3-Ingredient Copycat McDonald's Oreo McFlurry Recipe

It's hard to beat McDonald's Oreo McFlurry. Rich, chocolatey cookies combine with vanilla soft serve to create a concoction that's thick enough to enjoy with a spoon. It's everything you love about a milkshake and a sundae, all combined into one dessert. While McDonald's has boasted some fun McFlurry flavors over the years (including flavors not available in the U.S.), we can't get enough of their Oreo flavor.

Sadly, the McFlurry machines are down all the time, and it usually happens when we're ready for our ice cream fix. According to The Wall Street Journal, the soft-serve machines take about four hours to clean. During that time, there's no way to get the ice cream to make the McFlurry, so you're out of luck until the machine is back up and running. Instead of falling deep into a pit of despair, we decided to make a homemade version instead. After a quick peek at McDonald's ingredients list, we realized it would not only be easy to pull off, but we could actually do it with only three ingredients. This is how to make a 3-ingredient copycat McDonald's Oreo McFlurry.

The first step to creating our 3-ingredient copycat McDonald's Oreo McFlurry was to visit McDonald's website. We discovered that their ingredient list was relatively simple: vanilla reduced-fat ice cream and Oreos. Of course, if you want to make an M&Ms McFlurry (or pretend you're having a Dairy Queen Blizzard and make it with peanut butter cups or candy bars instead), go ahead and swap those in for the Oreos.

McDonald's McFlurry uses the same ice cream recipe used in their vanilla cone and vanilla shake. When we compared it to the ice cream we bought at the grocery store, theirs was definitely softer — probably because it's technically soft serve. It's made from the same ingredients as ice cream, but it's served from a machine that doesn't let the ice cream harden. Since store-bought ice cream is fully frozen and has a much harder texture, we added whole milk to our list of ingredients to soften up the texture.

For the step-by-step directions and full ingredients list, scroll to the directions portion of this article.

For starters, you'll want to grab a plain-Jane vanilla ice cream. You could certainly make a 3-ingredient copycat McDonald's Oreo McFlurry with flavored ice cream, but it wouldn't be very authentic. Using chocolate or strawberry ice cream would introduce flavors that compete with the Oreos, so stick to vanilla here unless you want to make a very unique homemade McFlurry.

From there, pick a brand you like. Since the McFlurry is mostly made of vanilla ice cream, you want to make sure the flavor and texture are appealing. The first time we made this recipe, we used Simple Truth Organic Vanilla Ice Cream because it's what we happened to have in the fridge. This ice cream is sweet but not cloying, and it's decently soft. We tried it with a few other brands and noticed a slight flavor and texture difference with each type. You may need to adjust the added milk, using more or less than two tablespoons, depending on how soft the ice cream is at the start.

We mentioned earlier that you can use almost any type of candy in place of the Oreos in this 3-ingredient copycat McDonald's Oreo McFlurry recipe. Crushing four Oreo cookies fills about a 1/3 cup, so you could swap in any other type of crushed cookie (including other flavors of Oreos), mini M&Ms, or chopped candy like Reese's peanut butter cups or Heath bars. That said, we made several different versions of this 3-ingredient copycat McDonald's McFlurry, and we thought the Oreos tasted the best.

There's something about the chocolate cookie, cream filling, and vanilla ice cream that come together to create the perfect flavor. It might have something to do with the fact that Oreos might actually be addictive, too. In a 2013 study by Connecticut College, researchers found that Oreo cookies activated the brain's "pleasure receptors" in lab rats. When given a choice, the rats chose Oreos over cocaine and morphine, indicating that Oreos might be more addictive than drugs. No wonder we love this cookies-and-cream milkshake so much!

When you're ready to make your 3-ingredient copycat McDonald's Oreo McFlurry, start by crushing the Oreos. We found the easiest way to crush the cookies was to wrap them loosely with plastic wrap. Then, tap the package with a rolling pin to break the cookies into smaller pieces. We don't recommend rolling the rolling pin over the cookies, which will completely obliterate them. That's a great way to flavor the vanilla ice cream and it's the only way to enjoy the McFlurry through a straw. But, you'll miss out on enjoying cookie chunks — one of our favorite parts of the McFlurry eating experience — so we recommend only breaking down the cookies into large but bite-sized pieces.

If you don't have a rolling pin, you could put the cookies into a sealable bag and crush them with your hands. You could also use the bottom of a bowl and crush the cookies directly onto a cutting board. No matter how you crush them, be sure to use a spoon to scrape up all the cream filling when you're transferring the crumbled cookies to the mixing bowl.

From here, you're ready to make your 3-ingredient copycat McDonald's Oreo McFlurry. The fastest way to prepare the milkshake is to use a blender, but you'll need to make the McFlurry in two steps. You definitely don't want to blend the Oreo cookies. It tastes great, but McDonald's version isn't blended so it won't be authentic.

So, you can either start by placing the ice cream and milk into a blender and pureeing it until it's smooth. Or, you can combine all the ingredients in a medium bowl and stir the mixture with a large spoon or whisk until the milk and cookies are incorporated into the ice cream. Add additional milk until the consistency resembles soft serve.

When everything is well mixed, pour the McFlurry into a cup, garnish it with additional crushed Oreos, and enjoy immediately. If you have any leftovers, you can pop them into the freezer, but they will become much stiffer as the softened ice cream hardens once again. Let the copycat McFlurry come to room temperature for about 10 to 20 minutes to mimic the original texture.

All in all, we were pretty pleased with this 3-ingredient copycat McDonald's Oreo McFlurry. When it came to flavor and texture, it was pretty spot on. Our version was perhaps a little sweeter than the original — probably due to the ice cream brand we choose — but it was thick and creamy with plenty of Oreo chunks. Thinning out the ice cream with milk did an admirable job of mimicking the soft serve, too, something we'll definitely remember for future desserts.

Considering that the McFlurry machine is frequently down at the McDonald's location closest to us, and this recipe was cheap and easy to make, we think there are a lot of homemade McFlurrys in our future. It not only tastes similar enough to the original, but this recipe also allows us to get creative with the toppings when we're not in the mood for Oreo or M&Ms flavors.