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Hi Bold Bakers!
WHAT YOU GET: A creamy, healthful, delightfully sweet, and tangy “ice cream” for breakfast that’s great for a guilt-free treat or to get a hot summer day started.
Ice cream? For breakfast? While it does sound like something the kids would suggest (we actually started calling it Breakfast Ice Cream to get my 2-year-old George to be excited about it), this easy-to-make treat is made with just a few healthy ingredients. And, no ice cream machine is needed for this homemade, dairy-free banana and strawberry ice cream!
Frozen bananas and avocado make a healthy, naturally sweet, creamy base that perfectly complements tangy summer strawberries. The only other added ingredients are just a bit of vanilla extract and a touch of sweet honey. After a quick trip in the food processor, you have guilt-free vegetarian ice cream.
Give this breakfast ice cream a whirl! Don’t be afraid to experiment with other fruits throughout the summer — and please make sure you let me know all those delicious recipes you come up with.
What Is “Breakfast Ice Cream?”
Breakfast ice cream, sometimes called “nice cream,” is a fruit-based, creamy frozen dessert. Most nice creams get their creaminess from sending frozen bananas through a food processor, but I also add avocado to my homemade nice cream, making the texture almost like soft-serve after blending!
Alongside the frozen bananas, I add frozen strawberries to the mix. The banana and avocado go perfectly with the tanginess of the strawberries.
What Type Of Fruit Should I Use In “Nice Cream?”
For the base, I highly recommend using ripe bananas — ones that may have been sitting on your counter for a few days and have become spotty. I find unripe bananas that are still yellow or green don’t quite get the right texture I’m looking for when I want a creamy cool snack.
As for the strawberries, this is a great recipe to use up some that have been sitting in your fridge too! If you’ve got some strawberries that aren’t as ideal for eating right out of the case, toss them in the freezer and add them to the food processor. You can also use frozen strawberries straight from the grocery stores’ freezer for this recipe.
Is “Nice Cream” Dairy-Free? Making Breakfast Ice Cream Vegan
My breakfast ice cream is dairy-free, vegetarian, and gluten-free. My recipe does call for a bit of honey, which means this recipe is not vegan. However, if you swap the honey for agave nectar or maple syrup, you can make vegan ice cream.
What You Need To Make Banana Strawberry Breakfast Ice Cream
- Measuring cups and spoons
- Food processor
Gemma’s Pro Chef Tips For Making Banana Strawberry Nice Cream
- If your strawberries are not very sweet, you might want to add a little more honey.
- Because of the lack of cream, sugar, and aeration, this will freeze very hard. It is best to make it just before you want to serve it. But the unblended frozen fruit can be stored in a ziplock bag after freezing for up to 2 months.
- You can blend all of this up before freezing and pour it into popsicle molds to make healthy popsicles.
- If you don’t have access to avocados, add in an extra banana.
Try These Recipes!
Watch The Recipe Video!
Banana & Strawberry Ice Cream For Breakfast (Nice Cream Recipe)
Ingredients
- 2 cups sliced bananas (about 2; 10 oz/284 g total)
- 1 ½ cups (7 ½ oz/214 g) strawberries (quartered)
- 1 medium avocado (peeled, pitted, and diced)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 teaspoons honey
Instructions
- Line a small baking sheet with parchment paper and spread the bananas and strawberries on it in a single layer. Freeze until solid, about 2 hours.
- Place the frozen fruit along with the avocado in a food processor and blend until smooth. Stop and stir with a spatula if the fruit is clumping up.
- When almost done drizzle in the extract and honey.
- Once completely smooth, scoop and serve immediately or freeze for up to 4 weeks. Allow the ice cream to sit at room temperature for 15 minutes before scooping as it can tend to be hard straight from the freezer.
My new favourite variation on this is to use sweet cherries halved, stoned and frozen as the main fruit and almond extract instead of vanilla. It gives it a more grown up flavour. I avoid buying pre-frozen cherries in case there are stones lurking!
Made this for the first time today. I was skeptical at first because of the avocado. I have to admit it was delicious! I will definitely be making this again and trying it with many other fruits in place of the strawberries.
Can your substitute something else besides avocado because my daughter is allergic to it?
My freezer is too small to hold a big tray for open freezing sliced fruit, but I have found that a smaller tray is fine as long as I layer the fruit between non stick paper.
Genius! I have made this twice, once strawberry, once with pre frozen blueberries. Planning to try apricot and pineapple next. I now have ripe bananas permanently available in my freezer so I can whip up ice cream in minutes. TIP – freeze whole to save space, they slice fine from frozen. I am OK with dairy, so use creme fraiche instead of avocado.
Hello, any suggestions for substitute for the banana as I am allergic to them?
This’s awesome, I’ll try it soon.
Heyy Gemma
Do you think that mangoes could work instead of strawberries?
I don’t have a food processor just a hand held blender can this work to make ice cream
Could I use maple syrup instead of honey?