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Flavor of the week
Jeni's just dropped a new summer collection.
And this one caught my eye immediately…
The Matchapolitan.
Their words, not mine: "Bold enough for the matcha enthusiast, balanced enough for the matcha curious."
Full transparency, I'm on the curious side.
Straight matcha with no sweetener? Not for me.
But swirled into a sweet, creamy base? Completely different story.
So I recreated it.
Vanilla base on the bottom.
Then a matcha whipped cream.
Swirled with real strawberry jam on top.
Light. Creamy. That perfect matcha-curious balance.
And the sugar difference is wild:
One pint of the real Jeni's version: 80g of sugar.
My version: 15g.
Real sugar wrecks the macros. No way around it.
So I lean on Lakanto's Monk Fruit Sweetener to get that same sweetness without the crash.
That's the whole reason I can even make flavors like this in the first place.
Eating healthier was never about giving up the flavors you love.
It's about finding a better way to make them.
Lakanto's been my way for six years now.
Rapid Reviews
I tried all 17 Nick's Ice Cream flavors with my friend Ben (aka foodmog on Tiktok).
Some of these you can't even find in stores anymore.
We tried every single one and ranked them top to bottom:
- Peanut Butter Cup
- Coffee Chocolate Chip
- Peanut Butter Cookie Dough
- Cherry Chocolate
- Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough
- Sea Salt Caramel
- Mint Chocolate Chip
- Birthday Cake
- Brownie Cookie Dough
- Cheesecake Brownie
- Mango Strawberry
- Vanilla Bean
- Triple Chocolate Brownie
- Chocolate
- Strawberry Swirl
- Cookies and Cream
- Peanut Caramel Crunch
Quick note: Nick's isn't really a high protein ice cream.
It's more low calorie.
Most flavors landed around 300 calories with 10-15g of protein.
Texture wise, these are lighter and airier than a lot of the other brands I test.
Almost marshmallowy.
And at $4-5 a pint, it's one of the more affordable options out there.
The verdict:
7.1/10
Find it or Forget it. Up to you.
In the Lab
Ninja just sent me the new Creami Deluxe.
I made a video about this a couple weeks ago, and after getting my hands on it, my thoughts haven't changed too much.
It's basically the same machine as the older Deluxe model.
But it's $50 more expensive, looks a little cooler, and has two new settings.
Creami Fit and a brand new Dairy Free setting.
I've used Creami Fit pretty extensively already on the Scoop and Swirl.
And I gotta be honest…
It might be the most useless setting on the whole machine.
Runs for about six minutes and almost always comes out light and airy.
Nothing like real ice cream.
As for Dairy Free, my best guess is it just runs a little longer than the Lite Ice Cream setting.
But here's the thing people get wrong about settings like this…
They're not magic.
Picking "Dairy Free" doesn't guarantee a perfect pint on the first try.
It's just a set time and blade speed.
What actually matters is what's in your base and how you handle it after the spin.
So my go-to is still the same:
Lite ice cream for low fat, low calorie pints.
If you're using real ice cream ingredients or higher fat bases, the regular Ice Cream setting will treat you better.
The biggest perk of the XL is its size: it's 1.5x the size of the normal pints.
So if anyone else in your house steals bites of your pint (you know who you are), just size the recipe up.
1.5x my recipes and you'll have a full deluxe pint!
Problem solved.
Want more low calorie, high protein Ninja Creami recipes like these? Get my books. 243 recipes across 4 books, $49.99 for the complete bundle.
