It all started with $5 and a dream. The famous Ben & Jerry’s ice cream company is a cultural behemoth now, but it had very humble beginnings. Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield took a $5 course on ice cream making and made a $12,000 (they borrowed $4,000) investment to open up an ice cream shop in a refurbished gas station in Vermont in 1978.
They opened a second shop in 1981, and by 1988 were named “U.S. Small Business Persons of the Year” by President Reagan at the White House. Why? It’s not a mystery; Ben and Jerry’s just has fabulous ice cream flavors that are unique and memorable. We’re going to rank the 11 best.
With flavors like “Americone Dream” (inspired by talk show host Stephen Colbert), “Cherry Garcia” (inspired by the Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia), “Chocolate Therapy,” “Chubby Hubby” and “Dirt Cake,” Ben and Jerry’s is a beloved brand around the world. Always aware of social issues, they launched the flavor “Change is Brewing!” in 2021 “to advance racial justice, calling for the nation to divest from a broken criminal legal system and invest in services that help communities thrive.”
All in all, the company has at least 99 flavors, so it can be hard to decide which ones are worth trying and which are worth ignoring completely. That’s what we’re here for! Here are the best 11 flavors you just have to try.
Chocolate Therapy
Chocolate Therapy is the only Ben & Jerry’s ice cream that’s all chocolate with a dark chocolate base. How many times can you say chocolate in one sentence? Try this official description: “chocolate ice cream with chocolate cookies and swirls of chocolate pudding ice cream.” Say that three times fast! It’s like a sweet milk chocolate with just the slightest hint of bitter to add some depth. You’ll need therapy after you taste how good this is.
Phish Food
Named after the iconic psychedelic jam band of the same name, many people swear that this is the best flavor available. Are those the same people who attend Phish concerts? Probably. Does it matter? Definitely not. Marshmallow, caramel, little chocolate fish; it has a little bit of everything and will leave you weirdly craving ten-minute guitar solos. Pack some in a cooler and lie on the grass at your next Phish concert to get the absolute full effect.
Strawberry Cheesecake
To be fair, when you put two amazing flavors like strawberry and cheesecake together, it’s hard to miss. On top of that it has a nice graham-cracker swirl to add some texture to the whole presentation. It’s packed with flavor and decadence and easily the best cheesecake-based ice cream on the market today. Just wait until you taste the perfect balance of ingredients, something Ben & Jerry’s does better than any other ice cream on the market.
Chubby Hubby
There’s a lot going on with this one, but that is by no means a bad thing. It’s fudge-covered peanut butter in vanilla malt ice cream with even more fudge and peanut butter, oh and pretzels. It tastes kinda like a savory peanut butter cup, but be warned, this ice cream is basically the opposite of anything low cal or fat-free. Indulge at your own risk! This has turned many a skinny husband into a chubby one, so just be prepared.
The Tonight Dough
Along with Americone Dream, The Tonight Dough is a late-night-themed ice cream with crunchy chocolate cookie swirls and mounds of both peanut butter and chocolate chip cookie dough. It was made to celebrate Jimmy Fallon’s ascension to The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, and it’s been a fan favorite ever since. Have some late tonight!
Netflix & Chill’d
Ben & Jerry’s official description of this ice cream is that it’s “as carefully curated as your Netflix watch list.” Sure, the name is synonymous with a millennial sex invite, but that doesn’t mean it’s not one of the absolute best flavors around. This one has sweet and savory pretzel swirls mixed with chunks of fudge brownies. Throw on your fave Netflix show (or any show, for that matter) and dive into this decadent tub.
Caramel Chew Chew
If you’re a caramel lover then this is the ice cream for you. This delicious concoction has three different types of caramel: a main flavor, a caramel swirl and chocolate covered caramel chunks. It’s rich, decadent, and all centered in a vanilla flavor that offsets all the sweetness in a very nice way. Who needs anything more? What else could one want?
Chocolate Fudge Brownie
Now we’re getting down to brass tax. Obviously, chocolate fudge brownie is self-explanatory, but there’s more going on here than one might initially recognize. It has gooey chunks of brownie carefully mixed in with rich chocolate ice cream. There’s not much else to say about this classic and there’s nothing else it needs. Sometimes, simplicity is the best way to go.
Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough
Another pretty straightforward flavor by a company not necessarily known for doing that, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough is for all those after-baking spoon lickers out there. This is one of Ben & Jerry’s main flavors and has been since 1984. Hard to argue with that kind of longevity.
Half Baked
The two flavors above this one highlighted both cookie dough and fudge brownies. Mix those two flavors together and add in half chocolate and half vanilla ice cream and you got yourself Half Baked, one of the most decadent flavors in the Ben & Jerry’s inventory. This flavor pretty much sums up what the company is all about: incredible flavors mixed to perfection.
Cherry Garcia
This is the ice cream that put Ben & Jerry’s on the map and highlighted their hippie spirit. It’s a tribute to the late great guitarist for the Grateful Dead, Jerry Garcia, and it’s a pretty simple recipe: cherry ice cream with fudge flakes and cherries. When combined, those ingredients meld into something magical. No need to mess with perfection!
