Selena Gomez's 3-Ingredient, Unexpected Summertime Treat

Selena Gomez is now known for cooking as well as acting and singing. In 2020 she launched the HBO show “Selena + Chef” which focused on professional chefs helping her navigate the kitchen (who doesn’t need some cooking tips and tricks?). The busy actor and singer is currently working on two yet-to-be-named shows for Food Network. The first debuts at the end of this year and will focus on celebrations. The second hasn’t started filming yet, but the plans are to have Selena film with some of the country’s best chefs, learning how to cook those chefs’ most popular dishes. 

This does not mean she’s not like the rest of us who love to throw together some sustenance quickly from time to time. Selena’s favorite late-night snack consists of Ritz crackers, pepperoni, and spray cheese baked in the toaster oven. (Has anyone introduced Selena to the two-ingredient Rolo-Ritz snack yet? We think she’d approve!)

She’s back with another quick three-ingredient snack, this time a summertime treat that has us very intrigued.

A Riff on the Popular Piccadilly Snow Cone

In the Southwest, there’s a popular frozen treat known as the Piccadilly snow cone, shaved ice with Koolaid- or cherry-flavored syrup topped with chopped pickles. It’s no secret that pickles and pickle juice have been having a moment—with seemingly no end in sight. Trader Joe’s uses pickle flavoring in many products, including its dill pickle hummus. Pickle margaritas turn out to be a refreshing cocktail. There are pickle-flavored seltzers, dill-flavored Pringles, and Disneyland’s pickle-stuffed corn dogs. And no one is throwing out the pickle juice from an empty jar of pickles anymore, rather they’re using the liquid gold in various recipes. 

We don’t know how many of those pickle-laden treats Selena enjoys, but we do know that she recently revealed on the Kelly Clarkson Show that she makes pickle juice snow cones at home, inspired by snow cones she would get as a little girl. 

"If you're from the South,” Selena said to Kelly, “you understand that pickles are a part of our life. Bread and butter. Love it. So growing up, I would go to this little snow cone stand, and they had pickle snow cones with pieces of grape. It was so good."

She makes these snow cones for herself and her friends, although Selena reveals they don’t always appreciate them.

The actor doesn’t say if she adds any sweetness to the pickle juice (perhaps with some simple syrup), but the addition of grapes brings some sweetness, so we imagine this is one unexpected sweet and sour summertime treat.