When Chowhound ranked 10 flavors of Shake Shack’s eponymous shakes, the Banana Pudding Shake didn’t fare so well. Coming in at No. 10, this shake was judged as tasting artificial and too sweet, and being difficult to eat, due to large chunks of wafer cookies that blocked the straw. The good news is, you don’t have to worry about accidentally ordering this subpar shake most of the year, as it is a limited-time-only flavor for summer 2025.
There are a couple other points in this shake’s favor, too: Chowhound noted that, due to the high quality of Shake Shack’s frozen custard (used as the base for its milkshakes), all of the shakes we tried have a pleasing creaminess, and none were actually outright bad. And, like all of Shake Shack’s shakes, superior to many other fast food chains’ shakes, even the Banana Pudding Shake stands out for being hand-spun rather than pre-mixed in a machine. So, if you like artificially flavored banana candy and don’t mind putting in a little work for your shake, the Banana Pudding Shake may not be so bad after all.
Despite Chowhound finding the flavor slightly artificial, the Banana Pudding Shake is actually made with real banana, in addition to banana pudding frozen custard. Vanilla wafer cookies are blended in by hand, and the whole concoction is topped with whipped cream and additional vanilla wafer crumbles. For an extra 50 cents, you can add rainbow sprinkles in support of GLAAD, a non-profit that advocates for LGBTQ+ rights. The sprinkles will be available June and July 2025.
A closer look at our shake ranking
In addition to the Banana Pudding Shake, Shake Shack is serving up two more seasonal shakes this summer: the Oreo Cookie Funnel Cake Shake (vanilla custard blended with Oreo Cookies and funnel cake crunch crumbles) and the Campfire S’mores Shake (vanilla custard with graham cracker, chocolate, and toasted marshmallow fudge chunks). While the Oreo Cookie Funnel Cake Shake wasn’t part of the ranking, Shake Shack’s perennial Cookies and Cream shake scored highly at No. 3. The Campfire S’mores Shake, however, didn’t do much better than the Banana Pudding Shake, coming in at an unfortunate No. 9.
Looking at the ranking as a whole, it seems safe to say that Shake Shack shines most when sticking to the basics. Their classic strawberry and vanilla shakes ranked first and second, respectively, with chocolate coming in at No. 5 (just behind Cookies and Cream and Chocolate Fudge). Flavors that fell in the latter half of the ranking included three that seemed redundant — various iterations of chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry. Comparing this list to Chowhound’s ranking of 20 Dairy Queen Blizzard flavors, it seems a little slim in terms of interesting options. And while it’s not quite equivalent to compare a Blizzard with a frozen custard-based milkshake, it could be nice to see something more out-of-the-box. On the other hand, Shake Shack’s custard is of such high quality, while DQ’s soft serve isn’t technically ice cream at all — so it may be a case of quality over quanity.
