Review: Wendy's New Salted Caramel Frosty Is The Perfect Blend Of Salty And Sweet

Everyone loves a Wendy's Frosty. Although the fast-food chain has made its share of mistakes, this isn't one of them. A perfect mix of chocolate, vanilla, and malt, the Frosty has been around for more than 50 years, having been inspired by a racetrack ice cream stand in Cleveland. It's no surprise that such cool roots result in a cool twist on regular old milkshakes.

Now, I might be a little biased, having worked at Wendy's in my youth, where I had ample access to the Frosty machine. Like, too ample (no one tell my doctor). But I love Frosties, and I was excited to try the new salted caramel version. The questions running through my mind were: What exactly does salted caramel taste like if it's not chewy? How on earth can this milkshake be "naturally flavored"? And, most importantly, can it possibly be as good as the classic chocolate flavor I've enjoyed perhaps a hundred times?

I decided to bring one husband (also a Frosty diehard) and one small girl (a total noob) along on my quest to answer these questions, and answer them we did. Specifically: It tastes like butterscotch and we're here for it; the ingredient list offers literally no guidance about which natural flavors are employed; and no, it's not as good as the classic. However, it was still pretty tasty. If you're a Frosty fan, you should consider grabbing one the next time you're having an emotional breakdown or just hungry on the way home from work. Let's take a closer look.

The Frosty is relatively inexpensive. We taste tested both the salted caramel and the classic chocolate Frosty for comparison, both size medium, and they cost $3.29 each. Pretty reasonable for about a pint of milkshake, and in general, Wendy's is pretty inexpensive. Don't expect our prices to reflect exactly what you'll pay in your area, though. Wendy's prices vary according to where the restaurant is located. There could be many reasons for this.

For instance, Wendy's restaurants are franchised, i.e. they are owned by different individuals rather than a single person or family. While the Wendy's brand likely exerts control over the franchisee's rights to set pricing, this information isn't answered on their franchise FAQ page. (The fact that they're set to close more than 100 restaurants does indicate they have a high degree of control.) Dynamic pricing, which they're set to start in 2025, and the local economy may also influence menu costs. This is not the same as raising prices during high-demand times, aka "surge pricing," but it may still make a difference on your receipt. All we know is that you can visit two different Wendy's located quite nearby and see two different pricing structures.

As for availability, the salted caramel is listed on Wendy's main menu right on their website, so one assumes you can find it everywhere. If you're really concerned about making sure it's available at your nearest location, try calling ahead. However, when I did this, it rang forever, and no one picked up. 

The Frosty is not a health food, of course. Then again, aside from the spurious "natural flavors" claims, it does not pretend to be. Indeed, on the Salted Caramel Frosty page, Wendy's literally advises you to dip your French fries in it. That's all you need to know about whether they're looking out for anyone's waistline.

It's a bit surprising, though, to find that Frosties aren't all that calorie-rich, at least not compared to other fast-food restaurants. For instance, a medium chocolate shake from McDonald's contains 650 calories, whereas the medium Salted Caramel Frosty contains 420 calories and the classic Chocolate Frosty only 390. A medium chocolate shake from Burger King is 690 calories, even more than McDonald's. So, insofar as any fast-food milkshake product is a healthy choice, there's a case for the Wendy's Frosty. Then again, the ingredient list still contains gobs of toxic additives, though, including corn syrup, sugar, and food dyes.

As a way of determining whether the Salted Caramel Frosty was worth the nutritional hit, I played a round of Prue Leith-inspired "Is it worth the calories?" with the husband and small girl. Everyone agreed that it was worth the calories, but it would have been more so on a hot day.

On to the important stuff: Just what does the new Wendy's Salted Caramel Frosty taste like? This was a difficult question to answer and one we had to spend some time on. The salted caramel flavor was extremely sweet, especially compared to the classic chocolate variety (more on that in a second).

If we had to pin down the flavor, it was more like butterscotch than caramel. In fact, it tasted exactly like store-bought butter pecan ice cream, except without the pecans. The salty taste did come through, though not very strongly, because the Frosty was so cloyingly sweet. It almost felt like the mad food scientists added more sugar and corn syrup to the mix just to make up for the saltiness, so it ended up getting lost and making the final result a bit much. If you're going to eat it on its own, rather than cutting it with a burger, Wendy's famous chili, or fries, you might want to order the small size.

Lest you get the impression that we didn't like the Salted Caramel Frosty, though, know that we actually did, and quite a lot. It was delicious, with just the right amount of thickness to eat with a spoon when it first came out, and to drink with a straw after about 5 minutes. Although the malt flavor that I associate with Frosties got lost along with the salt, I didn't mind: There was so much buttery, sweet flavor to contend with that it really didn't need anything else.

Of course, it wouldn't be a fair test of the new Salted Caramel Frosty if we didn't compare it to the classic chocolate variety that's been around for decades. This did the Salted Caramel Frosty a disservice in some ways, as the Small Girl (who was a Frosty virgin) vastly preferred the chocolate over the caramel, which she said was too sweet when compared to the milder, more malty default flavor.

The husband felt that while the caramel flavor came through nicely and was true to its marketing promise, it wasn't as tasty overall as chocolate, especially not if you were going to make a habit of buying Frosties. He also didn't enjoy dipping his fries in the caramel, but said that alternating the Caramel Frosty with his French fries was delicious. Because it's such a sweet flavor, this was even more fun than alternating with the chocolate, whose taste is a bit washed out by the salt of the fries. If you're a milkshake-and-fries type, therefore, you might find the Salted Caramel Frosty an even better bet, unless you really want to put your fries in the Frosty, in which case chocolate shines.

The Salted Caramel melted faster than the chocolate, which isn't really an issue in the wintertime, but might be handy to know come the hotter months ... assuming this flavor is still around then. On a final note, although we might not have considered this at all if we weren't ordering the salted caramel and chocolate side-by-side, the caramel was kind of an off-putting bright yellow color. It practically radiated Yellow #5, whereas the Chocolate Frosty looked like a normal milkshake.

To be honest, my final thoughts about any Frosty usually run along the lines of "OMG get it!" So it's no surprise I advise you to get it if you haven't yet tasted it, because it's a fun experience. Other than that, if I'm going to spend the money and the calories on a Frosty in the future, it will probably be chocolate ... especially at certain times of the month, if you know what I mean.

I feel it's only fair to note, however, that I'm very much a set-in-my-ways person. I wear the same sweats every day and I'd rather watch reruns of "The Big Bang Theory" than try a new sitcom, so I'm not one for novelty when I've already found a tried-and-true answer. The husband and small girl are more adventurous than me, so I was surprised when they felt the same way: salted caramel was fun, but chocolate is the way to go if you're going to make Frosties a regular thing. Ditto goes for if you want a large, because the salted caramel was simply too sweet to eat a lot of.

Also, some online reviewers claim that Frosty mix isn't stored all that hygienically, so you should avoid ordering it at Wendy's, no matter how iconic the Frosty is. I did not have these concerns when working at the restaurant, but given its franchised nature, this could be a concern elsewhere. In general, there are a lot of things you wouldn't want to know about how fast food really gets made, so it's probably best to stick your head in the sand when ordering the Salted Caramel Frosty, or anything else.