Salt & Straw Ice Cream

In years past, Salt & Straw has made some really good ice creams – including seasonal specials with stand-out ingredients and celebrity collabs. This year, in one of the best fall flavor rollouts we’ve seen, the chain focused exclusively on five apple variants, ensuring that at least one or two will appeal to everyone.

• Apple Pie vs. Pumpkin Pie, a remarkably smart and well-executed ice cream that uses pieces of both types of pies in a single creamy brown sugar base, so you can get the full fall experience in one scoop
• Finnriver’s Black Currant Apple Cider, with big chunks of fruit in a bright red sherbet made from berries and apples
• Apple Cider Donuts, mixing ground apple cider donuts from Sidecar with caramel swirls and “royal icing” ice cream
• Caramel Apple Sherbet, lighter than expected, pairing a base of apple juice sherbet with vanilla caramel ribbons
• Green Apple Wasabi Sorbet – green apple juice sorbet paired with genuine (mild rather than spicy) Japanese-style wasabi horseradish, the only flavor we didn’t like much, though earns points for boldness

We always look forward to Salt & Straw’s Halloween specials, which it brilliantly uses to educate people about the nutritional value — and palatability — of bugs. “Don Bugito’s Creepy Crawly Critters” combines matcha ice cream with Mexican culinary-safe crickets and mealworms mixed in, and surprise surprise (to some), it was good! Crunchy and in no way off-putting from a flavor perspective, it’s an easy way to teach kids and adults that this hugely available and inexpensive source of protein doesn’t need to be shunned. Try it in a thick, excellent waffle cone for maximum enjoyment.