Neapolitan is a kind of ice cream, or more precisely, of ice cream packaging: a third of the box (or tub, bar, etc.) is strawberry, a third is chocolate, and a third is vanilla. There can be other combinations (eg. banana/vanilla/chocolate or caramel/vanilla/chocolate), but these are the most common. On different lists, it is listed as the third or fifth favorite ice cream flavor in the United States. Neil Armstrong ate some in space in July 1969.

Neapolitan ice cream is so called because it is a variant on spumoni, a three-flavoured (usually cherry, chocolate, and pistachio) ice cream originally made in Naples. Spumoni was introduced to the United States in the 1890s. [1]

The expression "Neapolitan ice cream" has been used as a metaphor for sexual preference; see vanilla sex for more.