Copycat In-N-Out Milkshake
Description
A copycat In-N-Out milkshake made with real ice cream, not soft serve — thick, dense, and ready in ten minutes. Chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, or all three layered as a Neapolitan.
Ingredients
Base — per pint
- 1½ cups ice cream, chocolate, vanilla, or strawberry, frozen solid
- ⅓ cup whole milk, cold
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
Flavor booster — choose to match your ice cream
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, for vanilla
- 1 tablespoon chocolate syrup, for chocolate
- 2 tablespoons strawberry puree, or 3 fresh strawberries mashed with a fork (for strawberry)
For a Neapolitan — make all three
- 1 pint each of the chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry versions above
Instructions
- Scoop the ice cream into an empty Ninja Creami pint container, keeping it below the MAX FILL line. The mixture expands as it spins, and an overfilled pint is the most common cause of a stuck container.
- In a small bowl, stir the milk, salt, and your flavor booster together until fully combined. Dissolving the booster into the milk first keeps it from streaking across the frozen surface.
- Use the back of a spoon to bore a hole about 1½ inches wide straight down the center of the ice cream, all the way to the bottom of the pint. Pour the milk mixture into the hole.
- Install the pint in the outer bowl, lock the lid, and select MILKSHAKE.
- Check the texture. If it's thicker than you want, add 1 tablespoon of milk and run RE-SPIN. Add milk a tablespoon at a time — too much at once and you can't take it back.
- Serve immediately, in a chilled glass.
For the Neapolitan
- Repeat steps 1 through 5 for each of the three flavors, one pint at a time. Keep each finished shake in its pint in the freezer while you spin the next.
- Spoon the chocolate into a tall glass first — it's the densest of the three and holds the base. Add the vanilla next, spooning it gently against the inside of the glass rather than dropping it straight down. Strawberry on top.
- Serve with a long spoon and a wide straw. Don't stir — the layers are the recipe.
Equipment
- Ninja Creami Ice Cream Machine
- Ninja Creami Pint Container
Notes
Use real ice cream. In-N-Out shakes are made with ice cream rather than soft serve, and that density is the whole difference. Full-fat supermarket ice cream is exactly right. Light ice cream or frozen yogurt gives you an icy shake no technique will rescue.
Whole milk only. Two percent works and skim technically works, but both push the shake toward thin — the exact failure this recipe is built to avoid.
No malt. In-N-Out shakes aren't malted. If malt is what you want, that belongs in a Frosty, not here.
Doubling. Run two pints separately. Never overfill one pint to make two servings.
No 24-hour freeze. This recipe starts with ice cream that's already frozen, so the usual Creami overnight rule doesn't apply.
No Creami? Blend the same ingredients on low for 20 to 30 seconds, no longer. Over-blending warms and thins the shake.
Storage. Best served immediately. Leftovers refreeze into a solid block; you can re-spin the next day, but the texture won't be the same.
Nutrition
Serving: 1ServingCalories: 483kcalCarbohydrates: 75gProtein: 9gFat: 17gSaturated Fat: 5gPolyunsaturated Fat: 4gMonounsaturated Fat: 5gCholesterol: 42mgSodium: 397mgPotassium: 313mgFiber: 1gSugar: 42gVitamin A: 511IUVitamin C: 9mgCalcium: 196mgIron: 1mg