The Most Popular Ice Cream Flavors In The US

Few sweet treats unite society quite like ice cream. That's not an exaggeration — according to a 2024 survey by the International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA) and Morning Consult, 97% of Americans either like or love ice cream. Unsurprisingly, this translates to one heck of a booming ice cream industry. While the U.S. may not rank first for the biggest ice cream consumer in the world (that honor goes to New Zealand, where Kiwis are thought to eat roughly 28.4 liters each per year), we still work our way through an average of 20.8 liters, injecting $11.4 billion into the economy and supporting 27,100 jobs in the process. But which flavors do we consume most?

A cold, hard reality of our shared passion for ice cream is that we're not all passionate about the same flavors. The likes of vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry are cult classics that won't fall out of favor any time soon, but a huge number of newer creations have also swayed our interests — and our stomachs — over the years. Although our great-grandparents may have tucked into the odd bowl of ice cream, they definitely weren't picking up a tub of anything as quirky as Ben & Jerry's Coffee Coffee BuzzBuzzBuzz! or Kraft Macaroni & Cheese Ice Cream for some late-night comfort food. Times change — and, so it seems, so do our ice cream preferences. From the OGs to modern classics, here are the most popular flavors satisfying ice cream lovers in the U.S. today.

Some call it boring, some call it bland, but we call it a refined classic that's popular for a reason. Vanilla is the grandfather of ice cream flavors, with the very first ice cream recipe recorded by an American spotlighting it as the key flavor. This may have been written down by Thomas Jefferson — yes, as in Founding Father Thomas Jefferson — of all people, but it's his Paris-trained, enslaved head chef James Hemings who is credited with coining the actual recipe. Centuries later, vanilla still reigns supreme, topping IDFA's survey of the most popular ice cream flavors in 2024 with a whopping 38% of the vote.

Of course, not all vanilla ice creams are built equal. Nowadays, there's every chance that an ice cream branded as "vanilla" is actually made with an artificial flavoring named vanillin. While some brands have nailed that delicate, subtle balance needed for a decent vanilla ice cream, it's also all too easy to find artificial-tasting options in the freezer aisle (as per our vanilla ice cream ranking, Van Leeuwen Vanilla Bean Ice Cream is the best of the best). However, it seems like customers have no issue finding vanilla ice cream when the cravings hit. Instacart claims that the flavor makes up 30% of all ice cream purchases made via its service, with vanilla also ranking as the top flavor of choice for 21 states. Talk about a crowd-pleaser.

There was a not-so-distant time when chocolate ice cream took the crown as America's favorite ice cream flavor. Back in 2018, 14% of Americans named it the best of the best in a YouGov survey, while it also outranked vanilla in a 2022 IDFA survey. Sadly, the chocolate frenzy seems to have died down slightly in the years since, but it's still up there with the biggest players in the game over three centuries after the first recorded chocolate ice cream recipe.

Similar to how regular chocolate has changed with time, the chocolate ice cream we eat today is worlds away from that consumed in the 17th century. For one thing, it was typically mixed with ingredients such as cinnamon and anise back in the day, and was even recommended as a treatment for gout and scurvy as well as for "[raising] the spirits of hypochondriacs and melancholics" (via Of Sugar and Snow: A History of Ice Cream Making). Fast forward several centuries, and doctors aren't exactly prone to recommending that we eat more chocolate ice cream. However, we're still eating more than our fair share for non-medical reasons. While some people find chocolate ice cream too bitter or chalky, today you can find the bulk of the nation's anise-free chocolate aficionados on the East Coast, with residents of Connecticut, Maine, New Jersey, New York, and Florida ranking up there with the biggest fans according to Holiday Calendar.

Nobody can quite decide when or how rocky road ice cream came to be. All we know is that America has loved it for decades. Ice cream brand Dreyer's claims to have invented the flavor in Oakland, California, at the beginning of the Great Depression. In 1929, its founder, William Dreyer — in partnership with candy-maker George Edy — "wanted to create a special new flavor to make folks smile" (via Dreyer's). Dreyer apparently had the good sense to chop up marshmallows with his wife's sewing scissors and tossed them into chocolate ice cream with some walnuts, creating something close to the flavor we know and love.

Conversely, Fentons Creamery claims that William Dreyer based the flavor off his good friend and Fentons' candy maker George Farren's own creations (which notably used almonds instead of walnuts). A rocky road ice cream recipe also appeared in an edition of "Rigby's Reliable Candy Teacher" published in Kansas in 1920, suggesting the concept was already popular in the Midwest before Dreyer, Edy, or Farren started tinkering.

Wherever rocky road came from, we're just glad it's here today — and, so do consumers in the U.S. Nowadays, the biggest rocky road ice cream fans are based on the West Coast, as per a YouGov study where 11% of residents claimed the iconic chocolate, nuts, and marshmallows combo as their favorite. Other studies have produced similar findings, with Holiday Calendar declaring rocky road as California and Nevada's go-to ice cream flavor.

Strawberry ice cream is a timeless favorite that spans generations of ice cream lovers. As a country, we've turned to strawberry ice cream for dessert since at least 1813, when Dolley Madison — wife of President James Madison, who contrary to popular belief was not partial to a good oyster ice cream — served it as a treat at his second inaugural banquet. (As it turns out, the Founding Fathers have strange connections to the origins of several of our favorite ice cream flavors, but for some reason Lin Manuel Miranda neglected to include that storyline in "Hamilton"). Decades earlier, a journal entry from Virginia claimed that Maryland Governor Thomas Bladen had served up "some fine ice cream" that contained strawberries at an official dinner (via Washington Post).

Today's take on strawberry ice cream doesn't reach the same dizzying heights of popularity as vanilla, with the haters left unimpressed by the texture provided by small chunks of frozen fruit in some varieties. However, it still boasts a loyal fanbase. According to IDFA, it was the third most popular ice cream flavor in 2024, with 25% of survey participants citing it as their top choice. Even if it isn't everyone's favorite flavor, it's still widely liked; YouGov previously found that an impressive 43% of people like strawberry ice cream, giving it a higher approval rate than the likes of rocky road, mint chocolate chip, and chocolate chip cookie dough.

While the exact origins of butter pecan are unknown, it's often said that it has its roots in Black Americans eating the butter-based flavor when restricted from eating vanilla under Jim Crow laws. However, nobody's ever been able to verify this origin for sure. Today, butter pecan — which combines vanilla ice cream with a hint of butter flavor and pecans — has a reputation for being a favorite with the elderly, but it seems like we're actually growing more fond of the flavor as a country in recent years.

In 2024, butter pecan jumped into the top five ice cream flavors in an IDFA ranking, sliding right into fourth place. Other rankings have also positioned butter pecan high on breakdowns of the most in-demand ice cream flavors, with it ranking third in a YouGov list in 2018. With this wonderfully sweet and nutty flavor on the rise, watch this space: the era of butter pecan may be upon us.

Few ice cream flavors are as divisive as mint chocolate chip. Ask any group for their opinions on its contrasting sensations and lurid green hue, and you're likely to find just as many haters as you are lovers. Those who fall into the latter category, however, are extremely passionate about mint chocolate chip, with the flavor consistently ranking high in lists of the top flavors in the U.S.

While regular chocolate chip ice cream has fallen out of favor, the popularity of the mint variation has remained pretty steady since its origins — which, like a lot of flavors, are pretty hazy. Culinary student Marilyn Ricketts is often credited as its inventor — having presented mint chocolate chip at an ice-cream making contest in 1973, with it subsequently served under the name Mint Royale at the royal wedding of Princess Anne — but the reality is that it was already an option at Baskin Robbins as early as 1945. In 2022, it was ranked as the fourth best-selling flavor by IDFA (even if it failed to crack the top 10 in the list of consumers' favorite flavors). Want to be surrounded by fellow mint chocolate chip lovers? Washington, Idaho, Oregon, and Pennsylvania are the places to be, with the flavor proving most popular with customers in those states (via Instacart).

Cookie dough is delicious and ice cream is delicious, so it only makes sense that the two combined are, well, doubly delicious. Ben & Jerry's credits itself with conceiving the combo of vanilla ice cream and chunks of unbaked dough, having apparently done so at the suggestion of a customer at its first location in Burlington, Vermont. Less than a decade later, it started selling Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough in tubs in-store, with the flavor accounting for 20% of all of its sales by 1992.

Fast forward to the present day and it remains one of Ben & Jerry's most popular ice cream flavors. The brand reportedly sells a mind-blowing total of over 1.6 million pints of its Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough every year in the U.S. alone and it placed fourth in its 2024 breakdown of favorite flavors. Even if you lifted Ben & Jerry's out of the equation, cookie dough today is a cornerstone of the ice cream aisle, with other brands such as Häagen-Dazs, Edy's, and Nestlé having jumped on the craze over the years. The flavor jumped into the top 10 of IDFA's ice cream rankings in 2024, sitting comfortably in fifth place.

Nearly three quarters of Americans drink coffee every single day, so it stands to reason that coffee ice cream is also popular. Admittedly, it's not quite as much of a crowd-pleaser as vanilla or chocolate, but we still order the espresso-infused flavor as a regular sweet treat. As per Instacart data, it's Hawaii, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and New Mexico that have the strongest taste for coffee ice cream, with Holiday Calendar also finding that it's most popular in Massachusetts.

This stands true over a century and a half after its first recorded appearance in a coffee parfait recipe. Its popularity has remained steady in the decades since, with Häagen Dazs launching coffee as one of its three inaugural flavors (joined by chocolate and vanilla) in the 1960s. While you can find plenty of tasty options in grocery stores today, it's also easier than you may think to whip up your own coffee ice cream at home.

Green tea ice cream — sometimes known as matcha ice cream — originates from Japan. Contrary to what you'd expect, it's not actually made with actual liquid tea but with matcha powder (hence the alternate name). While its existence dates back to the 1800s when it was served to royalty in Japan, it first landed in the U.S. in the 1970s before exploding in popularity two decades later, making it a relative newcomer on the nation's ice cream scene.

Considering its late start, it's impressive how widespread green tea ice cream is today. Instantly recognizable for its unique blend of earthy and mildly sweet flavors, it's especially popular in Hawaii, where it ranks as the number one ice cream choice as of 2024 (via Holiday Calendar). It also places in the top five flavor preferences for California, Maryland, and New York. Interestingly, California plays an important role in pushing green tea ice cream into the mainstream in Japan. A Golden State-based company named Maeda-en — founded by Japanese expat Taku Maeda in 1984 — started exporting its dessert made with green tea from Japan and milk from the U.S. This in turn kicked off a new era of innovation for the country's ice cream market, which, until that point, had primarily consisted of vanilla, strawberry, and chocolate.

For once, we can track down the specific year and place for the invention of this flavor of ice cream (even if the actual inventor is a little bit more mysterious). Moose tracks was launched by Wally and June Blume — husband and wife and co-owners of Denali Flavors Inc. — in 1988 in Michigan. While the name draws on Michigan's famous moose population, you'll be pleased to know that zero moose are involved in the actual production of this ice cream. Instead, Denali claims that Wally Blume decided to mix vanilla ice cream with peanut butter cups and fudge and named it after a local mini golf course, while others say it was Jilbert's Dairy founder John Jilbert or Jon Beckwith (who co-founded Denali with the Blumes) who had the initial idea. Regardless of who actually conceived of moose tracks, the flavor soon proved popular enough to introduce additional variations, such as chocolate and mint.

Over three decades later, Denali Flavors Inc. licenses out the flavor to manufacturers. Moose tracks ice cream is most popular in its native state of Michigan and Rhode Island, where it ranked as the number one choice in Holiday Calendar's 2024 analysis of our grocery shopping habits. It also ranked high in Maine, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, and North Dakota. In 2021, Instacart had an even bigger idea of just how popular moose tracks is with customers; the flavor placed first in 12 states.