12 Ingredients To Elevate Your Frozen Coffee

There's nothing like a frozen coffee for a pick-me-up on a busy day. This cold, creamy, caffeinated beverage is more than a cup of Joe — it's a cup of joy, and the best thing about it is that it's so easy to make. Instead of spending money on pricey drinks from coffee shops, with a few simple tricks you can make a cafe-quality frozen coffee on your own. An ice cube tray is all you need to make rich frozen coffee, or you can simply blend up a classic iced coffee with a high powered blender. It couldn't be easier, and you can customize these drinks as you like them best.

Iced coffee can be great, but this is a different experience from frozen coffee. Frozen coffee is basically an adult slushy. It's like having a frozen dessert that also powers you up. Could it get any better? Well, yes! By adding different ingredients to your frozen coffee, you can make this almost perfect drink even tastier and more luxurious. There's something for everyone, whether you have a sweet tooth and want your frozen coffee to be even more dessert-like, or you want to add nutritious ingredients so that your cup of java powers you up in more dynamic ways. 

I'm a recipe developer and coffee enthusiast, and I love playing around with different frozen coffee recipes. It's a good idea to keep things simple, and use one special addition at a time, but feel free to mix and match to your heart's desire. Here are some ingredients to upgrade your frozen coffee. 

One of the nifty things about making this frosty beverage is that you can turn almost any of your favorite lattes into a frozen coffee. Recently, it feels like there's been a surge of interest in pistachio everything, and I'm not complaining. Pistachio cream is the stuff of dreams, especially if you've had a croissant stuffed with pistachio cream in Italy, enjoyed a velvety pistachio latte at a cozy coffee shop, or even crafted a DIY deluxe pistachio latte at home. Pistachio cream goes well with coffee as a flavor, but this ingredient isn't always easy to incorporate into a cup of java. This is where frozen coffee comes in, as it's one of the easiest ways to get everything blended up into one smooth concoction.

You can easily create a pistachio-flavored frozen coffee in your kitchen by blending together some coffee, milk of your choice, ice, and pistachio cream. If you need it to be sweeter, you can add extra sugar or syrup — but most pistachio creams are sweet enough for coffee as is, while giving the drink a more unctuous mouthfeel, as well as a delightful nutty flavor that will make your frozen coffee feel fancy and satisfying. Top it with some crushed pistachios for extra texture.

You may be team matcha all the way, or perhaps you're a staunch coffee drinker who won't touch the green stuff. While coffee and matcha may be from two different schools of beverage, when they're mixed together, you get to have the best of both worlds. It may sound sacrilegious to mix tea and coffee in one cup, but the truth is that they actually work really well together. If you can get past the idea that they shouldn't be mixed, then you might find your new favorite drink.

What happens when you mix matcha with coffee is that they tend to balance each other and bring out the best of each component. Coffee can give you a caffeine high and crash, but while matcha also contains caffeine, it affects the body and mind differently, and has the ability to give you a boost of energy and calming sensations. This effect helps to mellow out the coffee buzz and prevent you from having anxious energy.

When it comes to taste, matcha's earthy bitterness allows the fruity nature of coffee to shine, and the two ingredients help enhance the sweetness in each other. Matcha is also a perfect addition for a frozen coffee, as you won't need to whisk it by hand — the blender will effectively mix it into your coffee, and you'll get a frothily frozen matcha coffee latte in seconds. 

If you love enjoying your frozen coffee as a kind of dessert, then adding Oreos will be a totally natural progression. Turn your frozen coffee into a caffeinated McFlurry of sorts by throwing in some Oreo cookies. If you're familiar with crushed Oreos already, you'll know how incredible they can be in frozen desserts, milkshakes, and even in a bowl of yogurt. This sweet ingredient adds a lovely chocolate flavor, and the texture is unmatched. The texture alone is often what people are after, as this gives your drink or dessert a crumbly crunch that makes a treat thick and interestingly sweet.

You can simply make your frozen coffee as you usually would and add two or three Oreos into the mix. Many people prefer to remove the cream filling when using Oreos in desserts or drinks. That's one way to do it, since the cookie part is what you're primarily after. However, you can just as well keep the cookies whole. The white center will give your drink an even creamier and richer feeling. 

If you're looking for an easy way to level up your frozen coffee, nothing could be simpler than using condensed milk. It's the ingredient that makes Vietnamese iced coffee so delicious and sweet, and it's a way to simultaneously sweeten your coffee and make it creamy. If you're unfamiliar with condensed milk and you have a sweet tooth, you're missing out big time! It's a super-sweet creamy liquid that's basically a concentrate of evaporated milk and sugar. It's a great substitute for creamer, so essentially you can make a frozen coffee with just two ingredients: coffee and condensed milk.

Mix in a tablespoon of condensed milk with a cup of coffee, as well as some ice in your blender. Turn up the power and watch it all transform into a silky and milky frozen coffee. Using condensed milk doesn't mean you can't add other flavors that you like. Since it's something like a neutral-tasting sweet cream, any flavor would work great. That said, since condensed milk is quite sweet, a little goes a long way. This means that your coffee may have a stronger flavor than a typical latte, so feel free to add extra milk if you enjoy a lighter-tasting frozen coffee. 

Being a person of Middle Eastern heritage, for me the combination of rose flavor and coffee are a match made in heaven. I grew up adding a rose Turkish delight into my cappuccino, where it would melt and become my flavored sweetener of choice. I sometimes also added a drop or two of rose water into my cardamom-spiked Turkish coffee for extra fragrance and pleasure. While it's not sweet, rose water gives your coffee a floral aroma that's a delight for both the nose and the palate. 

Nowadays you might find rose lattes as a seasonal menu item at a trendy coffee shop — and for good reason. They're absolutely delicious. The best part about making rose coffee is just how easy it is to do. All you need is some food-grade rose water, which you can often find in the baking aisle of your local supermarket — and if not, you'll find it at Middle Eastern or Indian specialty stores.

It's important to note that with rose water, a drink can quickly become soapy if you add too much. If you're making a frozen coffee for one, start out with just half a teaspoon. Have a taste before you pour it out of your blender so that you can add more rose water if you want to. For extra extravagance, you can top your frozen coffee with some edible rose petals, some crushed pistachios, or even a combination of both. The contrast of bright green and pink ingredients will make your coffee look incredible. 

Pumpkin spice season is all-enveloping, and although classic pumpkin spice lattes are often associated with hot beverages, there are no rules that say you can't have a frozen PSL. In fact, you can have pumpkin spice lattes all year round if you throw some pumpkin pie spice into your frozen coffee mixture. This spice blend — usually containing cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves — is just as good in an iced drink as it is in a hot one, and once you have a frozen pumpkin spice latte, you might never look back.

You don't need to do anything more than add a shake of pumpkin pie spice into your blender with the rest of your frozen coffee ingredients to get that signature taste. However, if you want to go all out, you can even throw in some pumpkin puree, and sweeten it with maple syrup to provide all of the autumnal flavors you love. 

Fans of boba tea (aka bubble tea) have likely already come across the deliciousness that is brown sugar syrup. Whether you call it a brown sugar boba or a tiger milk bubble tea, brown sugar syrup is what defines this drink, giving it a deep and dark sweetness with notes of caramel and toffee. It's so good, this ingredient should have many other applications, and one way you can use it is to make a frozen coffee with brown sugar syrup. It's the perfect sweetener, and it gives your frozen coffee a caramel taste without needing to add caramel.

You may be wondering where you can get your hands on some, but brown sugar syrup is exactly what its name says. Being a simple syrup made with brown sugar instead of white sugar, you can easily make your own. Brown sugar has a natural caramel taste and works in exactly the same way that white sugar does. You dissolve it in water and let it bubble in a warm saucepan until it thickens slightly. You can even choose to make flavorful brown sugar syrups by infusing them with enhancers like chili pepper flakes or orange zest. Use this as the sweetener in your next frozen coffee, and enjoy. 

Chocolate and coffee is not a novel idea, but that doesn't mean that these ingredients don't deserve to be blended over and over. It's a classic for a reason, and a mocha needs no improvement. Rich, silky chocolate in your coffee is heavenly, and the way to incorporate it into your frozen coffee is really easy with the help of some chocolate fudge sauce.

There are no other ways to do this as effectively as adding chocolate fudge sauce. This isn't like making a hot beverage, where you can add some melted chocolate. In a frozen drink the chocolate will harden and seize up, giving you clumps. At the same time, chocolate syrup is sweet, but not rich enough to give you that velvety chocolate feel. Chocolate fudge sauce gives you that thick richness in liquid form, so it can blend seamlessly into your frozen coffee. Simply combine a tablespoon (or more) into your coffee and ice mixture, and blend. You can also top your frozen drink with even more fudge sauce to double up on the decadence.

For many people who don't drink dairy milk, when concocting a daily cup of coffee, the creamer choice usually comes down between oat, soy, or nut milks. One often overlooked alternative is coconut milk. Coconut milk is creamy, with a delightful coconut flavor that complements and balances out coffee's bitterness beautifully. Even for people who drink dairy, coconut milk is a gloriously silky ingredient that can be added to enhance frozen coffee. Your blender will pulse any clumps smooth, and help the coconut milk emulsify completely into your coffee. And if you don't like overly sweet drinks, you probably don't even have to add a sweetener, as coconut milk has a natural sweetness to it.

Convert a luxurious coconut latte recipe into a frozen coffee formula by blending everything with some ice cubes. This might end up being your next frozen coffee fixation. When pouring coconut milk from a can, you might notice that it separates after being left standing for a while. This actually comes in handy when making frozen coffee, as you can make an extra unctuous and creamy drink by spooning out the solid part. This "cream" has separated from the coconut water and is a concentrated form of coconutty goodness. 

Dates have become a really popular ingredient for blended drinks like smoothies and frozen coffees, and for good reason. These little dried fruits are like nature's jewels of caramel candy, and they add natural sweetness to your drink. When eating them on their own, dates can be too sweet, but blending them into your frozen coffee will help flavor and sweeten your beverage at the same time, without needing more than one or two pieces of the dried fruit.

As a bonus, dates also incorporate more fiber into your coffee, and make the drink taste special. Dates have an earthy caramel flavor and give your coffee more complexity than the straight one-note sweetness provided by adding caramel syrup. Because they're dried fruits, they stay preserved for a long time, so you can keep them in your pantry or fridge whenever a craving for a frozen coffee treat hits. Remember to open the dates up and remove the seeds from the inside before adding them to your blender. You can chop dates up and use them as a topping, too. 

Adding a splash of Baileys Irish Cream is one of the most decadent ways to spike your frozen coffee. This one is for when you want a boozy coffee drink, which you can make as a cocktail or liquid dessert, or for any other reason! There are actually multiple types of liqueurs you can use in this way, such as Kahlúa or even amaretto, but Baileys works like a charm due to its creamy consistency. It's already milky, making it easy to mix into a frozen coffee. Its light flavor gives your frozen coffee an adult latte feel, and the alcohol level is just the right amount to not overpower the coffee. Baileys even has a vegan version, so people who don't consume dairy can enjoy the fun too.

You can mix some Baileys into your usual frozen coffee mixture, blend, and voilà — you've created a heavenly coffee cocktail. Try combining other ingredients to double up on the fun, like chocolate fudge syrup, or even some pumpkin pie spice would work.

Another classic drink is a vanilla latte, and many people can't get enough of the vanilla-coffee combo. The most common way that people include vanilla in their coffee is by using vanilla syrup, and while this is perfectly fine, there's nothing that will elevate your coffee like using the real deal. Most people have never used genuine vanilla bean, or even know what it looks like. It's a quite pricey ingredient, and it isn't super straightforward to use. However, if you manage to get your hands on some vanilla pods, you'll see that it's worth the cost and effort. Real vanilla bean is something else. The flavor is pungent, and not watered down by anything. Vanilla syrup can have an artificial feel to it and a slight aftertaste, which you don't get at all when using real vanilla.

These dark pods should be delicately cut open lengthwise, and the tiny specks of vanilla can be scooped or scraped out. Throwing just a little bit of vanilla into your frozen coffee will transform it into something truly elegant. Blending everything together will ensure that the vanilla specks are evenly distributed and well combined in your drink for maximum pleasure.