Halo Top is the king of low-calorie ice cream. Not only does the ice cream taste pretty darn good for around 300 calories a pint, but it also comes in so many flavors (25 to be exact). Granted, the flavors can be a hit or a miss, but everyone has their favorite and that’s what makes the world go round. Halo Top recently made their first dairy-free batch of flavors and they already added a second round of new flavors, making a grand total of 14 dairy-free flavors. The new dairy-free Halo Top flavors include Toasted Coconut, Vanilla Maple, Pancakes and Waffles, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, Chocolate Almond Crunch, Candy Bar, and Birthday Cake. My team got to try all the new flavors and we determined which flavors are the best, and which flavors missed the mark.
7. Vanilla Maple
Poor Vanilla Maple. When you opened the gold cover of the pint, it revealed beautiful speckles of vanilla bean, but the taste was just sad. The texture was grainy and it had no taste. To be honest, the only thing I could taste in this whole pint was the cardboard of the container that held the ice cream. Vanilla Maple was aesthetically pleasing, but not worth the calories (even though they are small.) If you’re craving a simple flavor like vanilla, go for the full fat and sugar and treat yourself to some Haagen-Dazs.
6. Birthday Cake
I was definitely excited to try Birthday Cake because the dairy flavor is a favorite of many Halo Top fans. Sadly, the dairy-free flavor did not live up to its dairy counterpart. The ice cream was speckled with bright and cheerful sprinkles and the first bite was delicious, I will admit. As I continued to eat the ice cream, however, the taste got more and more ambiguous. After a couple of spoonfuls, I basically felt like I was eating frozen coconut milk with rainbow sprinkles.
5. Chocolate Almond Crunch
The almonds made this ice cream. I was super pumped to try this flavor because I am a huge fan of Ben & Jerry’s New York Super Fudge Chunk (which features chocolate and almonds.) The salted almonds were plentiful and provided a fantastic crunch. The ice cream itself, though, did not live up to the almonds. Once again, it was overall flavorless, and the only taste that came through was that of the container. I looked at the ingredients and was not surprised to see that cocoa was the ninth ingredient out of 16. Ramp up the cocoa, Halo Top.
4. Pancakes & Waffles
This is a fun and unique flavor and this was the first pint that didn’t disappoint. There were ample bits of pancake and swirls of maple syrup. Once again, the taste of the ice cream itself was slightly off. If you’re going to eat this flavor, make sure you get a pancake bit or a syrup swirl in every bite. Otherwise, you’re basically eating mystery-flavored ice cream.
3. Candy Bar
The packaging of this ice cream makes you expect that it will taste like a Snickers bar. While it doesn’t taste quite as good as a Snickers, it had loads of peanuts and fudge swirls. Again, the chocolate ice cream did not exactly taste like chocolate, but the peanuts and fudge made up for the flavor of the actual ice cream. If you’re craving a Snickers but are on a diet, eat this ice cream for a quick fix.
2. Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough
I was expecting this flavor to be in the middle of the list. Chocolate chip cookie dough is always good, but it’s not usually anything special either. The chunks of cookie dough bring this ice cream to the number two slot on this list; they are sweet, chewy, and plentiful. You can’t exactly tell that it’s chocolate chip cookie dough swirled in; instead of being in the dough, the chocolate chips were in the ice cream. The dough still tastes delicious even without big chunks of chocolate. The cookie dough pieces were abundant, perfectly sweet, and were a perfect accent to the ice cream.
1. Toasted Coconut
This was the flavor I was most excited for and it lived up to my excitement. I am slightly biased because I love coconut, but it makes perfect sense because the ice cream is made with coconut milk. The toasted coconut beautifully complemented the coconut milk of the ice cream and was speckled throughout the pint. It was like eating straight up sweetened shredded coconut. I felt like I was eating a Samoa without the chocolate.
Just like the dairy flavors, these dairy-free Halo Top flavors are a hit or a miss. Numbers five through seven are neither worth the money nor the calories but numbers one through four are a great option, especially if you’re dairy-free. Halo Top is great for their variety of flavors, and it’s pretty good for ice cream that is only around 70 calories per serving. So, what are you waiting for? Get out there and try some of these inventive new flavors.