10 Fast Food Soft Serve Hacks Everyone Should Know

You can always keep a pint of ice cream stashed in your fridge for whenever you get a sweet tooth after dinner, but unless you have some pretty specialized equipment in your kitchen, you're probably not able to make soft serve at home. So, when you're craving that sweet, creamy, fluffy ice cream, a fast food joint might just be your best bet to satiate that craving. But why order a plain soft serve ice cream cone when you could make your fast food soft serve even more delicious by utilizing a few simple, easy hacks?

That's where these fast food soft serve hacks can come into play. By combining your fast food soft serve with other ingredients on the menu — or just getting creative about how you serve the dessert — you can easily elevate your dessert without a ton of extra effort. Next time you decide to go through the drive-thru for a sweet treat, you might be surprised at just how delicious soft serve can get.

Chick-fil-A's Icedream is an ideal treat for anyone who wants to finish off their chicken sandwich with something sweet. But if you want to turn that treat into a larger, more interesting dessert, you'll want to order some of the chain's beloved lemonade alongside the soft serve. Drink down some of the lemonade so there's a bit of extra room in your cup, then scoop the Icedream from the cone directly into a cup. In one simple step, you've created a sweet and tart lemonade float that, if you ask us, should be on the menu anyway. Just keep in mind that unless you're super careful, this process can get a bit messy, so ideally, you'll want to do this at a kitchen sink and not inside of your car.

If the Chick-fil-A you're at isn't particularly busy and you need some help building your Icedream float, you can simply ask the staff if they'd be willing to dispense that soft serve directly into your cup of lemonade. They may not be able to oblige, depending on the location you visit, so don't be rude if they can't help you out, but it's worth a try if you're on the go but still want to indulge in a sweet and summery lemonade float.

Soft serve ice cream is delicious on its own, of course, but especially when you get something plain — like a vanilla cone from McDonald's — you may wish that there was a little bit more going on in the dessert. That's when it can be a good idea to combine different dessert menu items for a more interesting treat. And serving your soft serve with a McDonald's apple pie may be just the way to make that happen when you're in the drive thru.

The process is simple: Just order both a vanilla cone and an apple pie, and then ask for an extra container in which to put both of the ingredients and mix them together. If you want a more coherent, uniform snack, you can break the apple pie down into smaller pieces so it's easier to spoon it up with some ice cream in every bite. Alternatively, you could leave the apple pie somewhat intact and simply scoop up pieces of it as you eat. Either way, you get that nice textural combo of the crisp pie crust, the soft, gooey apples, and the rich, creamy soft serve all in one bite.

This is perhaps the best — and the most classic — fast food soft serve hack of all time, and it's incredibly easy to pull off. All you need to do is snag yourself some fries along with some soft serve (we prefer vanilla for this particular application), then dip said fries into the soft serve, creating a salty-sweet flavor combo that's impossible not to love. This works for a few different reasons. First, there's that aforementioned salty and sweet flavor profile. By creating a contrast between those two different components of the snack, you're highlighting both the sweet and savory flavors, making them pop, respectively. Then, there's the contrast between the hot fries and the cold soft serve, which creates an even more interesting snacking experience.

Although french fries and a Wendy's Frosty are prime suspects known for this combo, you don't have to go to any specific fast food place to pull this off. As long as the restaurant you're going to has both fries and soft serve, you're covered. If vanilla soft serves tastes bland to you, try different flavors until you find one that really hits the spot. 

There's nothing quite like an ice cream sandwich, but you don't have to go to a restaurant that serves them specifically or even go seek them out at your local grocery store. As long as you can get yourself to a Burger King, you can get your ice cream sandwich fix in no time. Start by ordering two chocolate chip cookies along with a vanilla soft serve ice cream cone. Using one cookie as a base for the dessert, plop the soft serve on top. You can then eat or discard the cone before placing the second cookie on top of the soft serve.

This is a really nice textural match because you get that solidness from the cookie along with the intense creaminess of the soft serve. Plus, it just adds even more sweetness to the snack. And the best part? You can choose exactly how much soft serve you want to put in your ice cream sandwich — whether you want the sandwich to be more cookie or ice cream or a good mix of both is up to you. Of course, this hack will work anywhere you can get both cookies and soft serve, but it's especially delicious with Burger King's Otis Spunkmeyer cookies.

We've already mentioned how easy it is to create a lemonade float at Chick-fil-A, but there's no reason you can't do that with other drinks at basically any fast food restaurant that serves soft serve. Of course, a Coke float is a classic option that pairs especially well with vanilla soft serve (although you can utilize other ice cream flavors if you prefer). First, order a Coke, and for best results, ask for it without any ice. Either request a cup that's not all the way filled, or take a few, large sips of the drink before adding in your soft serve. Once you do, it'll create a cold, creamy mix of Coke and ice cream, which offers a super-sweet and fluffy treat that's a significant upgrade from any basic soft drink.

But you don't have to stick with Coke if you prefer a different soft drink. Root beer is also a popular option, as is Dr. Pepper. If you really want to change things up, try pairing your soft serve with an orange soda. Any one of these combos makes for a tasty treat that's surprisingly easy to make.

Not every fast food restaurant serves espresso, but there are some that do, including McDonald's. On its own, it's definitely not the best espresso we've ever had, but when you combine it with soft serve to make your own affogato on the go, it gets a much-needed boost of sweetness and ends up being downright delicious. Order some soft serve, but ask for it in a cup instead of a cone (unless you've brought your own dish with you). Then, order a shot (or a double shot) of espresso. Create a little well in the soft serve, then pour the espresso over and around the hill of ice cream.

You may not expect to be able to concoct something that you'd normally find at a bougie cafe at a McDonald's or other fast food spot, but this treat feels significantly more elevated than you might expect. Just make sure that you check that the fast food restaurant you go to serves coffee and ice cream at the same time — you may not be able to get soft serve before a certain time or espresso after a certain time, depending on where you go.

For the uninitiated, the idea of combining soft serve with hot sauce might sound terrible, like the kind of mess that happens accidentally at the bottom of a fast food bag instead of a purposeful fast food hack that actually makes your ice cream more delicious. But believe us when we say that it's absolutely worth trying if you're the kind of person who loves spicy food anyway. This is just another instance of a delicious sweet-salty flavor combo, with an extra touch of heat that adds complexity and acidity to an otherwise rather one-note dessert. And because soft serve (especially vanilla soft serve) has such a relatively bland flavor, it can really handle the concentrated burst of flavor you get from the hot sauce.

You can ask for hot sauce packets at basically any fast food joint. However, if you have a hot sauce that you especially love, you can also bring it with you and just keep it in your car for whenever your fast food meal — including soft serve — needs a boost of flavor. This combination of flavors may not be for everyone, but for real hot sauce lovers, it's definitely a must-try hack.

The spicy, acidic addition of hot sauce may not be for everyone, but adding another source of sweetness to your soft serve is a more approachable method of switching up the flavor profile of your dessert. You can get chocolate sauce, and at some fast food joints, even fruit sauces, added to your soft serve at many restaurants, but a more unconventional combo is soft serve and jelly. You can use any type of jelly — strawberry, grape, raspberry — that a restaurant has on hand, which most fast food places that serve breakfast generally keep in stock.

This hack works on a flavor level, since you're just combining two sweet ingredients. Often, though, you'll get a bit of acidity from the jelly as well, which can add more complexity to the dessert. However, jelly can also provide your ice cream with a lovely gelatinous texture that makes it less one-note on a textural front. Just be sure to mix the jelly and the soft serve well for the best results.

If you've gone to McDonald's for ice cream before, there's a chance that you were told that the ice cream machine was broken — it seems to happen frequently at the chain. But if you happen to go on a day in which the ice cream machine is, in fact, functioning, you might be lucky enough to snag yourself double mix-ins for your McFlurry. Of course, this depends on the staff that's working at your local McDonald's, but you can politely ask if it's possible to have both M&M's and Oreos in your McFlurry. The result is a treat that tastes even more decadent than either of the originals.

This fast food dessert is ideal if you can't decide between the two flavors or just if you want a bit of extra sweetness in your soft serve. We'll keep our fingers crossed that the ice cream machine at your local McDonald's is up and working the next time you're craving this soft serve hack.

If you're looking for a good place to employ a fast food soft serve hack, look no further than Dairy Queen. The ice cream-based fast food joint has more sweet treat options than most other fast food restaurants, making it a great place to try out soft serve in all its forms. When you're craving an extra-decadent treat, look no further than the chain's frozen hot chocolate, which is essentially just chocolate-flavored ice cream with whipped cream on top. If you want to take it to a whole new level, though, you can order some vanilla soft serve on the side, then use it as a topping for the frozen hot chocolate. For the best (and least messy) results, you may want to ask for less frozen hot chocolate in your cup so you have plenty of room for the vanilla soft serve.

This creates a mix of chocolate and vanilla flavors that'll sate just about any sweet tooth. And depending on the size of frozen hot chocolate you get, this large dessert is easily shareable with friends.