Homemade Vegan Ice Cream
Summers in New York are typically very hot and very sticky. As you walk through the heat you can feel the heavy weightiness of the humidity, and if you do not have air conditioning, you probably experience a kind of misery that only ice can abate. This summer, though, is a whole other story. We’ve had hot and humid days, but overall the weather as been extraordinarily mild and we’ve had a preference for open windows instead of electricity-sucking air conditioners. It’s been fantastic and one of the more tolerable summers during my life on the East Coast.
Even though it has been mild, we still have had a lot of excuses to make ice cream in our new KitchenAid ice cream maker attachment. We’ve tried various flavors so far, and have been very impressed. Below is the base recipe you need for a nice coconut ice cream, and the options are endless to make other flavors.
Note: You can use any ice cream maker for this, but most will require that you freeze the bowl for 12 – 16 hours. Usually what we do is either keep the ice cream bowl in the freezer when we’re not using it (which takes up vital real estate), or we just stick it in the freezer the night before we plan to make ice cream.
Coconut Ice Cream
This makes enough for two people or for four people to each have a small serving. To make more I would suggest using two cans of coconut milk.
- 1 can coconut milk
- 1/3 cup sugar or agave nectar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Blend all ingredients until well combined, then chill for at least an hour. If you are using the Kitchenaid attachment, turn on the mixer to stir, then pour in the ice cream mixture and let it stir for about 15 to 20 minutes or it is at the desired consistency.
You can serve immediately, which will make it more of a soft serve, or stick it in the freezer for a few hours so it will set a little more. We prefer to eat it fresh as we haven’t found a way for it to retain its smooth consistency after it sits in the freezer.
Creamy Vegan Ice Cream
Suggested variations
Peanut Butter Ice Cream
Blend about 3 tablespoons (or more or less to taste) with your other ingredients. If you like chocolate chips, you can add this towards the end of the ice cream maker’s cycle.
Mango Ice Cream (or you can do other fruits like peaches or bananas)
Add in a cup or so of frozen or fresh mango and blend well with your other ingredients. You may want to up your vanilla to 2 teaspoons. Taste test after you blend to make sure it’s exactly the flavor you want.
POM Wonderful
Pomegranate Ice Cream
To make a creamy sorbet, add about a cup of POM Wonderful juice to your other ingredients and blend well. Again – taste test. Other fruit juices or nectars could be used.
Yummy Vegan Ice Cream
Do you make vegan ice cream? If so, what’s your favorite flavor?
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Samantha on 
{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m in love with this simple recipe, thank you! It’s so delish AND cheap! I used lite coconut milk and it came out great. I will be making this probably every weekend this summer, it’s priced right and there are so many variations. Mmmmmm…
Oh that’s great that the lite coconut milk worked! I will have to try that myself, because I think I’ve used only full fat coconut milks. Let us know what flavors you wind up trying. :)
I just found your blog via Berlin’s Whimsy, via Heather Eats Almond Butter. Yeah, a Vegan blogger!
I also just bought a KitchenAid Ice Cream Maker and will try this recipe this weekend! My husband is a big ice cream fan (SoyDelicious or SoyDream), but I’ve been wanting to make our ice creams. I just started to make my own Almond Milk, and will never go back to purchasing store bought again. It’s so good, easy and healthy. I suppose you could use any fresh in this too, ie strawberries, blueberries, etc. Yum! Thank you for the simple recipe and suggestions!
I’m glad you found me! This is such a good recipe and now that it’s warmed up where I live I am about to make some room in my freezer and break out the coconut milk. I think I am going to experiment with sweeteners this summer – I’d love to see if I can have success with something other than agave nectar. Good luck – I’m sure you’ll love it!
Samanta: I live in Fairbanks, AK and it’s finally warmed up here – well May was warm, June rainy and cool. We only have 3 mos of summer, so I’m happy with the warm! I have friends in Seattle who say it’s been cool/wet there, but not warm, yeah!
My husband doesn’t like stevia (took me 2 mos to get used to it!), I wonder if dates would work with vanilla extract? You could also make chocolate ice cream by adding cacao pwd perhaps, though he loves vanilla ice cream the best. I might try the almond milk too as the base or 1/2 and 1/2 with the coconut milk. Sure beats buying the “Decadent” something brand of coconut milk ($5+) pint here at Fred Meyers!
I’ll let you know if I have luck with other sweeteners also.
Marty – I personally am not a huge fan of stevia, although my husband is. I feel like it would give the ice cream an odd flavor. Dates seem like a viable alternative, although they may overpower the flavor of vanilla. I know that they are two flavors that mix well together, but not sure if they would compete in this ice cream.
I love your blog. Bumped into it today and have been reading for almost an hour:) A question – Do we realy need the KitchenAid mixer to make this? I have a blender/ juicer combo but have never tried making ice -cream using it!
Hi Sher – glad you are enjoying my blog! :) You do not need a KitchenAid mixer to make ice cream, but I would recommend that you have some sort of ice cream maker. The reason why is because an ice cream maker will slowly freeze and mix your ice cream at the same time making it freeze evenly and probably make it easier to scoop later. With a blender/juicer you would probably not wind up with ice cream, but more of a liquid. That said, if you start out with frozen ingredients, you may be able to wind up with something that kind of resembles ice cream. Don’t freeze the coconut in the can, though – I don’t think that would work very well for you.
Thanks a lot for your quick response! I guess i will look into buying a cheap ice cream maker then:) Keep up the great work!
I don’t know where to put this but I really like your blog and would like to subscribe and be e-mailed. However, it doesn’t have a way for me to put my e-mail in. Please help. :)
Deborah
Thanks Deborah! At the moment I do not have email notifications set up, but I am still tweaking and (hopefully) improving my blog, so I may add this feature in the near future. In the meantime, I would suggest using an RSS reader (like Google Reader) to access my RSS feed.
this was so simple to make and so good. i put some chocolate sauce on top and it tasted amazing. :)
Coconut ice cream sounds so good!
This sounds fantastic! I can’t wait to have a go at making it.
This looks wonderful!
I don’t do vegan ice cream but I do like to make fruit sorbets. Raspberry sorbet is one of my favorites.
I like to keep my ice cream canister in the freezer where it does take up space but I put bags of frozen veggies in the center to fit more things in the freezer.
this is something I have wanted to try for a long time-using coconut milk for icecream. My husband is lactose intolerant so it’d be perfect but he’s not so much a coconut fan…
My husband isn’t a huge fan of coconut either, but he loves this ice cream. Its creaminess really makes it quite worth the effort. Also, if you use other flavors with it, the coconut flavor does get subdued.