The Seasonal Salt & Straw Ice Cream Flavor That Turned Classic Comfort Food Into A Snack
By this point, we've embraced even the most bizarre Salt & Straw ice cream flavors. The Portland-based creamery prides itself on constantly innovating new flavors and shamelessly embracing the weird. From parsnips to potato chips (both featured in the April 2025 monthly lineup), Salt & Straw is always turning the idea of "proper" ice cream on its head. While consumers are used to traditional ice cream flavors that are long on fruit or chocolate variations — such as competitor Ben & Jerry's now-discontinued Fossil Fuel pints — Salt & Straw wants to tantalize tastebuds that aren't so frequently stimulated in the frozen confection section. Take, for example, Smoked Mac & Cheese.
The flavor rolled out in August 2024 as part of Salt & Straw's limited Summer Picnic series, which also featured crazy delicious ice creams like Cinnamon & Honey Fried Chicken and Pink Rosé & Watermelon Sorbet. If you're wondering what on Earth goes into a mac & cheese ice cream, Salt & Straw was happy to clear the matter up. Beecher's Smoked Flagship Cheese stars in a swirl of cheesecake-y goodness, flecked with little pieces of ridged pasta and pops of brown butter-enhanced bread crumbs mixed right into the mix. This ain't your mama's ice cream, nor is it her customary mac & cheese. Heck, it's not even Drake's infamous birthday mac & cheese with raisins. It's something strange and, according to the many commenters on the internet, definitely divisive.
What did Salt & Straw's Smoked Mac & Cheese ice cream taste like?
If Salt & Straw was aiming for virality with its mac & cheese ice cream, it definitely achieved such a goal. The web is replete with reviewers who were curious about the flavor and were generous enough to share their thoughts with the world. One TikTok customer, who was initially put off by the electric-yellow swirl in the pint, wrinkled her face at the first taste. "This is a bizarre sensation," she declared. "Definitely savory [...] definitely smoky." On Instagram, a reviewer was tentatively optimistic, calling the flavor "an interesting combo of savory and sweet with a bit of saltiness too," and declaring that she enjoyed the toasted crumbles.
One blogger was much more enthusiastic about the Smoked Mac & Cheese ice cream, unabashedly loving the way that the treat tasted like a frozen version of macaroni and cheese, and vowing that they would eat it again. On Facebook, one poster chimed in with a weird and wonderful endorsement of their own: "You kinda get an aftertaste of Kraft Dinner, and I like that." In a world saturated with craft ice creams, every brand that isn't a major grocery store juggernaut has to make a play to stand out from the pack. For Salt & Straw, the novelty factor is undeniable, since humans clearly cannot resist the urge to try mac & cheese ice cream, even if the reality isn't necessarily something that they want to repeat.