What does a Minion taste like? An investigation

Do you want to be old? The Minions are a popular pet that has been around longer than ten years.

Despicable Me came out in 2010, and that movie’s banana-loving, bean-shaped villain sidekicks have become ubiquitous in the time since thanks to endless merchandising, with wildly profitable toys, games, memes, theme park attractions, and other spinoffs. Numerous explainers have explained their designs and Minionese, a gibberish language that combines English, French and Italian. This helped them to gain worldwide popularity. They’re as inescapable as they are sanitized: goofy, inoffensive, and simple enough for a child to draw. College students will be familiar with the 2015 movie. MinionsIt felt like an appropriate choice to watch with a friend who was going through a difficult breakup. I don’t remember the plot — the Despicable Me movies are like a personal black hole, in that I watch them but don’t retain them. However, their cultural value is undeniable.

There’s also So much Minion-themed food. I’ve been confronted by endless Minion products at grocery stores, and they’ve kept me up at night, brooding over the possibilities. Is there a Minion that tastes like banana? What is the Minion’s favorite snack? Is it the banana or another flavor that yellow invokes like pineapple or lemon? Different Minions have different shapes and different numbers of eyes — do they have different flavors? Is it the desire to consume tender, bean-shaped flesh? What is the point of Minion snack that consists entirely in eating a Minion whole?

I understand, at least from a branding standpoint: The cartoon characters’ simple shape makes it easy to put a whole-ass Minion in both officially branded and DIY cookies, Popsicles and paletas, breakfast cereals, fruit snacks, throat lozenges, and even sprinkle mixes. But other cartoon-branded food items might come in shapes more tangentially related to a character — Spider-Man fruit snacks include masks and web-slinging hands, for example. Minion items are almost always some version of “Eat this whole guy” — or in the case of a fruit-snack pack, several whole guys with different names.

Then I decided to stare at the sun, and try to see if I could find any patterns in edible Minions. You can eat Minion in many different ways. I’ll count them all.

It looks like a Minion but tastes like one.

Photo: Nicole Clark/Polygon

With me, you will be able to travel through twelve years of grocery store food. In brand partnerships, minions were featured with many sweet and savory products from big box stores like Kraft Macaroni and Cheese and Bettycrocker Fruit Snacks. The former is obviously mac ’n’ cheese flavored, while the fruit snacks are a variety pack of “assorted fruit flavors” (hmmm, mysterious). The limited-release Minion Pop-Tarts were a “wildberry” flavor, and the Minion Tic Tacs (which don’t have individual faces, but the shapes still suggest you’re eating mini-Minions) tasted like banana. Don’t forget about those particular flavors as we continue the Minion taste tour, because they’re a theme.

In the branding-marketing juggernaut that is breakfast cereal, Minions has been no fool. General Mills released Minions Banana Berry cereal, in 2015 “It was surprisingly one of the best-tasting licensed cereals of the past decade,” Dan Goubert, co-host of cereal-focused podcast The Empty Bowl, tells Polygon via email.

2017’s “Minion Made” cereal walked back on those bold flavors in favor of bland vanilla. “A Brown Sugar Vanilla Cereal with Minion-inspired marshmallows, this was a cookie-cutter licensed cereal that dropped the relevant flavoring for a standardized grain ’n’ marbits approach,” Goubert says. “Not terrible-tasting, but far from a memorable heir of its title property.” And then came 2020’s Minions Vanilla Vibe, “a box of absolute tepid trash that reeks of sugar, chemicals, and soullessness. The less said about it, the better.”

Let’s move to the freezer aisle. The Minion Ice Pop, a Popsicle brand, was everywhere in the summer 2020. These ice pops were available at the supermarket, in ice cream trucks, as well as on paleta wagons in parks during sunny days. I have never tried one — I assumed they’d taste like banana, given Minions’ famous predilection for the fruit, and that isn’t my Popsicle flavor of choice. But in 2022, the Minion Ice Pop flavors are strawberry banana (so they did get the banana in there) and blue raspberry, which seems to be a way of saying “We looked at the blue overalls and decided they’d be raspberry-flavored.” I would eat those Minions.

Popsicle Image

As I browsed the reviews, I noticed a theme: Some consumers really appreciated that these particular Minions aren’t banana-flavored, and others feel cheated by that choice. This world is made up of two kinds.

Consult with professionals

The pattern was becoming apparent, and I sought professional guidance. So, I reached out to several flavor chemists, researchers, food scientists and other experts, as well, a governing body in flavor chemistry.

None of the people I tried to reach out to would talk about Minions’ taste. Most of the professors I reached out to did not respond, and the one who did, from a university’s Food, Science, and Technology department, politely declined my request, stating: “Thanks for reaching out. Unfortunately, I’m afraid I don’t have much to say on that topic.” None of the flavor chemists I contacted got back to me either. It made me wonder if people don’t like talking about Minions. Even my friends tended to immediately change the subject when I mentioned sinking my teeth into Minions’ tender yellow flesh.

Elsa Howerth is the Society of Flavor Chemists’ website chair. She explained via email that flavor chemistry is a “competitive space,” and “finding someone who can answer questions is a bit of a challenge, as many of us are not comfortable about questions that might be too revealing.” She asked if I could share my queries, and mentioned that she might be able to find a consultant to speak to these pressing Minion-flavor mysteries. If I receive a reply, I’ll update the article.

I’ll leave you with the opinion of one cereal expert. “So what would a real Minion taste like? If the marked devolution of their cereal quality over the years has taught me anything, it’s that, like a tender cut of veal or lamb, you have to eat them young,” Goubert tells Polygon. “The Minions of today are way past peak ripeness and have likely turned rancid, gamey, and as stale as their milked-dry movie franchise.”

What does this leave us with?

Image: Illumination Entertainment

Even if the experts don’t want to weigh in, manufacturers are putting their own spin on what counts as “Minion flavor.” There’s candy, where flavors run an even broader gamut — from mango soda gummies to Minion Pez dispensers. You can put any Pez flavor inside. These flavors are inspired by Minions movies and lean Dadaist. There’s the Despicable Me 3 edition of “BeanBoozled” Jelly Belly, a candy “game” where any given color is one of two flavors, one sweet, one bizarre. In this edition, a bright-green jelly bean might be “sour apple” or “Minion fart.” I don’t know what Minion fart tastes like, and I don’t want to learn!

Minion enthusiasts who bake homemade Minion treats often make them look like Minions. Complex icing really nails the likeness — with decorations that emulate Minions on sugar cookies, cupcakes, Twinkies, and even cupcakes with Twinkies stuck inside them. And then there’s my favorite, the king of them all: homemade Minion snack mix, which I like to call “deconstructed Minion” or “Minion burrito bowl.” To make it, you add some yellow and blue M&Ms to a regular-degular bag of Chex Mix, for a salty-meets-sweet combination. You could even say that this is the Minion id.

This also happens to be my favorite flavor and texture combination — that nice salty crunch, mixed in with pops of sweetness that really bring out the flavor. Minions have a mouthfeel that is closer to Peeps, which allows you to avoid bones. And by the way, if you’d like some Minion Peeps, you’re in luck — here they are!

I’d be remiss not to point out some final branded collaborations that moved me, and made me think, Yes, I’d eat that Minion! In 2017, some of Singapore’s McDonald’s franchise outlets sold Minion-themed menu items. These items were clearly Happy Meal toys. These would be too much for me. A banana pie was also available. There were also special French fries available, made with hash browns and cut to the shape of Minions. It would be a delicious choice, and I could eat any kind of fried potato. While the McDonald’s promotion is over, IHOP is currently serving a Minion-themed menu featuring “banana pudding” waffles, alongside other classic breakfast items like bacon and sausage, which are definitely not made of Minion. Minions aren’t made of real meat. They’re made from animation.

Minions could almost definitely be banana-flavored. However, this makes me conclude that Minion’s flavor can be whatever you like and what you are willing to eat. For me, that probably leans salty and crunchy, though I know that doesn’t seem like the natural choice for the Minion’s svelte form. But I will not let my dreams be dreams — and neither should you. Get a Minion and be the kind of eater that you wish to see around the globe.