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If you’ve got ripe bananas and a freezer, you’re halfway to one of the easiest desserts ever: banana nice cream. With just one base recipe, you can create flavors like chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, cookies & cream!
save this recipe!The concept is simple: freeze sweet and nutritious bananas, then blend them up until they form a creamy, dreamy mock ice cream. This naturally sweet, dairy-free treat blends up into a creamy, ice cream-like dessert with zero added sugar (unless you want it).
And for a food lover who studied nutrition and sensory science and wrote , this recipe is basically a unicorn for me – the best of all worlds!
Today, you’ll learn how easy it is to make nice cream, along with ways to customize it with your favorite flavors (like chocolate, vanilla, or strawberry)!
Reader rating
“My husband was very skeptical but we both loved it! Guilt free goodness.” —Connie
Key Ingredients
This is just an overview–jump to the recipe card for measurements and flavor options!
- Bananas: Use ripe, spotty bananas for the best sweetness and smooth texture. Green or underripe bananas make the nice cream bland and pasty in our testing.
- Salt: Even in sweet recipes, a pinch of salt balances and enhances flavor. We tested without it, and it always tasted a little flat.
- Vanilla extract: Adds classic ice cream flavor to the base and works with almost any mix-in.
- Splash of milk: Just enough to loosen the blender. We tested with oat, almond, and dairy milk—all work. Use what you have!
Blending Tip
You can do a few things to get this vegan nice cream blending. Either let the bananas thaw a bit so they’re not rock solid, or add a splash of milk (cow’s or plant-based) until things start moving. Scrape the sides and push the nice cream down into the blades of the blender or food processor until you get a smooth, soft-serve consistency.
using a food processor
Food processors are better for breaking up ingredients, while blenders are better for, well, blending. We highly recommend using a blender to make banana nice cream; otherwise, the banana turns into flakes instead of ice cream.
How To Make Banana Nice Cream (+ Flavor Guide!)
Ingredients
Plain Banana Flavor
- 4 ripe bananas
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- ¼ tsp salt
- Splash of milk as needed, any variety
Strawberry Flavor
- 3 ripe bananas
- 1 cup frozen strawberries
- ¼ tsp salt
- Splash of milk as needed, any variety
Chocolate Flavor
- 4 ripe bananas
- ¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- ¼ tsp salt
- Splash of milk as needed, any variety
Cookies & Cream Flavor
- 4 ripe bananas
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- ¼ tsp salt
- ½ cup roughly crushed Oreo cookies, stir in after blending
Instructions
- Freeze: Peel and chop bananas into chunks. Lay in a single layer on a parchment-lined plate. Freeze until solid (at least 2 hours).
- Blend: Allow bananas to thaw for 5 minutes, then transfer to a blender or food processor. Blend until smooth, scraping down sides and adding a splash of milk as needed.
- Flavor: Add ingredients to make your chosen flavor and continue blending until smooth.For Cookies & Cream Flavor, don't blend in the Oreo cookies. Just stir them in after blending.
- Serve: Serve as is from the blender for a soft serve consistency. For a firmer texture, transfer to a deep dish and freeze for 30 minutes, until firm.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information calculated by Sarah Bond, degreed nutritionist.
did you make this?Leave a comment below and tag @liveeatlearn on social media! I love seeing what you’ve made!
I needed something that felt like a treat but was still healthy (and cheap). Your recipe turned out great! I haven’t tried the “refrozen” style yet, but the softer nice cream right out of the blender was very good, and it worked well as a shake with more milk like your other recipe says.
I used a low-sugar almond milk for this and didn’t run into any problems. Hardest part is finding the freezer room for these trays of bananas LOL.
So happy to hear you liked it, Robbie! My freezer is FULL of bananas, so I know the feeling, haha.
You can just throw your banana discs into a freezer bag. That’s what I do and it works fine.
Hi Sarah,
Just found your website by chance as I’m a heat transplant patient I need to eat healthy food and I love ice cream. As I have an A3500 Vitamix machine I made some mango ice cream using frozen mangos coconut milk dates and a drop of vanilla extract it tasted delish. My only problem is I don’t want to eat the ice cream ( nice Cream ) all at once so I put it in a plastic food saver container should I have taken all the air out of the container would that have stopped my ice cream from freezing solid. What would you recommend to stop my ice cream from being nice and creamy to a solid ice frozen desert?
Because there is no air churned into the nice cream (like with traditional ice cream), this is just going to freeze more solid regardless of how you store it. I like to take it out of the freezer 10 minutes before I want to eat it, then scoop it with a warm spoon. It should soften quite quickly! 😀
Though this wasn’t easy to blend in my Vitamix (it took some generous splashes of milk), it turned out fabulous! I made the mocha version and my family was quite surprised when I told them that it didn’t have any added sugar or cream! Loved that it wasn’t super sweet! Next time I might experiment a little and add chopped walnuts instead of chocolate chips. I look forward to having some for breakfast sometimes.
So happy everyone liked it! It can be a challenge to get it to blend sometimes, but the Vitamix will power through it! 😀
I LOVE this!!! I will be making this all the time@
FYI nice cream is “nice” because it doesn’t use cow’s milk- that’s why it’s nice! 🙂
Hiiya!
How would one travel with this nice cream recipe if I wanted to travel and give it to someone.
Also, in what order would you do this if you were adding passion fruit juice as the base and add bannana and mango? Will this turn out the consistency I am looking at in your recipe 🙂 Just want to be sure!
Thanks a bunch!<3
I would start by blending the frozen banana, then stir or blend in the passion fruit. To travel it’ll just need to be as cold as possible! I’d recommend a freezer pack inside of an insulated bag.
I bet peach would be heavenly. Yum. Gonna give it a try.
I am on a STRICK low Methionine diet no grains, no dairy, no eggs, no legumes, no meat, no fish..no nuts or seeds and no nut milks…etc… I am amazed at how good this is.. I used the banana’s, some frozen strawberries a few splashes of water and vanilla extract it is soooo good!!!
Hi Sweet Sarah! I could be your Grandma!! I have been Diabetes free for 7 years now and am about 80% vegetarian now – God Bless you for this very quick and easy ‘nice cream’ love bananas but will try all kinds of fruits! can’t wait to get all your other recipes 😋
I’m so happy you loved the recipe, Debbie! Enjoy! 😀
I made this. It was bitter. How can this be corrected?
A bit of honey or sugar should balance it out!