How to Make Iced Coffee with Keurig

There’s nothing quite like an iced coffee on a hot summer’s day. It’s a great treat to order at your local café, but certainly not a cheap one. If you have a Keurig machine at home, you can make Keurig iced coffee on your own for just a fraction of the cost.

Read on for our easy guides.

So, How do you Make Iced Coffee with Keurig?

Making Keurig iced coffee is nice and easy. You just have to keep a few things in mind. But if you follow these steps, you’ll have a delicious iced coffee at home in no time!

Step 1: Set up your machine and prep your cup

You don’t have to do anything different to your machine if you already set it up for regular coffee. Just make sure there is a K-Cup in the compartment, and there is enough water to brew.

Start with your favorite mug or glass. If you want to use a glass, make sure it’s heatproof, or it may shatter with the addition of hot coffee. Fill with coffee or ice cubes, and you’re ready for the next step.

Step 2: Time to brew

When your machine shows that it’s ready to brew, push the button for the smallest cup size. Depending on the device, this will be anything from 4-8 oz. You might be tempted to select a bigger cup size to get more coffee, but this will only add extra water to the mix. If you want a stronger taste or use a taller glass, brew two shots instead of the smallest setting using two K-Cups.

Step 3: Add your cold milk and sugar

Here’s where you add that café touch for the perfect iced coffee. There are no hard and fast rules about what goes in here, whether you want regular old dairy milk or prefer vegan options such as almond milk. Or, of course, you can drink it black, likewise, with the sweetener. Sugar is a classic, but add agave or stevia if that’s what you prefer.

Step 4: Mix it up

Once you’ve perfected the basic Keurig iced coffee, it’s time to try out some variations. Add chocolate syrup instead of sweetener for an iced mocha coffee, or switch it up with caramel syrup (or whatever coffee syrup you like).

Foam some extra milk for the top to create an iced latte, or add a scoop of ice cream for an Australian take on the iced coffee.

Some basics

Iced coffee is often served with milk and sweetener. You can try any brewing method to make an iced coffee. In this case, it’s a Keurig machine, but you could use a French press, pour over, or any espresso maker.

Which coffee should you use?

While you don’t need special coffee to make Keurig iced coffee, some K-Cups are explicitly designed for iced coffee, such as Green Mountain. 

When food or drink is served cold, we don’t taste it, and when it’s served hot (1). The ice in the drink will also dilute the flavor as it melts so that a dark roasted coffee will make up for that. To add to this, Keurig coffee isn’t as strong a brew as other methods.

People might recommend dark roasted beans to get the most full-flavored iced coffee. But don’t let that put you off trying this recipe with your favorite K-Cups – even if they are a lighter roast.

Keurig K-Elite

While you can use any Keurig machine for this Keurig iced coffee recipe, the K-Elite model does have an iced coffee function. Truth be told, there isn’t much difference in how this works, as the coffee is still brewed hot before being added to ice.

This function simply brews a stronger coffee with less water to counteract the dilution caused by the ice (2).

Coffee cubes

If you want to elevate your Keurig iced coffee to a truly full-flavored drink, try using coffee ice cubes instead of regular ice. This means that as the cubes melt, they add more coffee to your drink instead of water that would dilute the taste. 

If you’re not planning to use them immediately, pop them out into a resealable freezer bag to maintain the flavor.

You can take things to the next level by making your coffee cubes from cold brew rather than regular coffee. If you don’t know how to make it, we also have a guide on cold brewing. You’re welcome.

This is particularly useful if you like making iced coffee with a healthy slug of milk. The lower acidity levels in cold brew coffee make it a better match with dairy products (3). The only downside to this is that you’ll have to allow time for both the brewing process as well as freezing.

Final Thoughts

If you have a Keurig at home, this iced Keurig coffee recipe is a great way to get a little more out of your machine. You might not want to swap your daily brew for an iced mocha, but learning how to make a cup of iced coffee at home gives you the opportunity for the occasional sweet treat. 

Try experimenting with different kinds of milk or sweeteners, or see if you can taste the difference between coffee types by drinking it black.