I Tried 5 Mochi Ice Cream Brands & One Was Perfectly Soft and Sweet

If you're not familiar with mochi ice cream, I suggest you change that quickly. This popular low-calorie frozen dessert is a Japanese-style ice cream bonbon wrapped in a thin layer of dough made from glutinous rice, aka mochi. For many mochi ice creams, the mochi itself is flavored to complement whatever the ice cream is, creating a synchronous flavor profile.

Mochi ice cream is especially great after a meal because it's not too much. One bonbon is just a couple of bites, so it caps off your dinner with just enough sweetness to satisfy a craving without making you too full. One serving is often under 150 calories!

In my opinion, the best way to eat mochi ice cream is to let the bonbons thaw just a little bit so that the ice cream can soften. Right out of the freezer, the ice cream is a little too hard to bite into, as is the mochi. When it thaws, the whole bonbon is soft enough to bite into without making your teeth hurt. But be careful! Like all ice cream, it becomes a melty mess if you let it sit out too long.

You can find mochi ice creams in a ton of flavors at major grocery chains and specialty Asian markets nationwide. For this taste test, I sought to find the best mochi ice cream available. I picked up five different brands, each in the same three flavors—so everything would be equal among them. To be fair, mochi ice cream tastes pretty great in general, and none of these brands were particularly bad, which made this ranking very hard. Some were just better than others.

Here's how each brand ranked in descending order from my least favorite (but still not bad) to the overall best.

Mt. Fuji Mochi Ice Cream

Mt. Fuji mochi ice cream is a smaller Japanese brand that I found at my local 99 Ranch Market for $6.49 per box. The brand has a small selection of flavors, including chocolate, vanilla, and mango. It's worth noting that on the nutrition label for this brand, the serving size is ½ cup or four pieces, whereas all the other brands have a serving size of one piece, so don't be alarmed when you see how much higher the numbers are in the nutrition panel!

The look: These round little bonbons were well dusted and well filled with ice cream. The mochi coating on the mango mochi ice cream was more yellow than orange, which felt right on target for a mango fruit.

The taste: The vanilla ice cream lacked any vanilla flavor, instead just tasting like sweet milk. The chocolate ice cream had a richer flavor with an almost coffee-like aftertaste, simply because it was packed with so much cocoa. The mango was the best of the three—it tasted like biting into a tropical fruit salad. It was so light and bright. The mochi on all three had a nice sweet flavor and good chew, and was just the right thickness.

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My/Mochi Ice Cream

My/Mochi has a huge variety of products, and the mochi ice cream currently comes in 17 flavors. Among them are double chocolate, mango, and vanilla bean. You'll also find whimsical options like cookie dough, cereal & milk, and strawberry with boba, which are all far less traditional when it comes to this very traditional treat. My/Mochi is one of the easier brands to find on grocery store shelves. I picked up these three boxes from Stop & Shop ($6.99 each) and Wegmans ($6.69).

The look: Dusty! All three little round round  bonbons came covered in corn starch. The chocolate was so covered that it was basically pure white on the outside. The amount of coating was a little off-putting. The mango flavor came in bright orange—a little more orange than a real mango.

The taste: The vanilla unfortunately didn't have a lot of flavor. It just tasted sweet. The chocolate, however, was very rich and chocolaty. There were tiny chocolate pieces in the ice cream, adding a nice crunch. The mango flavor tasted fresh and authentic, which I loved. So many fruit-flavored foods taste artificial, and this didn't at all. The mochi coating on all of them was sweet and chewy, if a bit on the thick side.

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Maeda-en Mochi Ice Cream

Maeda-en is a Kyoto-style mochi ice cream that comes in a few flavors and can be found in many Asian grocery stores. Though it's available in many traditional Japanese flavors, like matcha and red bean, and I picked up silky chocolate, classy vanilla, and juicy mango for the purposes of this taste test. The mango flavor is technically sherbet, as opposed to ice cream, and it's one you don't want to skip! I grabbed these at my local 99 Ranch Market for $4.99 each.

The look: These started melting really fast when I took them out of the freezer and showed signs of wilting, which didn't help their appearance. They didn't completely lose their bonbon shape, but the mochi really didn't hold up very well, either, compared to some of the others.

The taste: The vanilla flavor was really strong—probably the most vanilla-y of any of the options. The chocolate was fine. It tasted like your basic chocolate ice cream with a smooth, rich cocoa flavor. The mango was the true star of the trio. Because the filling is sherbet and not ice cream, it has more of a tangy taste to it. Besides being really flimsy, the mochi coating was sweet and chewy.

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Bubbies Mochi

The Bubbies brand is readily available at Whole Foods, as well as a few other grocery stores. The brand has a lot of really fun flavors, like churro, milk tea, ube purple yam, and cookies & cream. For this taste test, I picked up Madagascar vanilla, triple chocolate, and Alphonso mango at Whole Foods ($5.99 each) and Wegmans ($6.69).6254a4d1642c605c54bf1cab17d50f1e

The look: Bubbies ice creams were less round and more like a fat disc. They also felt quite hefty for a bite-size treat, even though they're the same size as the other brands! The different shape just made them feel bigger. The mochi was on the thick side with these bonbons, and there was quite a bit of gaping around the ice cream center on the vanilla and chocolate ones, but not on the mango one.

The taste: The vanilla ice cream here had a well-balanced flavor. The chocolate ice cream was really robust and intense. The ice cream was also dotted with chocolate chips, which I loved for the added texture in this otherwise soft dessert. The mango ice cream was very light and sweet with an authentic fruit flavor. The mochi was so thick in all three, it packed a lot of sweetness into every bite.

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Mikawaya Mochi Ice Cream

Mikawaya's mochi ice cream comes in traditional Japanese flavors like black sesame and red bean, as well as fun flavors like mint chip and strawberry. I found a wide variety of these at local Asian markets and picked up chocolate chocolate and mango at 99 Ranch Market for $7.49 each and vanilla at Asian Food Markets for $7.49.

The look: These ice creams weren't as uniform as some of the others. The mochi looked a bit wrinkled on some of them. The mochi layer was also a little thinner than other brands, but still thick enough to notice. The mango mochi had a yellow-orange color to it that felt right for the flavor—not so orange that it was artificial, but not so pale that it seemed like the wrong fruit.

The taste: The vanilla had a very subtle sweetness. The chocolate was much bolder and full of cocoa flavor. Like other brands, it also contained little chocolate chips, breaking up the creamy texture. The mango was my favorite of the bunch. It's sweet and bright, and tasted like a mango twist on the old-school Orange Creamsicle. The mochi shells were soft and chewy and the perfect thickness. The mochi tightly hugged the ice cream so that when I bit into it there was no gapping, providing the perfect soft, sweet bite. All three of these flavors felt indulgent and would make an impeccable after-dinner treat.

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