5 Chocolate Ice Cream Bars Worth Every Penny And 2 You Can Skip

For most chocolate ice cream lovers, myself included, most "chocolate ice cream bars" end up being a disappointing half-truth. Sure, there's ice cream, but more often than not, the chocolate refers to a crunchy chocolate coating that houses noticeably not-chocolate ice cream. There are vanillas, fruit flavors, nougat, and peanut butter varieties galore. Tried-and-true chocolate ice cream in bar form, however, is harder to find. This is not only a peevish inconvenience for loyal chocolate ice cream fans, but it's also a sorely missed opportunity to combine the best of both sweet treat worlds. 

The perfect chocolate ice cream bar has chocolate on the outside and chocolate on the inside, creating a delicious, double-chocolatey bite that's cut with the creamy consistency of the real dairy ice cream. These products certainly exist, but they're not as easy to find as, say, your standard chocolate and vanilla combo.

Considering how hard it is to come by this not-so-common treat, it's important to know which ones are worth the extra effort of finding. After all, if you're going to set out on a treasure hunt, why not make sure the treasure is worth it? I dive deeper into how I sourced my chocolate ice cream bar candidates in the methodology section at the end of this piece. In the meantime, I've found five chocolate ice cream bars to add to your shopping cart (and two you can leave behind).

If Häagen-Dazs' Chocolate Dark Chocolate Ice Cream Bar had a slogan, I have to imagine it would be "go big or go home." This was one of the largest chocolate ice cream bars I tried in my sweet treat experiment, and by that standard alone, I'd say that these ice cream bars are worth every penny for the sheer amount of ice cream you get for the price.

Then, there's the flavor to consider. These ice cream bars have a crunchy dark chocolate outer coating that adds depth and richness to the creamy chocolate ice cream center. There's a lot of chocolate flavor packed into every bite, making these a great option for people who believe the only thing to pair with chocolate is more chocolate.

This ice cream isn't too expensive (and it's not the only low-priced Häagen-Dazs chocolate ice cream out there), but these Häagen-Dazs chocolate ice cream bars taste like a luxury food item, while still maintaining a flavor profile that even kids would love.

Of all the chocolate ice cream bars I taste-tested in my quest for the perfect sweet treat, I knew the least about Mayfield Dairy Farms. I'd never seen this kind of chocolate ice cream bar before, having found it in a grocery store I don't often go to in my hometown. Part of me was intrigued by the prominent writing on the box saying these ice cream bars contain 100 calories each, though it was a wary interest. What is an ice cream bar if not a moment to forgo the constant hum of calorie stress, anyway?

While other low-cal ice cream bars seem to achieve this qualifier by keeping the bars small, Mayfield Dairy Farms' Chocolate Fudge Brownie bars are comparable in size to higher-calorie fare. After tasting one, it was clear that Mayfield Dairy Farms used a lighter recipe overall to make this low-cal alternative to richer products. The chocolate flavor was very light, and the brownie bites tasted more cakey than fudgey.

This light flavor profile helps keep this ice cream bar from getting that too-heavy mouthfeel that makes you want a glass of water as soon as you're done. It's refreshing and tasty, just like ice cream should be. As far as low-calorie ice cream options go, I'd consider this chocolate ice cream bar to be worth every penny.

The Dove Mini Chocolate Ice Cream bars are perfectly adequate frozen sweet treats, but the question here is which ice cream bars are worth every penny. In my humble opinion, this chocolate treat doesn't quite live up to its over-six-dollar price tag. First and most notably, these ice cream bars are tiny. They're advertised as having only 70 calories, and it's clear that this low-cal count is largely due to the small size, not the actual ingredients.

Flavor-wise, these chocolate bars deliver on Dove's typically rich milk chocolate taste. The chocolate ice cream inside the crunchy chocolate coating (with a dark chocolate drizzle) is also just fine. However, if I'm paying over six dollars for ice cream, I would hope that it's better than fine. I might even be willing to accept the diminutive qualities of these ice cream bars if there were something to make them more special and noteworthy.

With no exceptional flavor profiles and a two-bite size, I would consider this chocolate ice cream bar to be a skip. You can find better options that are cheaper, or options that are worth paying over six bucks.

When I first opened the box of Dove Mini Salted Caramel ice cream bars, I couldn't help but roll my eyes ever so slightly. The box displays lettering inside a prominent gold circle that reads "70 calories per bar," and after looking at the ice cream bars, it's easy to see why. These chocolate ice cream bars are very small — about two or three bites overall. Of course they're only 70 calories, I thought.

After my first bite, I realized that these chocolate ice cream bars were tiny but mighty. If I'm going to spend over six dollars on miniature ice cream bars, I would hope that there would be something that makes them special. That could be a special flavor in the filling or a particularly tasty chocolate coating, and this chocolate ice cream bar had both.

Unlike other caramels, which are thick, stodgy, and cloying, the caramel center of the Dove Mini Salted Caramel bars is light and sweet without overpowering the chocolate. A hint of salt keeps everything from becoming sickly, rounding out the flavor nicely.

Legend has it that Milky Ways were inspired by malted milkshakes, but the flavor isn't for everyone. As someone who frequently avoids these candy bars in virtually every Halloween variety candy bag I buy, I wasn't all that surprised to find myself not gravitating toward the ice cream bar version of this classic candy bar. I can fully appreciate its staying power in the candy industry (the chocolate bar is now over a century old), but I've personally never been a fan.

In my opinion, Milky Way caramel has always been a little too thick and cloying. I felt the same way about the caramel in the Milky Way Ice Cream bar. There's plenty of it, which is a great quality if you're a caramel lover looking for that stretchy, sticky-sweet bite. I found the caramel to be overpowering. Not even the creamy chocolate ice cream was enough to cut through the caramel center.

Considering I'm usually a big fan of caramel, I'd have to chalk this up to the Milky Way recipe specifically. Would I eat it if I was hungry and it was offered to me? Sure, probably. Would I go out of my way to buy these at the grocery store? No, probably not.

Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream bars nearly made it to the No. 1 spot on my list of chocolate ice cream bars worth every penny. If I could put two ice cream bars in the top spot, it wouldn't have been relegated to the runner-up position. Ben & Jerry's offers plenty of different ice cream flavors, and Chocolate Fudge Brownie has always been a personal favorite of mine. So I wasn't surprised to find that the ice cream bar version of this flavor was just as delicious.

The first thing I noticed when I tried this chocolate ice cream bar was the texture of the chocolate coating. It wasn't uniform and smooth, and it had a crisp, clean crunch to it. Unlike other chocolate coatings that can be thick and break off in heavy slabs, this coating was incredibly light, offering just enough bite for a satisfying crunch without overpowering the ice cream inside.

As for that chocolate ice cream inside, that was delicious, too. Just like the regular ice cream version, Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Fudge Brownie bars are jam-packed with rich, dense, chewy brownie bites. The brownie chunks are so moist and flavorful on their own, it really feels like you're getting two desserts for the price of one.

If I could convince my fellow chocolate ice cream lovers to try any chocolate ice cream bar, it would be the Tillamook Mudslide — and I say that with a slight tinge of hesitation, if only because I want to make sure that there are still some in stock for me to buy at my local grocery store. This ice cream bar is, in my humble opinion, everything a chocolate ice cream bar should be.

The first thing I noticed (and loved) about the Tillamook Mudslide was how thin and light the chocolate coating was. There was enough chocolate to feel substantial, but it didn't weigh heavy on the palate. If anything, it helped to emphasize just how creamy the chocolate ice cream center was. The secret behind Tillamook's creamy texture is buttermilk, so when the box labels these ice cream bars as "really creamy," it really means it.

At my local grocery store, these chocolate ice cream bars are just under six dollars. Considering the relatively large size and incredible flavor of these mudslide bars, I would definitely classify these sweet treats as worth every penny.

Because ice cream bars filled with chocolate ice cream aren't as common as vanilla varieties, I had to source them from multiple stores in Murray, Kentucky. This included major grocery chains, like Kroger, Walmart, and Food Giant, and pharmacies, like CVS and Walgreens. I kept my search narrowed specifically to bars, both ice cream on a stick and literal bars of ice cream, excluding cones and ice cream sandwiches (though we did previously make a ranking of store-bought ice cream sandwiches, if you're interested).

I also kept my search specifically to ice cream, not frozen dairy desserts. To classify as ice cream in the United States, the food item must have a minimum of 10% milk fat and have dairy-based ingredients, with the best ice cream being made with real cream. Frozen dairy desserts, on the other hand, can and often do use skim milk and various oils to replicate ice cream's mouthfeel. This specification excluded popular dessert items that people often lump in with chocolate ice cream but aren't actually ice cream, like fudge bars.

When determining overall flavor, I took into consideration the taste, consistency, and mouthfeel of the chocolate coating, the chocolate ice cream, and any additional flavors, like brownie or caramel. To determine which chocolate ice cream bars had the best value, I then weighed these flavor profiles against the overall price of the product. If the flavor matched or exceeded my expectations based on the price, I classified it as a "buy." If the flavor failed to meet my expectations based on price, I classified it as not worth it, or a "skip."