Taste Test: Jeni's Ice Creams Topped With Fly By Jing's Sichuan Chili Crisp Is Wonderfully Unexpected

Ice cream season is in full swing, which means your favorite parlors are currently scooping summer's favorite sweet treat. One of the great joys of summertime — beyond the pleasure of having the heat as an excuse to eat ice cream anytime — is the release of specialty ice cream flavors highlighting the spirit of summer. 

In May, Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams (a top-10 finisher among our best-ranked ice cream brands) celebrated this year's sizzling season by releasing new Hot Summer Spins ice cream flavors, including Sparkling Cherry Pie. As if that wasn't reason enough to stop what you're doing and run to your nearest Jeni's location, the beloved ice cream producer recently partnered with Fly By Jing — the makers of Chengdu-style Sichuan Chili Crisp — to elevate your summer ice cream experience even further.  

One of the best parts of visiting a proper ice cream shop is having a fresh scoop served with toppings. Most parlors offer classics like whipped cream, hot fudge, and sprinkles, but what if you want something with a little more flavor? Maybe even with a kick. What about the internet's favorite Chinese condiment, chili crisp? Now for a limited time, you can try Jeni's Ice Cream topped with Fly By Jing's Sichuan Chili Crisp. Sadly, I don't live near a Jeni's location, but I had the pints delivered to my door with a jar of chili crisp, so I could taste-test the collaboration myself.

Recommendations are based on firsthand impressions of promotional products provided by Jeni's.

The pairing of ice cream and chili crisp might sound unusual at first, but this combination is established as one of the most unique toppings to upgrade ice cream, joining a long tradition of marrying sweet flavors with something tart, umami, or spicy. Chili crisp is a Chinese condiment with an oil base that is made with savory ingredients like chili pepper flakes, garlic, Sichuan peppercorns, and sesame oil. Fly By Jing's Sichuan Chili Crisp, ranked in the top five of the best chili crisp brands, is a favorite of mine because it's all-natural, with no artificial flavors or preservatives. It contains zero sugar, and is made in small batches in Central China's city of Chengdu. 

Jeni's Ice Cream is based in Columbus, Ohio, and is a certified B Corp that uses Direct Trade ingredients from family dairies in each pint of its buttercream ice creams. This summer, Jeni's Ice Cream and Fly By Jing joined forces to make you rethink your favorite ice cream topping. This unlikely pairing allows lovers of ice cream and spice to try the ultimate sweet-and-savory dessert: scoops of decadent Jeni's ice cream generously topped with spoonfuls of Fly By Jing's Sichuan Chili Crisp.

While you can have chili crisp added to any ice cream, the collaboration features a trio of recommended Spice Cream Signature flavors: the special-edition Double Dough, and two Jeni's classics, Darkest Chocolate, and Salty Caramel. 

Want to try this collaboration for yourself? For a limited time, at Jeni's scoop shops nationwide, you can have your ice cream topped with Fly By Jing's Sichuan Chili Crisp. From its Ohio roots, the ice cream company grew coast-to-coast, with locations from California to South Carolina. Visit your local Jeni's storefront today to sample one of the Spice Cream Signature flavor combos: dense Darkest Chocolate layered with crunchy chili crisp, creamy Salty Caramel drenched in the tangy topping, or the impossibly buttery Double Dough slathered with fiery chili heat. Ready for the best part? Having your scoops of Jeni's ice cream smothered with Fly By Jing's Sichuan Chili Crisp is completely free of charge. 

If you don't happen to live near a Jeni's scoop shop, fear not. The collaboration is available with nationwide shipping across all 50 states. For $68, you can have the Fly By Jing Collection delivered straight to your door. This includes one jar of Fly By Jing's Sichuan Chili Crisp and five pints of Jeni's ice cream. In addition to Double Dough, Darkest Chocolate, and Salty Caramel, the Fly By Jing Collection includes a pint of Jeni's classic Honey Vanilla Bean — a neutral base for the chili crisp — and Jeni's seasonal summer treat Sparkling Cherry Pie, a tart and tangy flavor explosion even before adding the chili crisp topping. 

I began my taste test with one of Jeni's all-time classics, Salty Caramel, which scored highly on a list of Jeni's ice cream flavors ranked from worst to best. Salty Caramel is made with Jeni's signature base of cream, milk, and cane sugar, along with brown sugar, Madagascar bourbon vanilla extract, tapioca syrup, and sea salt. After generously pouring Fly By Jing's Sichuan Chili Crisp over my bowl of Jeni's Salty Caramel, I mixed the topping with the ice cream and took my first bite. 

An intensified caramel flavor was tinged by the sharp heat of the chili crisp. Because Salty Caramel is a smooth ice cream with no supplemental ingredients mixed in, Fly By Jing's Sichuan Chili Crisp — which includes chunks of Sichuan pepper and dried chili pepper — added a satisfyingly crunchy texture. The sweetness of the Salty Caramel was pleasingly cut by the intensity of the chili crisp, but neither flavor overpowered the other. Instead, the result was a creamy and decadent bowl of ice cream that reminded me of richly spiced milk, or the flavor profile of a turmeric latte. 

Next I sampled Jeni's Darkest Chocolate, as I wanted to sandwich the milder ice cream bases with this intense chocolatey counterpart. While the pairing of ice cream and chili crisp may be surprising to some, chili crisp and chocolate is a rich and spicy flavor combo that can be amazing in fudge, brownies, or bundt cake, and even when paired with smoky flavor profiles like bacon or toasted marshmallow. 

Jeni's Darkest Chocolate is built on the ice cream brand's signature buttercream base and includes a tremendous amount of cocoa powder — allowing the ice cream to live up to its name. After experiencing the intensity of Fly By Jing's Sichuan Chili Crisp over Jeni's Salty Caramel, I was surprised at how seamlessly the chili crisp blended into Darkest Chocolate, adding an even deeper complexity to the rich flavor of cocoa that helped to accentuate its darkness. The two became one. Like the Salty Caramel, the Darkest Chocolate is a smooth ice cream, which was greatly enhanced by the crunchy texture of the added chili crisp. 

The star of the show in this collaboration is Jeni's Double Dough paired with Fly By Jing's Sichuan Chili Crisp. The special-edition Double Dough flavor is a marvel on its own. The base is custardy and impossibly creamy, with a perfect amount of brown sugar that calls to mind toasted caramel; this taste is cut with sea salt, as the best sweet-and-savory combos are. Also relying on Madagascar bourbon vanilla extract, the flavor profile of Double Dough is similar to Salty Caramel, but because Double Dough is Jeni's take on chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, each scoop is graced with glorious chunks of this sweet dough. 

When you add Fly By Jing's Sichuan Chili Crisp to scoops of Double Dough, the overall flavor is intensely caramelized. Each bite of Double Dough is more vibrant because of the chili crisp, which reciprocates by paring back the sweetness while simultaneously amplifying the custardy notes. The textural interplay of the cookie dough chunks and the chili pepper flakes was in beautiful harmony, and deepened the ice cream's creaminess. I couldn't stop eating this combination. It's the perfect marriage of sweet and spicy. 

This collaboration between Fly By Jing and Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams has my highest recommendation. For starters, there is no additional fee to have Fly By Jing's Sichuan Chili Crisp added to your ice cream in Jeni's scoop shops, so you lose nothing by trying the pairing. 

Now let's talk about taste. In all three of the Spice Cream Signature flavor combos, I found that Fly By Jing's Sichuan Chili Crisp greatly enhanced the Jeni's ice cream flavors without overpowering them. Moreover, the chili crisp adds a textural difference that amplifies the ice cream experience and helps balance out flavors that may have otherwise been overly sweet. 

A few caveats I'll add to my recommendation: When I sampled the Sichuan Chili Crisp with the two other pints included in the Fly By Jing collection for shipping — Sparkling Cherry Pie and Honey Vanilla Bean — I was less impressed with the pairing. The Sparkling Cherry Pie is bursting with a complicated blend of tart, spicy, and creamy on its own, and the chili crisp didn't have a chance to shine. Instead, the flavors clashed, undercutting each other. The Honey Vanilla Bean had the opposite problem. Because this Jeni's flavor is quite mild, the chili crisp took over the ice cream, though I still enjoyed the pairing. That said, having tasted the collaboration, I now want to slather chili crisp on every future bowl of ice cream.