If you’re on a diet:
You will love this recipe because it makes a gigantic serving for only 40 calories. (Seriously, the serving is huge.) Who eats a 1/2 cup serving of ice cream anyways? 😕
If you’re not on a diet:
You will love this recipe because you can up the calories by making it into a brownie sundae, by pouring on chocolate syrup, or by opting for the peanut butter version. Yes, there is a peanut butter version.
Above: a sundae with a Chocolate Workout Brownie.
Highly recommend those brownies. As for the ice cream: it could not be easier to make, and there are unlimited variations—you can add coffee, mint extract, fruit, chocolate chips… I haven’t even begun to try out all the combinations I’ve dreamed up for this incredibly versatile recipe.
Volume Ice Cream
(Makes 1 huge serving)
- 1/4 tsp pure vanilla extract (or about 1/4 of a vanilla bean, sliced lengthwise and scraped out)
- 1/16 tsp salt (trust me)
- sweetener (such as 1-2 stevia packets or 1-2 tbsp sugar)
- 1 cup almond milk (I used unsweetened Silk. See below for substitution notes.)
- optional: add-ins such as fruit, peanut butter, or extracts
Mix the ingredients together in 1 or 2 shallow plastic containers. Freeze. (You could also use an ice cube tray.) Once frozen, pop the blocks out of the container (I thaw for 30 seconds in the microwave first) and blend in your Vita-Mix. (If you don’t have a vita-mix, you’ll probably have to thaw longer, but you can still get a yummy ice milk.)
This ice cream—when made with almond milk—has a very light texture (perfect for summer). For a creamier texture that’s more like real ice cream, try using at least 1/4c canned coconut milk (or maybe even creamer?). You can, of course, also sub other non-dairy milks for the almond. But if you do this, play around with the amount of vanilla extract, sweetener, and add-ins. (For example, an already-sweetened milk will probably need less added sweetener.) To make it look like real ice cream, scoop out with an ice-cream scoop.
Warning:
This is an extremely voluminous recipe, so if you’re like me and need to watch that you don’t get full before you’ve taken in enough calories, I recommend eating this as part of a sundae or adding some extras to the basic recipe. ‘Cause it will fill you right up!
Recipe of The Day:
Deep Dish Cookie Pie (Vegan, GF)
Thank you so much for this recipe. This was amazingly good and I am so happy to be eating vanilla ice cream again!! I added some chopped strawberries and made a sundae it was yummy!
Do you HAVE to use almond milk? or can you just use 1% lowfat milk? and what kind of effect will this have on the calories?
I’m sure other milks will work, but I’ve only personally tried the ones I listed.
Hi Katie,
I love this ice cream, but whenever I make it, it comes out in little chips of ice instead of creamy like yours. I followed the recipe (I even used my Vitamix). Am I doing something wrong?
-Carson
Hmmm… that’s weird! Chips? I have no idea. You’re not halving the recipe, are you?
No. It’s a little bit like the consistency of a slushie
So, I made this ice cream last night.
Yeah.
Can I just say it was absolutely a-mazing? Thanks so much for creating all of these healthy desserts! I feel better when I know that something that I love to eat is healthy. Commence experimentation with flavours!
And just as a side note – it’s probably coming out in little ice chips because you aren’t blending long enough. The first time I made it, that happened to me too and I was rather disappointed (I was using an immersion blender, which I assume is not as powerful as a VitaMix). Then last night I blended it really well until the ice cream was super smooth, then refroze it for a few minutes. The texture was perfect.
Oh WOW I am writing this right now with a huge ice cream headache and a biiig smile on my face! I changed it however to be reeally creamy with no extra fat… I first blended about 1/4 cup more almond milk with 1 tsp xanthan gum (could use guar gum too) in the vitamix until it got thick and then added the frozen cubes as you had outlined…. it turned out creamy and so much more like ice cream than ice milk! Yumm!
Oh and on a side note for Katie, I LOVE your site, love the concept, the consistency in writing new blogs and you seem like such a cool, down to earth person… keep up the great work!! 🙂
Aw Suzanne, thank you so much! 🙂
What Vitamix do you use?
I have a really old one… I think it’s like 7 years old. Still works great, thoough ;). 5200, I think.
I tired to make this and put it in a small pyrex dish and froze. Then I thawed enough to get it out of the dish and into my blender. I don’t have a Vitamix but I thought I might still be able to make it work. It was a failure! =0) I hope to try this again for sure. Do you think if I got ice cube trays it would work better? Any tips or do I really need a Vitamix?
Thanks!!
Unfortunately, as it says in the recipe, you need a vitamix for ice cream.
Or an ice cream maker!
Hi, love your recipes. I saw this in your recipe notes ‘see the “ice cream trick” link at the very bottom of this post’, but I don’t see the link. I wouldn’t want to miss one morsel of your creativity. Thanks, Deb
Hmmm… thanks for letting me know! It’s just basically this: Make a bigger serving, because it’ll yield a smoother result. And use an ice cream scoop to take it out, so it gets the shape of ice cream :).
I’m wondering if you could freeze some unsweet almond milk or whatever kind of milk you want to use in this in ice cube trays and take 3-4 of them out of the tray after frozen and whiz in the blender when you want the ice cream and that way you wouldn’t have to freeze it. It might would be sorta like a slush to drink but good and cold anyway. 😉 I know I make a shake that is suppose to be a shake that is like this but it’s so thick I have to eat it with a spoon and it’s nice and creamy. Just an idea. I keep a gallon ziplock bag of ice cube almond milks.
I bet you could! That’s a genius idea… I’ll definitely have to try it, as it sounds much easier than the way I have it written for this recipe. If you use a vita-mix, I don’t see why it wouldn’t still yield ice cream texture. Thanks for sharing :).