Nice Cream Recipe with Coconut Milk (Dairy Free) + Video | Cotter Crunch (2024)

This nice cream recipe is one of our favorite dairy free desserts! A creamy, tropical banana and coconut milk ice cream to make in your blender! Make this vegan ice cream recipe for a cool treat any time of the year. Paleo, dairy free and Whole30 friendly, too.

Let’s recap the week shall we? It’s hot. 104F in Utah! And when the heat is blazing outside, refreshing cold drinks (like this limeade) and frozen desserts are must-haves to help cool you down.

A tall glass of turmeric lemonade hits the spot in the morning. When afternoon rolls around, I usually crave a coldFrozen Grape Dairy Free Smoothie

But for me, go-to summertime DESSERT or afternoon “chill out” treat is a gluten free, dairy free frozen dessert.

Which is why I am posting this oh so creamy and dreamy nice cream recipe today. Yes, I’m nice. Haha, get it? Corny Cotter moment.

WHAT IS NICE CREAM, ANYWAY?

When it first hit the foodie scene, nice cream was the name for a soft serve frozen dessert with just ONE base ingredient; frozen bananas. That’s it – nothing else.

The bananas were blended until they became creamy, like soft serve ice cream. But because the frozen dessert is gluten-free dairy-free and sugar-free, it became known as nice cream!

The name is very appropriate, because a healthy frozen dessert is very nice indeed. Actually, this banana nice cream recipe is healthier than a dairy-based ice cream.

It’s lower in sugar and uses coconut milk, which as we know, is mucho healthy.

Anyway, over time, creative foodies used other frozen fruits with the bananas, creating new flavor combinations. So these days, the name represents any vegan, sugar-free frozen dessert made with frozen fruit.

So, get your blender out, we must get to it. Blend it up, y’all; soft serve for days!

Tropical Banana coconut milk nice cream recipe

This creamy frozen dessert will make you smile. It’s similar to my recipe for extra creamy fruit sweetened no-churn ice cream, but without the cream. So it’s dairy free and vegan. Plus, I have a recipe option to make it paleo and Whole30 compliant.

INGREDIENT NOTES and SUBSTITUTIONS

• Frozen bananas– You’ll want the bananas to be as frozen as possible, and the riper they are the sweeter your dessert will be. Be sure to peel them before freezing.
• mango– We’re going for a tropical flavor, so mango is my frozen fruit of choice. Pineapple is a good substitute.
• coconut milk– For the thickest and creamiest vegan ice cream, be sure to use FULL FAT coconut milk.

Those three ingredients will create the dessert. But, if you want to add toppings to your nice cream, go for it! Here’s what I top mine with:

• coconut flakes– For a nuttier taste, you can toast the coconut flakes
• maple syrup– If your bananas aren’t super ripe (or even if they ARE), you may want to add a drizzle of maple syrup on top for extra sweetness.
• coconut whipped cream. Yes, it’s optional, but seriously, it makes this soft serve extra EPIC!

If you decide to make the coconut whipped cream, you’ll want to freeze that after whipping, too. Just so it takes shape like an ice cream scoop.

HOW TO MAKE CREAMY VEGAN ICE CREAM

Now, here’s my other trick. This trick is help make the banana nice cream extra creamy.

Super easy KITCHEN HACK!

First, you need to freeze the fruit pieces in coconut milk, and the easiest way to do that is in an ICE CUBE TRAY! You’re making creamy fruit ice cubes.

Having all of the ingredients frozen when you blend them results in extra creamy banana nice cream.

HOW TO MAKE IT

Seriously, this recipe doesn’t get any easier.

1. Chop the fruit and make the coconut milk ice cubes.Because it can take a few hours for the ice cubes to freeze, you may want to make these ahead of time.
2. Add ingredients to a high speed blender.It’s going to take about 5 minutes of blending to create a creamy soft serve consistency. Be patient. If it looks like the nice cream is getting stuck on the blades of the blender, you can use a spatula to clean down the inside walls of the blender. This will help everything to combine.

3. Enjoy it as soft serve right away, or freeze the nice cream for an hour. As a result, you’ll have more of an ice cream consistency.

4. Scoop into bowls or a cone and ENJOY!

Allow me to demonstrate how to make this nice cream recipe ya’ll.

How to make coconut milk ice cream video (1 minute)

Yes, making the vegan ice cream recipe is quite simple, but also a great way to use up any leftover fruit, cream/milk, from other recipes.

You can sweeten it if you like or keep it simple without the maple syrup. That way, it’s Paleo and Whole30 approved.

To lower calories and fat, use unsweetened coconut drinking milk or almond milk.

FLAVOR OPTIONS

The coconut milk ice cube varieties are endless. Instead of mango or pineapple, consider using any frozen fruit, one of these ideas, or one of your own.

• berries
• chocolate
• pumpkin puree
• ground spices
• nut butter or sunflower butter (like I did with my peanut butter superfood bowls)

Print

Cheers to the last days of summer, no churn cool treats, and the official start of the fall season.

Get ready to replace the watermelonand mango with all things pumpkin ya’ll!

Clearly I had an obsession with mango recipes this summer, can you tell? 😉

What’s your favorite flavor of ice cream? Use the comments to tell me what you love!

Also, do you think you’ll make this nice cream recipe?

Cheers,

MORE WHOLE 30 APPROVED RECIPES HERE!

This recipe is part ofour Easy Whole 30 Approved Recipes collection. Check it out!