Review: DREAM Gelato Sea Salt Caramel Almond-Based Non-Dairy Frozen Dessert

I will be the first to admit that I generally stay away from non-dairy frozen desserts for a couple of reasons.  First, fortunately I am not lactose intolerant and my body does not reject dairy, so I have no need to purchase those types of products.  Second, non-dairy frozen desserts are generally really expensive and since I'm such a frugal person, I just can't convince myself to take the plunge and buy them on a regular basis.  That said, occasionally I'll see a digital coupon that will push me in that direction and when a $2.00 off digital coupon popped up on my Kroger app recently, I knew I had to pick up a pint of this DREAM Gelato Sea Salt Caramel Almond-Based Non-Dairy Frozen Dessert.  The fact that it was a non-dairy gelato intrigued me as well because I wanted to see how that would play out.  Regular price is $4.99 and each pint contains four half-cup dairy-free servings that have 140 calories per serving.  Since this is non-dairy, it is also 45% less fat than typical sea salt caramel ice cream, or so says the label on the container.

Opening this up, there's not a ton to look at.  I will point out that most non-dairy products that I've encountered are based in soy.  This one is based in almonds, which is also a new one for me.  As for the rest of it, what you see is basically what this is.  It's a tan-colored "gelato" that has the added surprise of occasional pockets of caramel hiding within the pint, which was a neat find (one of those pockets is visible in the outer edge of the picture above; I ate most of the pockets prior to my picture because I got the munchies).  In terms of smell, it's got that burnt caramel smell and once I let it get closer to room temperature, it was surprisingly creamy, which is good considering this is supposed to be modeling authentic creamy gelato.

It smelled like burnt caramel and it kind of tasty that way too with a taste of sea salt to punctuate that.  That sea salt actually made this taste kind of dry, so those spoonful that included the rich and semi-sweet caramel swirl were much appreciated as they bought a bit of moisture back to each spoonful.  Regardless of what each spoonful included though, this was all caramel, all the time and being that was the intent of this, that's a good thing.  With that salt factor, it was definitely a salty caramel, so this one hit on all aspects of what it was looking to do.

Buy It or Fly By It?  Salted caramel is not my favorite thing in the world because I'm just not that huge of a fan of salt and sweet mixed together.  That said, despite the salt and sweet, this was flavorful enough for me that I did find it to be enjoyable and that gets is a BUY IT rating.  If you are lactose-intolerant or just want to try and mix it up a bit, this is certainly not a bad option.

BUY IT!!