Food

Kroger French Vanilla Ice Cream Review – Tastes Great!

I am very serious about ice cream. Despite my frugal tendencies I have been known to trash talk cheap Walmart Ice Cream and even those who support it (sorry not sorry, Krazy Coupon Lady!) That’s why I was shocked by this game-changing cheap ice cream that tastes great. Read below to find out about Kroger Brand Ice Cream passing The Off Brand Guy taste test.

Best Kroger Ice Cream – So What Is This “French” Vanilla, Anyway?

I’m quite certain that France would lead the first charge of World War 3 if they knew that Americans associate them with a vanilla dessert item that doesn’t actually contain real vanilla extract. With it’s sweet cream-forward flavor profile, this so-called “Magnifique” Deluxe French Vanilla is very much an American style ice cream. There are two attributes that land this budget ice cream in the French Vanilla category:

  • It contains egg, but not enough to qualify as “Frozen Custard”
  • An increased density due to less injected air (more for your money!)

The end result is a luxurious and creamy texture that is perfect alone, or in a root beer float, or in a sundae. Perfect for when you have a hungry family to feed.

Kroger Deluxe Vanilla Ice Cream – Good Taste, Bad Marketing

Kroger Deluxe French Vanilla Budget Ice Cream
My Camera Struggles To Capture Just How Unappetizing The Label Really Is.

The hilarious thing about this Kroger Vanilla Ice Cream is the comically bad packaging. My photos barely do it justice — the ice cream depicted on the label is a bizarre burnt yellowish color that looks absolutely nothing like real ice cream.

To be honest I almost didn’t do this review. Looking at this ice cream next to all the beautiful cartons of Tillamook, Breyers, Häagen-Dazs, and even other Kroger variants, I could barely bring myself to put the French Vanilla Magnifique in my shopping cart, even though it was on sale!

Fortunately the label is a lie. The ice cream inside is a luscious mouth-watering cream color that is sure to delight kids and adults alike. It’s so good that I like to eat it plain. It also goes great with chocolate sauce.

Kroger French Vanilla Ice Cream Nutrition: Ice Cream Without High Fructose Corn Syrup

Kroger French Vanilla Magnifique Nutrition Facts
Kroger Deluxe French Vanilla Magnifique Nutrition Facts

When I took my first bite, I knew instantly that I had finally found the best budget vanilla ice cream. Reading the ingredients confirmed my suspicious: Unlike many other cheap ice creams, this one does not contain any high fructose corn syrup (HFCS).

Kroger Deluxe French Vanilla Lid
The Lid Is The Only Attractive Part Of The Packaging

The first four ingredients are milk, cream, sugar, and corn syrup (the regular kind).

High fructose corn syrup, also called HFCS, is responsible for the “off” flavor of many other inexpensive ice cream products. It is also responsible for that weird chemical taste in many sodas and other sweetened beverages. Nobody likes the flavor of HFCS. It is used only because it is even cheaper than sugar.

Containing the costlier regular corn syrup instead of HFCS, Kroger Deluxe Ice Cream tastes how ice cream should. Delicious!

Kroger Deluxe French Vanilla Magnifique Review – An Off Brand Product Done Right

As a quick recap of this delicious Kroger Deluxe Ice Cream:

  • Despite the name, this is a rich and creamy American-style ice cream
  • The marketing is awful, a common theme among off brand products
  • Sweetened with sugar and regular corn syrup instead of HFCS, this is the best budget ice cream available
  • Kroger Deluxe French Vanilla Magnifique is the best ice cream at QFC, Fred Meyer, King Soopers, Metro Market, and all other Kroger family stores

Kroger Vanilla Ice Cream Price

Priced at $2.79 for 48 fl. oz of dense and flavorful ice cream, Kroger Deluxe French Vanilla Magnifique is the only budget ice cream I buy. Do you have any leads on other kinds of value-oriented ice cream that tastes good? Please leave a comment below!

12 thoughts on “Kroger French Vanilla Ice Cream Review – Tastes Great!

  • Jaclyn Ladyne Mullins

    Literally at 4:06am, I’m standing in my kitchen eating French Vanilla Magnifique right out of the carton when it hit me. I wanted to see if anyone else found this ice cream as amazing as I do. Yours was the first review that popped up when I Googled. Your description of it is spot on! I have been obsessed with this ice cream since I first tasted it about a month ago, and I couldn’t believe I could love an off-brand ice cream so much. I have a habit of just eating it straight from the carton with a spoon (as I’m doing right at this moment), but I need to stop. I seriously need to use a bowl because I could eat half the carton without even batting an eye. It’s THAT yummy! Thank you so much for your review! I knew I couldn’t be the only one. 😉

    Reply
    • Hi Jaclyn! Thanks so much for the comment. Yes, it turns out that Kroger French Vanilla Magnifique is a hidden treasure. Dare I say, perhaps it is the best Kroger ice cream?

      Reply
  • Pingback: Who Makes Kroger’s Ice Cream In 2022? (+ Other FAQs)

  • Brant

    Regular Kroger brand chocolate ice cream is some of the best chocolate ice cream in stores! The fact that it’s a budget ice cream is just that much more impressive. 💯

    Reply
  • Thank you for the review! I work for Kroger at our Springdale Ice Cream plant (Kroger Manufacturing). We take a lot of pride here in the Ice Cream that we produce. If you like the Deluxe Brand I would also suggest trying our Private Selection Double Vanilla which is my favorite. I don’t think you will be disappointed.

    Reply
    • That is super cool that you work for Kroger. I am glad you stumbled upon our article 🙂 Keep up the good work.

      Reply
    • Ohiogirl

      Thanks for your fabulous work! And may I say that the Kroger private selection chocolate ganache is the best. So rich, flavorful but not too sweet.
      And now thnaks to you and the off brand guy I have two vanilla’s to try!

      Reply
  • Mike Cass

    I was gonna get some, but misremebered and got vividly vanilla instead.

    Is it me or are Aldi’s ice creams watery?

    Reply
    • There are so many vanilla flavors available! Unfortunately, we don’t have an Aldi’s nearby 🙁

      Reply
  • What is the butter fat content?

    Reply
  • Robert Struzinski

    Frys (Kroger) premium (Private something?) is by far the (or at least was at one time) the best vanilla bean flavored ice cream. But with all things Frys sells, once it’s caught on, they will either change the recipe, raise the price drastically or discontinued it permanently as they did with their outstanding soda flavors (which caused me to stop shopping there forever). Their Cherry sorbet which is only sold I pints is also one of the best I’ve tasted with only one brand that was better, but alas they discontinued it and that’s the only reason I tried it. It had Farm in the name and it was in the highest price bracket. But I can say without a doubt that even though it obviously has been sitting on the shelf for quite some time, probably due to the hefty price, it was still easily better than any other cherry or raspberry sorbet or gelato that I tasted.

    There is a new premium brand that once again the actual name eludes me, (growing old is a terrible thing) but I remember Dr. something and the flavors are what caught my eye. Waffles and syrup was incredible but I can’t even remember the other flavor I got! If I saw it would remember. The thing is, when I found it, it was priced reasonably ($5 ish per pint) and know I see it’s closer to $7! Good but not that good! Prices on everything has gotten out of control now. We live in a time where greed has become accepted and paying more for inferior products has become the standard.

    Prime example is anything made by Samsung, expect it to last 6 months to 3 years or expect a recall on it and be glad your house didn’t burn down in that time. There’s many others too but nobody has the reputation that Samsung has built in their few years in existence. Remember Gold Star? The lowest pieces of junk made in the early 1980s, nobody considered them to be anything but complete crap. They decided to shake that mystique and rebranded themselves as LG! Worked like a charm, still made junk but now they just reverse engineer stuff and sell it for less than the others. You can’t expect to see LG coming out with at new ideas or new features since that’s not what they do, obviously, but you can expect their cloned stuff to be comparable for less since they don’t have to do any research and development. Thats what really costs money and that’s why youll find others like Sony, unable to catch users interest in this new sales market where price has become a main focus for buyers. Ice cream is no different, if youre not producing a product that can justify the price, no matter how catchy the label or packaging is, you’re doomed to failure. 1 last thought, once a product becomes popular, like Taleleti ice cream, there’s always a much larger company (Unilever which has bought out hundreds of other brands that make everything from frozen foods to deodorants and everything in-between) that’s ready to buy them out and quickly make changes that will ruin that product quickly. They take a chance and if it fails, they don’t care, they’ve been destroying your favorite foods for many years and won’t stop any time soon. That’s why the foods you love always taste like crap once they become popular (Marie Calendars and many others that have been long forgotten once they stop making the best flavors due to production costs which translates to: We couldn’t make a cheaper edible version of this well loved flavor or they we aren’t making enough profit on that item to continue selling it no matter how many units were sold even if it was the driving force that originally made the brand popular. Example: Orville Reddinbachers Carmel corn, ruined it then discontinued it immediately.

    Let’s hope that Unilever doesn’t take notice to any more of the good foods or new budding companies hold off from selling out to them, the temptation of quick payouts has to be tempting since Unilever appears to have no problems acquiring them at a record pace!

    Reply

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