The Movie Theater Candy You Should Always Freeze Before Enjoying (Hint: It's Not Junior Mints!)

Cookie dough bites have always gone hand in hand with movie theaters. Produced by Taste of Nature, the tiny morsels packed in their signature red and yellow boxes were available exclusively to moviegoers when they first launched in 1997. While many of us might recall our first encounters with cookie dough bites being in a theater, conversations across the internet suggest the real power move is freezing them at home.

Taste of Nature's website states that calls quickly came in from mobs of cookie dough bite fans, prompting the company to create new flavors and distribute them outside the theaters –- grocery stores, convenience stores, and even retro video stores. The ability to take the candy home came with plenty of new ways to enjoy. Curious candy consumers began to freeze them, and voila! A trend was born.  Whether the Taste of Nature scientists foresaw the sensation their cookie dough bites would become when frozen is unclear; however, being made without eggs makes them better suited for the freezer. Today, the original chocolate chip cookie dough bites even come with a teaser in the top left corner that reads, "try 'em frozen!" 

Taking the box teaser invitation a step further, the Cookie Dough Bites TikTok account compiles and shares videos of users trying the candy frozen. One user commented that the frozen cookie dough bites taste like ice cream. Another user posted herself eating the frozen candy from a bag with a sound-over featuring Kim Kardashian's voice calling it iconic. Cookie Dough Bites even posted its own viral meme with accompanying text that read, "me after trying Cookie Dough Bites FROZEN for the first time at the movie theater."

Over on Reddit, one user at r/snacking posted about Cookie Dough Bites with photos and text that read, "I'm trying them frozen ... It gives them a cold and chewier consistency as to be expected, which is nice." In a separate thread on r/candy, when users were asked for their take on Cookie Dough Bites, reviews were mixed, with some saying the candy might be overrated. However, several agreed they are an iconic movie-going snack, with one user saying that they "taste great when frozen."

Though many copycat homemade edible cookie dough recipes exist, nostalgic movie fans and candy lovers swear nothing beats the Taste of Nature candy. So,  whether you're in search of a quick dessert requiring minimal baking skills or an easy way to enhance your snack options during an at-home movie night, evidence points to frozen Cookie Dough Bites as the way to go.