Make Your Own Iced Coffee JUST Like Starbucks – The tips from an ex-barista to make your own delicious coffee at home without needing to spend $5 per cup!

Did I mention that coffee is my favorite? Specifically Starbucks coffee with their delicious smoothness and glorious high caffeine levels.

I love coffee. Iced coffee, more specifically. I love everything about it. I especially love how it takes me from a mom-bie to a real person in no time at all. And, in true Basic Girl form, I love me some Starbucks Iced Coffee.

I worked at Starbucks for 4 years, and their iced coffee is still my favorite. I’d go there 3 times a day if I could! But going to Starbucks all the time is not cheap (plus it breaks one of my cardinal rules of living on one income).

So I needed to find a way to make delicious iced coffee at home. I found a few ideas on Pinterest about “the best recipes,” and I’ve tried most of them, but I keep going back to the way it was done back at Starbucks.

To recap: This is how it’s actually done at Starbucks stores around the country (maybe globe?) to make their iced coffee. It’s an easy enough process that you can do it yourself in your own home with the tools that you have.

And – if you’re anything like my husband and myself – if you drink iced coffee like it’s water because life with 4 kids is no joke, then you can put it into a big glass storage container and keep it in the fridge for even less watered down nasty dilution.

This method is easy, it doesn’t take too long from beginning to end, and it’s not wasteful like some other methods are.

Here’s how to make your own DIY Starbucks coffee

Ingredients you’ll need:

• Your favorite coffee (GASP! Yes, it doesn’t have to be Starbucks if you don’t want it to be – personally, I like this brand)
• Water
• Ice
• (Optional for the iced lattes: espresso)

Directions How to Make Your Own DIY Starbucks Iced Coffee At Home: 

1. Brew coffee double strength (if you want 8 cups of iced coffee, scoop 8 heaping tsp. of coffee and 4 cups of water). It works even better if you have one of those fabulous coffee makers that has a “bold” setting! Always brew on “bold” if you can.
2. Pour coffee into a big, temperature appropriate container (some plastics shouldn’t have hot things put in them, and if you use glass, make sure that it’s made for hot things!)
3. Add in 4 cups of ice and stir.
4. Transfer to a glass pitcher for the fridge.
5. When you’re ready to drink some, fill a cup halfway with ice and pour coffee over top. Add sugar and milk and stir.
6. Enjoy!

You can tweak the amount of ice you add to the hot coffee if you prefer the coffee to be stronger.

You can also make coffee ice cubes! Yes, that’s right. No watering it down that way!

Just pour room-temperature coffee into ice cube trays, freeze them, and you’ve got yourself some amazing coffee cubes. You can use them in iced coffee, homemade lattes, smoothies, or just to suck on when it gets hot outside.

Want to know more things that you can use to make your own Starbucks at home? See the whole list here.

Make your own DIY Iced Lattes

Iced coffee is a popular drink during the warmer months. Here’s a recipe for a Starbuck’s iced coffee that will save you money.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup cold coffee — bold or strong (Or, if you have espresso, use 1 or 2 oz. of espresso, or 1 or 2 shots of espresso)
• 1 cup milk (you can use any you like: whole milk is ideal for dairy milks in iced lattes, but oat milk, coconut milk, almond milk, or even breve/ hand and half will work)
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (or you can use any of your favorite flavored syrups that you can buy from Amazon)
• 3 tablespoons sugar (unless your syrup is sweetened already)
• Ice to taste (personally, I’m a light ice girl. I’ll tell the barista “literally 3 ice cubes please!”)

Directions for DIY copycat Starbucks Iced Latte:

• Add the syrup to the cup first (any syrup, or just skip if you want it unflavored)
• Pour in the milk and swirl it (to incorporate the syrup with the milk)
• Add in the ice (yes, you’re reading this correctly! There’s no coffee yet!)
• THEN add in the espresso shots
• Top with a cross hatch drizzle of caramel sauce

Directions for DIY copycat Starbucks Latte:

1) Combine all of the ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth.
2) Pour the mixture into a glass and enjoy!

DIY Iced Caramel Macchiato Recipe (copycat from Starbucks)

The secret to caramel macchiatos from Starbucks is that there’s actually no caramel syrup in them! Nope! just vanilla syrup and caramel drizzle on the top (or in the inside of the cup).

Ingredients (grande -16 oz.)

• 1 cup milk of choice
• 1 cup ice
• 3 pumps vanilla syrup
• 2 oz. espresso shots
• Caramel drizzle (save for the topping)

Directions:

• Add the vanilla syrup to the cup
• Pour in the milk and swirl it (to incorporate the syrup with the milk)
• Add in the ice (yes, you’re reading this correctly! There’s no coffee yet!)
• THEN add in the espresso shots
• Top with a cross hatch of caramel drizzle

And voila! Your DIY caramel macchiato is complete!

DIY Starbucks Iced Mochas

Iced coffee is a summer staple, and Starbucks makes some of the best. But it can get expensive to buy one every day. Here’s how to make a copycat Starbucks iced mocha at home for a fraction of the price.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup cold coffee (or 2 oz. espresso)
• 1/4 cup chocolate syrup
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon sugar (to taste for sweetness)
• Whipped cream (optional, but definitely recommended)

Directions:

1.  Add the syrup to the bottom of the cup
2. Add the coffee or espresso and swirl until incorporated
3. Add the milk of your preference
4. Top with some additional ice if you want
5. Top with whipped cream and chocolate syrup/ mocha drizzle
6. Enjoy!

DIY Starbucks Cold Brew Coffee

Can you make Starbucks Cold Brew?

I have a LOT of opinions on cold brew personally. It’s worth mentioning that you can use ANY coffee to make cold brew, not just Starbucks. BUT! You use a whole cup of ground coffee for every 4 cups water. So it gets used up fast.

Ingredients for at home cold brew:

• 1 cup ground coffee
• 4 cups water

Directions:

• Course grind the coffee beans
• Add it to a jar that has enough space to fill with the water AND coffee needed
• Add the water
• Cover the whole coffee
• Soak overnight
• Strain the coffee the next day with a cheese cloth
• Then tada! You have cold brew

DIY Salted Caramel Cream Cold Brew

To make this version of the cold brew, all you will need to do is add salted caramel syrup (which you can get from Amazon here). And then you can also make your own cold foam! Here’s how.

Ingredients (16 oz. – Grande):

• 1 cup cold brew coffee
• 3-4 pumps syrup (use your personal level of sweetness that you prefer)
• Whole milk (or your preferred high-fat milk dairy alternative)
• Milk frother

Directions:

• Follow the directions for the cold brew or iced coffee depending on your preference
• Add your salted caramel syrup to the cup
• Add your cold brew or iced coffee to incorporate together
• Add your milk to a container and add the caramel syrup as well
• Use the frother to mix until frothy (the higher the fat content of the milk, the better the froth will be)
• Pour on top of the iced coffee
• And you’re done!

Cold brew on a budget

Cold brew uses the same amount of coffee grounds as more than a 12 cup pot of coffee. So here’s what I do when I want cold coffee that’s not been watered down or that I want to last more than 1 day.

• Brew your whole pot of coffee (on bold or add an extra scoop of coffee… which is still less coffee than used in the cold brew recipe to yield 4 cups…)
• Put the whole pot in the fridge (or in a container inside the fridge)
• Wait for it to cool
• BOOM. You’ve got non-watered down cold coffee (not sure if that counts as cold brew per se, but this is my favorite summer coffee beverage)

Can you make Starbucks Nitro Cold Brew at home?

Yes, you can make your own Starbucks Nitro Cold Brew at home. The process is simple… ish. You need are a few supplies from your local grocery store or online retailer. Starbucks Nitro Cold Brew is made by infusing cold brew coffee with nitrogen gas, which gives it that thick, creamy head and a smooth, velvety texture. You can either use a nitro coffee maker or create your own nitrogen infusion system using a kegerator or beer brewing set-up. Here’s how to do it:

• 1. Start by brewing some cold brew coffee using your favorite method. You can use ground coffee or whole beans and steep them in cold water for 12-24 hours.
• 2. Pour the cold brew coffee into a clean container and add nitrogen gas using a nitro coffee maker or homebrewing set-up.

All you need is a stout or nitro coffee keg, some CO2 cartridges, cold brew coffee concentrate, and water. The process is pretty simple. Start by adding the cold brew concentrate to the keg and then add water until it reaches the fill line. Next, attach the CO2 cartridge and let it carbonate for about 24 hours. Once it’s done carbonating, release the pressure by turning the knob on top of the keg counterclockwise until it’s in the “off” position. That’s it!

Now. Who just has a nitro keg lying around? Well, no one. But there are a few options from Amazon if you just can’t survive without that sweet, velvety nitro cold brew.

FAQs for DIY Starbucks Iced Coffee

How can you customize your DIY Starbucks iced coffee?

Here are some customizations that you can add to your at-home coffee:

• Your favorite flavor syrup (you can get these from Amazon, I’m keto and these are the ones I use)
• Flavors like vanilla, hazelnut, white mocha
• Make your own simple syrup (or get it here)
• Caramel drizzle
• Cold foam (you can make this with a milk frother)
• Cinnamon
• Cocoa powder on top
• Honey

What kinds of milk can you use in the best iced coffee drinks?

There are many different kinds of milk that can be used in Starbucks iced coffee, and no, you don’t have to just use animal products in your milk options for great coffee. You can use:

• whole milk,
• 2% milk
• 1% milk
• nonfat milk,
• soy milk (sweetened or unsweetened, whatever is your preferred type)
• almond milk
• coconut milk
• oatmilk

Each type of milk will give the iced coffee a different flavor and texture.

Which Starbucks iced coffee is the strongest and how much caffiene is in it?

This is actually a surprising answer but… the strongest flavored coffee is NOT the most caffeinated.

The opposite is true. The more mild the coffee is, the more caffeine it has. Check out this post here for all the details.

Check out this helpful graph below for caffeine content by milligrams of caffeine:

You can see that blonde espresso has the most caffeine content, even compared to Starbucks regular espresso.

Do you make your own coffee to save money?