Ice cream is synonymous with summer and for fans of the frozen treat seeking plant-based or dairy-free options, there's a delicious lineup of options to taste-test.
Consumer Reports this week revealed to "Good Morning America" its ranking of 14 such non-dairy ice cream products, taking both nutrition and taste into account.
Importantly, "there's no one formulation" for non-dairy ice cream, registered dietitian and food tester for Consumer Reports Amy Keating told "GMA."
"The base can be a variety of different plant milk -- almond, cashew, coconut, oat -- or not even a plant milk and just a coconut oil," Keating said. "One was made with avocado oil."
The different compositions, then, mean "healthiness" can vary significantly from product to product.
"The nondairy desserts that scored the highest for taste -- Häagen-Dazs and Van Leeuwen -- got low ratings for nutrition, but both are very rich," Keating said in the report. "A little goes a long way, so have one-third of a cup and cut your calorie, fat, and sugar intake in half."
NadaMoo Dairy-Free Organic Chocolate, meanwhile, which is made with a coconut milk base, got the top nutrition rating and a "good" rating for flavor.
The other brands that rounded out the top three spots include Oatly, made with oat-based milk, and Cado, the aptly named non-dairy option made with avocado.
Registered dietition and nutritionist Maya Feller warned similarly that, just because the products are plant- and nut-based, it didn't mean they were automatically healthy, telling "GMA" that "you want to take a look at the added sugars, you also want to take a look at the added salts and the added fats."
Two-thirds of a cup of Breyers milk-based chocolate ice cream has 180 calories -- but 11 of the 14 brands of non-dairy ice cream that Consumer Reports reviewed had more calories than that.
"If you are going to have ice cream, sit down, have a bowl, enjoy it mindfully," Feller said. "I would say the exact same for [non-dairy or plant-based options]."
When it comes to flavor, ABC News' Becky Worley, who tasted all of the products, said each non-dairy base was undoubtedly impacted by the various base products.
"In my opinion, all of the non-dairy options I tried had a slightly different base flavor than ice cream made with cow's milk that subtly affected the expression of the chocolate taste," she said.
As for price, consumers should expect to pay a bit more for some non-dairy options, though it varies from brand to brand.
Both Breyers' non-dairy and regular milk ice cream are priced the same at $3 per quart and a half. Many of the other vegan brands are priced similar to gourmet ice creams and cost more. NadaMoo and Oatly cost $5.99 per pint and Cado costs $5.29.
