The Best Grocery Store Sherbets To Try In Your Halloween Punch
Trick-or-treating aside, the parties are one of the best things about the Halloween season. We can all picture the giant skeletons waving us inside as we arrive decked out in costume, the cackling animatronic witches in the corners of the room, and the best part — the epic snack table in the center of it all. Halloween-themed recipes and bites like eyeball candies or pumpkin cheese balls are spookily inviting ... but so is a giant cauldron full of delightfully bright, mysterious punch.
If you're hosting this year, a perfect Halloween punch capable of shocking your guests is a must. A long list of both spiked and alcohol-free recipes exist out there, and the deeper down the rabbit hole you go in searching for the right one, the more obvious it becomes that there is a specific, delicious ingredient they all seem to share: sherbet ice cream. It's true — the majority of the holiday punches we whip up for our gatherings contain the refreshing dessert made from frozen fruit juices or purées mixed with sweet water and cream. Thankfully, a good sherbet is never far away. Dozens of delicious flavors can be found in nearly any store near you — but which comes the most highly recommended? If you're planning an epic haunted bash, check out these best grocery store sherbets to try in your Halloween punch.
Signature SELECT Orange Sherbet
Signature SELECT, the brand produced by Albertsons Companies, Inc. and found most often in the aisles of Safeway, Albertsons, and Vons, among others, makes a large number of well-liked products that have made its generic brand a top contender in a world full of name-brand labels. Its ice cream, in particular, has earned Signature many points among consumers — in 2022, its frozen delicacy took the number one Signature SELECT best product spot following a nationwide vote. "Their Select no-name brand is awesome," said one Reddit user under the subreddit r/ExpectationVsReality, echoing this esteem. "Try their ice cream TBH it's as good or better than Haagen Dazs."
And here's some good news as we approach Halloween; the recipient of this high praise has a particularly delectable orange sherbet available for purchase in the cold section of all stores falling under the ownership of Albertsons Companies, Inc. This creamy, smooth, and flavor-packed variant of perhaps the world's most well-known sherbet flavor is guaranteed to get you that perfect orange hue heavily associated with Halloween when used as the base for your epic party punch.
Harris Teeter Lime Sherbet
Harris Teeter, the East Coast grocery chain, has hopped on the bandwagon of offering its very own branded products. Frozen fries, cartons of milk, crackers, and cottage cheese are all produced by the beloved grocer. There is a huge selection of different flavors of one of the nation's favorite frozen desserts. Neapolitan, butter pecan, and chocolate peanut butter ice creams can all be found with Harris Teeter's signature red label on the side ... and so can a creative, neon sherbet that can't help but scream Halloween.
Harris Teeter's Lime Sherbet is low in fat but high in color — a bright green color, to be precise. Limes are a citrus fruit used less often than their orange counterparts as the basis for sherbets — but when they are, the result is always magical. They not only create a beautiful, unforgettable shade of ice cream but also a more biting, zesty flavor profile. Harris Teeter's version has both; a smooth, seamless tartness to die for and a delightfully spooky green hue that is practically begging to be included in a Halloween punch potion.
Great Value Rainbow Sherbet
Great Value is Walmart's celebrated in-house brand, producing a vast number of products across all departments at a famously lower price point. This, of course, extends to ice cream. Each trip you take down the freezer aisle, you'll be met with Great Value takes on popular crowd favorites like mint chocolate chip, rocky road, or vanilla bean ... and a fruity, multicolored favorite that might literally make you squeal with nostalgia. That's right; we're talking about rainbow sherbet.
Associated with many childhood memories of hot summer days and schoolyard Dixie cups, rainbow sherbet is a mix of three different fresh and fruity ice cream flavors. An all-citrus cast is represented in Great Value's version — lime, lemon, and orange — and is available in a 48-ounce tub at an almost hard-to-believe low price in the ice box of your local Walmart. The three-tiered combination of cold, creamy flavors will give you an exciting, more complex punch and give your attendees a welcome, adult-like take on the treat they once loved.
Kemps Raspberry Frozen Sherbet
Going for a Barbie-themed Halloween party and need a bright purple or pink punch as the highlight of your fabulous refreshments table? Look no further than a raspberry sherbet for your drink's brightly-colored base. Raspberry, while an undeniably gorgeous rosy shade, is a much less common flavor of the fruit-forward ice cream. The freezer section of your favorite store may not be overflowing with raspberry sherbet choices, but the one you will find proudly sitting there in all of its pinkness is, thankfully, an excellent one, hitting the mark on both color and taste.
Cue Kemps, a Midwestern-based dairy company, began with a farmer named William Kemps out of Minneapolis in the early 1900's. It offers a multifaceted array of dairy products, from cottage cheese to sour cream to frozen yogurt — and, of course, a beautifully bright Frozen Raspberry Sherbet. Available in a massive 54-ounce tub from Target and Cub, among others, the berry-flavored ice cream with both raspberry and plum notes is guaranteed to make for a delicious and visually unforgettable Halloween punch. Oh, and did we mention the treat is totally fat free? That's a pretty nice perk, as well.
Harris Teeter Lemon Sherbet
There is little as reinvigorating as a lemon beverage after a long, exhaustive day ... or a long night of trick-or-treating with your kids. After spending the evening wrestling tiny humans into costumes, scouring the neighborhood on foot in search of candy, managing multiple sugar-rush-inspired meltdowns, and wrenching the same costumes back off before the bedtime routine, you've officially earned the right to plop down with a refreshing lemon-flavored spiked punch. But to make this end-of-day reward a reality, you will need a tub of yellow, lemon-based sherbet.
And when it comes to where to go to find a good pick, Harris Teeter is the place. Its generic ice creams garnered positive reviews across Reddit for the taste and price points. "Try the Harris teeters all natural generic brands," says one user on a thread referencing the best overall ice creams sold at the chain grocer. "It's actually good and they do the buy two get 3 free all the time." The zesty Harris Teeter Lemon Sherbet comes in a 48-ounce tub of frozen deliciousness, ready to be scooped or blended into a heavenly Halloween drink to end your holiday festivities.
Cedar Crest Watermelon Sherbet
While sherbet ice creams are all fruit-based, the overwhelming majority are derived from citrus fruits, such as the very popular orange. Therefore, our minds expect these more common, tangy flavors when we go in for a taste. Occasionally, though, unexpected fruits will be used in the development of something more unique, giving our taste buds an unexpected sherbet surprise. Such is the case with this next pick — which utilizes a popular summer melon as the base for its sweet, fruit-forward ice cream variation.
A Wisconsin-based company called Cedar Crest, known for creative and funky ice cream flavors like After Dinner Mint, Big Muddy, Blue Moon, or Caramel Collision, has done it again by creating a delightfully uncommon sherbet. Calling for watermelon, it promises a sweeter mouthful reminiscent of those summer months — which, as we head into fall, you might find yourself already missing. If you want to return to the lost season via a sip of Halloween punch made with Cedar Crest's Watermelon Sherbet, head to the nearest Cub Foods. If one doesn't exist around you, don't fret — the company's website has an online search tool available for finding your closest carrying location and offers shipping to anywhere in the continental U.S.
Pierre's Cherry Lemon Sherbet
While ordinary lemon sherbet offers a tartness that is perfectly palatable to some, its citrus tang may be a bit too much for others whose preferences lie in sweeter frozen treats. That's why this next combination ice cream is a punch-potential match made in heaven — a flavor perfectly balancing the sour and the treacly.
Pierre's Cherry Lemon Sherbet is just what it sounds like: a swirled, pink-and-yellow ice cream with juicy, sweet red cherry and zingy lemon tastes. The uniqueness of the combo flavor makes this particular ice cream stand out, and so do the wholesome ingredients with which it is developed. Based out of Ohio, Pierre's prides itself on producing products made only with milk from dairy cows untreated with rBST. "I think they have one of the best ice creams in the area," says one Reddit user under r/Cleveland, praising the quality of the company's frozen products.
However, it should be taken into account that Pierre's is very much a local creamery sensation. Stores in Ohio will have the best chance of carrying the coveted sherbet — but if you live in Michigan, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, or Illinois, you may likely have success, as well, per Pierre's website.
Kroger Pineapple Sherbet
The country's biggest grocer, Kroger, has a wide variety of ice cream choices in its massive freezer section — but its generic brand is worth checking out in the case of a scrumptious sherbet. Why? Kroger has found a way to make an already perfect bite even more perfect in one particular standout flavor. While most sherbet ice creams are smooth and one-note in consistency, this next popular variant brings something just a little different texturally to the punch bowl.
Kroger's Pineapple Sherbet is a distinctive, tropical-fruit-based frozen treat with a surprise inside. Tiny bursts of juicy pineapple flesh have been generously folded into the creamy, low-fat concoction so that every bite promises flavor-enhancing chunks. This would obviously be delicious to eat even with a spoon as a stand-alone dessert. When stirred in with a mix of other scrumptious ingredients in a cauldron full of Halloween punch, those teeny chunks serve as a welcome surprise capable of bringing a bit of freshness to the party beverage. And since pineapple is known for containing bromelain, a group of particular enzymes that ease digestion and make breaking down food easier for your body, it might be a welcome choice for a group of people who have spent the day eating nonstop candy, party treats, and other crazy back-to-back snacks that their bodies might be kicking them for.
Great Value Peach Sherbet
Peach is a consistently popular baseline flavor in cocktails, juices, and smoothies — and we say party punches should be no different. Consider introducing an exciting peach-flavored punch to the crowd at your Halloween bash after stopping by Walmart to grab a carton of this next slamming sherbet flavor.
Walmart's Great Value ice creams have lots of praise from consumers for being not only low in cost but as high-quality and mouthwateringly tasty as many of the more expensive name-brand ice creams. Its fat-free peach concoction is not only flavorful and smooth, but it is also orange-colored — giving you the ability to still get that bright, distinctively Halloween hue to your drink if using the standard orange-sherbet base isn't your thing. Just keep in mind that your punch recipe will likely be sweeter than an orange or lemon sherbet-based drink would be. Peach is more saccharine, with none of the tanginess naturally built into the more standard citrus flavor profiles.
Baskin-Robbins Wild 'N Reckless Sherbet
Perhaps the most widely recognized sherbet variant (aside from the classic orange) is that of rainbow. The three-layered, colorful dessert usually contains lime for its green layer, orange for an orange layer, and raspberry for a pinkish one. However, the well-known ice cream creator Baskin-Robbins stepped out on a ledge with this next exciting variation, recreating the traditional combination sherbet by completely switching up the flavors we expect from the rainbow mix-up.
Green apple, blue raspberry, and fruit punch are the swirled, re-imagined flavors found in Baskin-Robbins' Wild 'N Reckless Sherbet. The name alone feels deliciously thrilling, the perfect edible addition to any party. Walmart, among others, carries full-sized tubs of the triple-taste, neon-colored sherbet — and when you use it to develop your spine-chillingly special Halloween punch, make sure you send us an invite. We are dying to see how all those mashed-up colors mix in the bowl, just as much as we are to taste it. If there's no Walmart near you, don't let proximity stop you — check the company's online search tool to find a grocer nearest you carrying the wacky frozen treat.
Kroger Mango Sherbet
Mangoes, a fruit that thrives in tropical climates and was once considered taboo and exotic by the majority of unfamiliar Americans, have exploded in popularity in the last few years. The U.S.'s growing minority population led to increased demand, larger international shipments, and ultimately, a country-wide appreciation for the versatile and healthy product. Recipes for mango salads, salsas, mango sticky rice, and mango drinks scour the internet.
Needless to say, a mango-based punch is likely to be a massive hit at your Halloween bash. But where to get the ice cream needed to give it the injection of flavor and creaminess it needs? The answer is Kroger, whose generic-brand Mango Sherbet is a sweet, refreshing version of the coveted fruit in frozen, milk-infused form. So go ahead and grab a 48-ounce tub from the freezer section and play Frankenstein with some mango and alcohol for your next mad punch creation. Your guests will thank you.
Dr. Bombay Tropical Sherbet Swizzle
Who says you can't have a haunted luau party this season, complete with skeletons wearing leis and witches dancing the hula? This next sherbet variation may just plant the exciting idea in your head with the introduction of some powerfully potent tropical flavors brought to you by none other than Snoop Dogg himself.
Dr. Bombay is an ice cream company launched by the famous rapper, and it sports a whole host of frozen products as purely full of character as he is. The names of these colorful, creative flavors are as attractive-sounding as the visually appealing cartons they come in: Syrupy Waffle Sundaze, Bonus Track Brownie, or Rollin' In The Dough, to name a few. But if the leopard print cardboard top on the flavor known as Tropical Sherbet Swizzle isn't enough to draw you to the freezer of Walmart in and of itself, the promise of the acidic yet sweet combination of orange and pineapple swirled together within should do it.
Keep in mind that the Dr. Bombay brand is sold exclusively at locations of the world's leading retailer, so working in a stop at Walmart will be paramount to your tropical punch's creation this Halloween. But it will be well worth the effort when your guests' taste buds and your own are singing after each and every refill at the cauldron housing pure, citrusy paradise.