being keto. This ice cream comes fully studded with little chips of dark chocolate, so you get a nice bit of crunchy texture in addition to the somewhat smooth, protein-rich ice cream. While it’s clearly not good ol’ fashioned non-keto ice cream, it’s still sweet and creamy enough to get by. If you staged a blind taste test between this and regular mint chip ice cream, you’d probably notice something off with this one, but I think it could potentially trip some people up. I really do appreciate the creamy texture here; it’s so hard to get right with a low-carb base, although Rebel specifically advertises being “high fat.” The little chunks of dark chocolate are a smart move, too—these little gems do well to make you forget that you’re watching your carbs at all. Cool and minty and smooth, we think you’ll quite like Rebel Mint Chip, and you might even think it’s the best keto ice cream out there.
Credit: Sarah Demonteverde/Instacart
- Enlightened Triple Chocolate Brownie Dough French Ice Cream
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This is really soft and airy, which is a revelation compared to the other rock-solid keto ice creams on the list. It’s decadent, fatty, and rich—not some made-in-a-lab Frankenstein concoction of soluble corn fiber, monk fruit, and sugar alcohols. Also, I didn’t think it was possible to ruin the words “sugar” and “alcohol,” but “sugar alcohols” manages to do it quite nicely. The flavor is pretty good, though. And although it tastes nothing like a brownie, it’s still chocolatey enough. Plus it kind of has a Fudgsicle aftertaste to it, and you know I’m absolutely mental for those. Make no mistake, if I was given a choice, I would send you and your whole family to prison for some Fudgsicles.
Credit: Sarah Demonteverde/Instacart
- Enlightened Ice Cream Cake
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Enlightened just has the smooth-and-creamy ice cream texture we’re looking for, and so, yes, it’s on this list of best keto ice creams three damn times. This ice cream cake-flavored pint is sweet without being saccharine, and it has a classic vanilla-chocolate swirl flavor combination. I really love the ingredients listed, too: butter, cream, egg yolks, dutched cocoa, vanilla, and chocolate liquor. Those just read like good ice cream ingredients. It lacks sweetness, but I kind of like the understated flavor. Ice cream cake is all about a smooth, agreeable, soft-serve texture, and while this doesn’t completely nail it, it understands the vibe.
Credit: Sarah Demonteverde/Instacart
Best of the Best
Best Fudgsicle Dupe
Best Mint
Best Chocolate Pint
Best Swirl
Other products we tried: Sundae Shoppe Cookie Dough, Sundae Shoppe Mint Chip, Halo Top Brownie a la Mode, Halo Top Macadamia Nut Cookie, Rebel Triple Chocolate, Halo Top Chocolate Cheesecake, Keto Mint Chip, Keto Strawberry.
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