Desserts are fun! Ice cream is fun! And banana-sweetened ice cream is really fun! It uses the natural sweetness of bananas for a sugar-free treat that is healthy and delicious.
Fun Fruit Flavours
The banana in this ice cream is mostly to provide a natural sweetness. The recipe includes 1 cup of chopped fresh fruit to provide the flavor. It’s perfect for all sorts of different fruit flavors. Here are a few of my favorite combinations.
- Simply banana: Don’t add any extra fruit for a straight up banana ice cream. Banana ice cream is delicious, vanilla-like option. We use it as a base for other toppings. Looking for a healthy sundae option? Try banana ice cream with peanuts and date-sweetened caramel sauce.
- Orange vanilla: Use the zest and juice from 1 orange for an orange creamsicle flavour.
- Strawberry cream: Add 1 cup of fresh ripe strawberries. (In the photo above).
- Peaches and cream: Add 1 cup of ripe, juicy peaches.
- Blueberry pie: Add 1 cup of blueberries. (In the photo below).
A Probiotic Treat!
Why not turn your banana-sweetened ice cream into a probiotic treat? It’s so easy to culture whipping cream that this recipe is a perfect way to get a dose of probiotics. The tartness of cultured dairy is balanced by the natural sweetness of fruit, and freezing won’t harm the probiotic culture. The easiest way to culture whipping cream is with a room temperature culture. Simply add the culture to your whipping cream, and leave it for 6-24 hours, depending on how sour you want it.
Here are a few room temperature (mesophilic) dairy cultures that you could use to make probiotic whipping cream:
Banana-Sweetened Ice Cream
Ice cream doesn’t have to be an unhealthy indulgence. This recipe for banana-sweetened ice cream is refined sugar-free and delicious! Flavor it with blueberry, strawberry, orange, or peach for a healthy summer treat.
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 20 minutes
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 3 cups 1x
- Category: Desserts
- Cuisine: healthy
- Diet: Gluten Free
Ingredients
- 3 ripe bananas
- 1 cup of chopped fresh fruit (see section above for suggestions)
- 2 cups of whipping cream
- 2 Tbsp vanilla extract
- 1 pinch of salt
Instructions
- The bananas provide all the sweetness in this ice cream, so be sure to use really ripe ones. Place all the fruit in a blender and pulse until it is chopped. Add in the rest of the ingredients and blend until smooth. (The whipping cream will start to whip, but that’s fine.)
- Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes so the ingredients are cold.
- Follow the instructions on your ice cream maker to churn your ice cream.
- Transfer to an air-tight container and freeze for at least 2 hours before serving.
Notes
- This recipe is for a 1.4L ice cream machine. I own this ice cream maker
(affiliate link) and I love it.
- Sugar plays a pretty important role in making ice cream soft enough to serve. Allow this ice cream to thaw for 20 minutes before scooping. You can also turn it into ice cream sandwiches, creamsicles, or individual frozen treats. Check out my vegan banana-sweetened ice cream post for more details.
Keywords: probiotic, healthy, sugar free, fruit, orange, blueberry, strawberry, peach, summer, treat,
Made this tonight. I added 3 Tbsp of cacao powder, 1 Tbsp of Cacao liqueur, and 2 Tbsp of homemade peanut butter. I forgot to add the pinch of salt. It had a nice tangy flavour from the cultured cream – maybe just tangy enough for my husband to leave the leftovers for me and my son. 🙂 It didn’t freeze that much in the ice cream maker but we still couldn’t resist trying it before putting it in the freezer to freeze properly. I’m hoping that the texture is still nice tomorrow after it has frozen for 24 hours.
★★★★★
What a delicious flavour combination. The texture and firmness really depends on what you’ve put into it. The peanut butter should help keep it soft. Thanks for rating the recipe!
You do realise bananas have sugar in them right? They’re about 12% sugar (more than coke), so this recipe contains 30–60g of sugar depending on the size of the bananas, not including the 10g ish of sugar from the cup of fruits. Doesn’t really make sense to call it “sugar free.” it’s the same principle as when advertisers say “no added sugar” and the first ingredient is apple juice.
Hi Jon,
Generally, recipes for ice cream or baked goods contain sugar as an ingredient. So sugar-free refers to the fact that there isn’t any added sweetener in the recipe. However, I do understand your concern about sugar-free labelling. Fruit juice is used as a sweetener. So a fruit juice-sweetened cereal is made with juice that has been boiled down to a concentrated sugar, just like sugar cane juice is boiled down to make sugar.
The sugar in bananas is a combination of fructose and glucose that is coupled with a big dose of resistant starch. This is why bananas are actually low GI. So a spoonful of this ice cream won’t give you a sugar rush!
Be well, Emillie