Chick-fil-A Autumn Spice Milkshake Copycat Recipe

Chick-fil-A’s Autumn Spice Milkshake ran for one season in 2022 and then vanished. This copycat brings back the cinnamon and brown sugar cookie version — five minutes, one blender, no drive-thru required.

The Shake They Took Away

Chick-fil-A rolled out the Autumn Spice Milkshake in September 2022. It was their first new milkshake flavor in four years, it ran about two months, and then it was gone. It has not come back since. Their own site still tells people to “stay tuned.”

That is why you are here, and it is also why this recipe is worth making. Most copycat recipes are a convenience play — you could go get the real thing, you just don’t feel like putting on shoes. This one is different. There is no drive-thru version to compare it to anymore. If you want an Autumn Spice Milkshake this fall, your kitchen is the only place it exists.

I have been testing this one since the spice-aisle displays went up, and the version below is the one my family kept asking for. It is cinnamon-forward the way the original was, sweetened with brown sugar rather than plain white sugar, and shot through with crunchy cookie pieces that actually stay crunchy.

If you like this style of shake, my Ninja Creami Copycat Chick-fil-A Peach Shake is the summer counterpart and my Copycat Chick-fil-A Cookies and Cream Shake is the year-round one.

Why This Works

Three things separate a good spiced milkshake from a gritty, dusty one. All three are about when you add ingredients, not what you buy.

• Bloom the spices in the milk first. Ground cinnamon does not dissolve. Dump it straight into a blender full of frozen ice cream and it stays a powder — you get grit on your tongue and a dry, dusty finish, and a stubborn layer of it floats to the top of the glass. Whisk the cinnamon, nutmeg, and brown sugar into the cold milk first and let it sit five minutes. The spice particles hydrate, the flavor opens up, and the shake tastes round instead of sandy. This is the single biggest difference between this recipe and the ones that disappoint people.
• Brown sugar, not white. Chick-fil-A built the original around brown sugar cookies, and that molasses note is doing more work than the cinnamon is. Brown sugar also dissolves readily in cold milk during the same five-minute rest, which white sugar does more grudgingly.
• Do not use your most expensive ice cream. This sounds backwards, so here is the reasoning. Chick-fil-A’s soft serve is Icedream, which is technically a frozen dessert rather than ice cream because of its milkfat content. It is lighter and less sweet than what you’d scoop at home. A standard full-fat supermarket vanilla lands much closer to that texture than a dense super-premium pint does. Super-premium ice cream makes a shake so thick it stops being a milkshake, and its richness buries the spice. Save the good stuff for eating with a spoon.
• Crush the cookies at the end. Blend them in from the start and they turn to paste — you get a beige shake with no texture at all. Stir most of them in after blending and sprinkle the rest on top.

Ingredients

Everything here is one grocery run, most of it already in your pantry in September.

• Vanilla ice cream: Full-fat, standard supermarket brand. Softened on the counter for about 5 minutes.
• Whole milk: Use more for a thinner, more sippable shake.
• Brown sugar: Light or dark both work; dark pushes the molasses note harder.
• Ground cinnamon: This is the lead flavor, do not be shy with it.
• Ground nutmeg: Freshly grated if you have a whole nutmeg.
• Ground allspice: The quiet one. Leave it out and the shake tastes flat in a way you can’t name.
• Kosher salt: Makes the brown sugar read as caramel instead of just sweet.
• Vanilla extract
• Biscoff or speculoos cookies: These are the closest supermarket stand-in for the brown sugar cookie bits in the original. Divided: 4 crushed for the shake, 2 for topping.
• Whipped cream and maraschino cherries: The original came topped with both, so this is not optional if you’re going for accuracy.

Ingredient notes: Biscoff is the best match, but crunchy gingersnaps or brown sugar shortbread will both get you there. Avoid soft, chewy cookies — they dissolve. For dairy-free, a full-fat oat milk vanilla frozen dessert plus oat milk works well; the oat milk’s natural sweetness actually suits the brown sugar.

How to Make a Copycat Autumn Spice Milkshake

Step One: Make the spice base. In a measuring cup, whisk together the cold milk, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, salt, and vanilla until no lumps remain. Let it sit for 5 minutes. It will look thin and unpromising. Trust it.

Step Two: Soften the ice cream. Leave it on the counter while the spice base rests. You want it scoopable, not melted.

Step Three: Crush the cookies. Put 4 cookies in a zip-top bag and hit them with a rolling pin or the flat of a knife until you have a mix of coarse crumbs and pea-sized pieces. Crush the remaining 2 more finely for the topping.

Step Four: Blend. Add the ice cream to the blender, pour the rested spice base over it, and blend on low, pulsing, just until smooth. Ten to fifteen seconds. Over-blending warms the shake and thins it out — the friction is working against you.

Step Five: Fold and serve. Stir in most of the coarse cookie pieces by hand. Pour into two chilled glasses, top with whipped cream, the fine cookie crumbs, and a cherry.

Make It in a Ninja Creami

If you’d rather run it through the Creami, the method changes slightly:

Combine the milk spice base and the ice cream in an empty pint container, spin on MILKSHAKE, then pulse the cookie pieces in at the very end so the shards survive. Starting from store-bought ice cream means you can skip the 24-hour freeze entirely and go straight to the milkshake cycle — same shortcut I use in my Copycat Chick-fil-A Cookies and Cream Shake.

For a from-scratch base, build it the way I do in my Ninja Creami Vanilla Milkshake and add the spice mixture to the liquid before freezing.

Make It in a Ninja Slushi

The Slushi wants a base that can freeze soft, so no ice cream goes in. Start from my Ninja Slushi Vanilla Milkshake ratios — milk, heavy cream, sugar, vanilla — and swap the granulated sugar for brown sugar, whisking the spices into the liquid before it goes into the vessel. Run the MILKSHAKE preset. Add cookies only after it’s dispensed, never into the vessel.

Pro Tips

• Chill your glasses. Ten minutes in the freezer buys you several more minutes of thick shake.
• Taste the base before you blend. It should taste slightly too spiced and slightly too sweet on its own. Three cups of ice cream will mute it considerably.
• Going bigger? Scale the milk last. Doubling everything but adding milk gradually keeps you from ending up with a spiced beverage instead of a shake.
• Add cold brew for an adult-ish variation — a spiced coffee shake in the direction of my Ninja Creami Jamocha Shake.
• Serve it with something savory. A shake this sweet is better alongside waffle fries and Copycat Chick-fil-A Sauce than on its own after dinner.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the Chick-fil-A Autumn Spice Milkshake coming back? As of now, no. It ran nationwide from September 12 to November 12 in 2022 and hasn’t returned to the menu since. Chick-fil-A’s site says to stay tuned, which has been the answer for a few seasons running. Make it at home.

What was actually in the Autumn Spice Milkshake? It was hand-spun with Chick-fil-A’s Icedream and built on cinnamon-forward fall spices with crunchy bits of brown sugar cookie, topped with whipped cream and a cherry.

Is this the same as a pumpkin spice shake? No, and that was the point of the original. There is no pumpkin in it. It’s a spiced, brown-sugar-and-cookie shake — the warm baking spices without the squash. If you want the pumpkin version, my Ninja Creami Jack in the Box Pumpkin Pie Shake is that shake.

Can I use pumpkin pie spice instead of the individual spices? You can, but use 1½ teaspoons and add an extra ¼ teaspoon of cinnamon on top of it. Most blends lean heavier on ginger and cloves than this shake wants.

Why is my shake gritty? The spices went in dry. Whisk them into the cold milk and let the mixture rest five minutes before it meets the ice cream.

How do I make it thicker? Less milk, more ice cream, and blend for less time. Start at ⅓ cup of milk instead of ½.

Can I make this ahead? Not really — a milkshake is a five-minute recipe for a reason. You can mix the dry spice and brown sugar blend in a jar ahead of time, though, which turns this into a two-minute recipe whenever the craving shows up.

How many does this make? Two generous shakes, or one large drive-thru-size shake if you’re not sharing.

More Copycat Milkshake Recipes

If the Autumn Spice hits, the rest of the drive-thru is fair game:

• Copycat Chick-fil-A Cookies and Cream Shake — four ingredients, and the one Chick-fil-A shake that’s actually still on the menu year-round.
• Ninja Creami Copycat Chick-fil-A Peach Shake — the summer seasonal everybody waits for.
• Ninja Creami Frosted Lemonade Copycat Milkshake — tart, four ingredients, the opposite end of the Chick-fil-A menu from this one.
• Ninja Creami Jack in the Box Pumpkin Pie Shake — if you wanted actual pumpkin in your fall shake.
• Ninja Creami Jamocha Shake (Arby’s Copycat) — chocolate and coffee, the best cold-weather shake on the site.
• Ninja Creami McDonald’s Vanilla Milkshake — the simplest place to start if you’re new to shake copycats.
• Ninja Creami In-N-Out Milkshake — a three-flavor Neapolitan blend.
• Ninja Creami Five Guys Cherry Milkshake — maraschino cherries blended right in.
• Ninja Creami Copycat Sonic Oreo Cheesecake Milkshake — no 24-hour freeze required.
• Ninja Creami Copycat Sonic Cheesecake Milkshake — real cream cheese filling in the base.
• Copycat Dairy Queen Maple Cookie Milkshake — maple syrup and cookie crumbles, the closest cousin to this recipe.
• Caramel Macchiato Milkshake — espresso, vanilla bean, and caramel, the Starbucks-in-a-glass version.
• Ninja Slushie Shamrock Shake — the other seasonal that disappears from the menu.