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Stracciatella ice cream

A milk gelato made from a fior di latte base, with fine, crisp shreds of dark chocolate running all through it.

Sometimes found Found in some shops and some grocery freezers. What the badge means

Stracciatella is a milk gelato, called fior di latte, with fine shreds of dark chocolate all through it. You can find it in some shops and some grocery freezers, but not everywhere.

This page covers what it tastes like, how to make stracciatella ice cream at home, what to serve with it, how common it is, and what the nutrition figures show.

What stracciatella tastes like

Stracciatella tastes of clean, sweet milk first. The base is fior di latte, a milk gelato with no added flavor, so nothing like vanilla or egg covers up the dairy. Then comes dark chocolate in thin, crisp shreds. They snap as you bite and melt slowly on your tongue.

The gelato itself is smooth and milky white, flecked all over with dark brown bits of chocolate. The shreds are fine and irregular, not chunky chips, so you get a little chocolate in every spoonful.

It is made of two things: a fior di latte base and thin chocolate shards. That simple mix is what makes it work, because each part tastes clearly of itself.

Where stracciatella comes from

Gambero Rosso reports that stracciatella was created in 1961 by Enrico Panattoni at La Marianna, a bar in Bergamo’s upper town that he and his wife took over in November 1953. He named it after stracciatella soup, in which beaten egg sets into thin strands in hot broth. The chocolate in the gelato does much the same thing.

According to the same report, the trick was to stop the machine, pour the chocolate over the base, and start it again so the machine tore the chocolate into small pieces. The bar’s three machines from 1961 are still in use.

Gambero Rosso also reports that a collective mark from 2017, La Stracciatella, il gelato di Bergamo, sets out its ingredients and method. So the flavor has a recorded birthplace and a written standard behind it.

How to make stracciatella at home

Start with a gelato style base, which uses more milk and less cream. The Base Builder sets up that style for you, sized to your machine, in grams and cups. A Philadelphia style base with no eggs works too. The Base Builder gives a base formula built on standard food-science ranges, not a tested recipe.

Keep the base plain. Churn a milk-and-cream base with no added flavor. In the last moments of churning, drizzle in melted dark chocolate. The cold base sets the chocolate, and the paddle breaks it into thin shreds.

Adding it at the end follows how factories handle mix-ins. Pieces like fruit, nuts, candy and cookies go in as the ice cream leaves the freezer, when about half of its water is frozen and it is about as soft as soft serve. If you already have a recipe you like, the Recipe Scaler can resize it to your machine and convert cups to grams.

Base formula

Open the Base Builder: Gelato style (more milk, less cream)

Other styles that suit it: Philadelphia (no eggs)

The Base Builder gives a base formula built on standard food-science ranges, not a tested recipe.

What to serve with stracciatella

Stracciatella goes well with espresso. Pour a shot over a scoop, or serve a small cup on the side so the bitter coffee plays against the sweet milk. Cherries suit it too, fresh or spooned on as a sauce, since fruit and dark chocolate are an easy match. For a topping with crunch, try chopped hazelnuts, which bring out the chocolate shreds.

  • espresso
  • cherries
  • hazelnut

How common stracciatella is

We give stracciatella a first quarter (half moon) badge, 3 of 5, labeled "Sometimes found." That means you will find it in some shops and some grocery freezers. The badge says how easy the flavor is to find, not how much people like it.

No survey we use lists stracciatella by name. So for this flavor, the badge is our own judgement of how easy it is to find, with no survey line behind it. It sits in our regional and international section, and it is easier to come by at gelato shops than at a typical ice cream counter.

No survey we use lists this flavor by name, so its badge is our own judgement of how easy it is to find.

  1. Rare Rare enough that you would most likely make it at home.
  2. Hard to find Look for it in specialty shops and seasonal runs.
  3. Sometimes found Found in some shops and some grocery freezers.
  4. Easy to find Common in most grocery freezers.
  5. Classic A classic you can buy almost anywhere.

Nutrition, roughly

FoodData Central has no record for stracciatella itself, so these figures are for a plain vanilla base, not this flavor. Regular vanilla ice cream has 207 kcal, 11 g fat and 21.2 g sugars per 100 grams, or about 137 kcal in a 1/2 cup (66 g). Rich vanilla has 249 kcal and 16.2 g fat per 100 grams. The chocolate and any sweeteners you use change these numbers.

Nutrition per 100 grams

FoodData Central record Calories Fat Saturated fat Sugars Protein
Ice creams, vanilla FDC 167575 1/2 cup (66 g): about 137 kcal, 7.3 g fat 207 kcal 11 g 6.79 g 21.2 g 3.5 g
Ice creams, vanilla, rich FDC 167573 249 kcal 16.2 g 10.30 g 20.6 g 3.5 g

FoodData Central has no record for stracciatella itself: these are the figures for a plain vanilla base, regular to rich. Mix-ins and sweeteners change them.

Questions people ask

What does stracciatella ice cream taste like?

It tastes of sweet, clean milk with crisp bits of dark chocolate. The base is fior di latte, a milk gelato with no added flavor, and fine chocolate shreds run all through it, so each spoonful has a little snap.

How do you get the thin chocolate shreds in stracciatella?

Drizzle melted dark chocolate into the machine in the last moments of churning. The cold base sets the chocolate right away, and the paddle breaks it into thin shreds. That gives you fine flakes instead of solid chips.

Is stracciatella the same as chocolate chip ice cream?

No. Stracciatella uses a plain milk gelato base, and the chocolate goes in melted so it sets into fine, irregular shreds. Chocolate chip ice cream has a separate flavor page in our library.

Who invented stracciatella?

Gambero Rosso reports that Enrico Panattoni created it in 1961 at La Marianna, his bar in the upper town of Bergamo, Italy. He named it after stracciatella soup, where beaten egg sets into thin strands in hot broth.

Regional and international ice cream flavors · All flavors

Plan and make it with these

Sources

  1. A Bergamo un gelato è nato da una minestra (March 21, 2026, in Italian) Gambero Rosso
  2. Ice Cream Technology e-Book: Freezing/Whipping of Ice Cream H. Douglas Goff, University of Guelph
  3. Ice creams, vanilla (FDC 167575) U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service
  4. Ice creams, vanilla, rich (FDC 167573) U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service

Every data source the site uses is on the Sources page.