This delightfully healthy mint chocolate chip nice cream recipe is naturally gluten free, dairy free, and vegan. And it can be made with just FOUR ingredients!
What is your favorite ice cream flavor?
If you can only choose ONE flavor?
Without even thinking, I’ll tell you mine is—and has always been—mint chocolate chip.
While I do also love plain chocolate, and I did go through this weird phase in elementary school where I’d order black raspberry ice cream with gummy bears (which is so unlike me), mint chocolate chip has withstood the test of time; it’s still the first flavor to always catch my eye.
This healthy mint chocolate “nice” cream is sweet, creamy, nourishing, and incredibly simple – You can make it without an ice cream maker!
Trending Now: Keto Ice Cream
My favorite mint-chocolate combination has made multiple appearances on the blog before – in the Healthy Shamrock Shakes, the Mint Chocolate Fudge Pie, or in the Thin Mint Overnight Oats…
Sometimes I use spinach or avocado to achieve the green hue; other times I will skip the coloring altogether.
For this particular recipe, you can opt to skip it or you can play around with either natural food coloring or a combination of blue and green spirulina until you’ve found the perfect color balance.
Also try this Oat Milk Ice Cream
After making my nice cream a little too dark at first, I decided to add some coconut cream in order to lighten it.
As a happy accident, the coconut cream ended up not only lightening the ice cream to the perfect shade green, it also made the recipe even more delicious than it already was!
Certainly better than black raspberry with gummy bears…
The recipe was adapted from my Banana Ice Cream.
Mint Chocolate Chip Nice Cream
Ingredients
- 2 overripe frozen bananas (For banana-free, try this Almond Milk Ice Cream)
- pinch of salt
- 1/8 tsp pure peppermint extract, or more as desired
- optional pinch spirulina or natural food coloring
- optional 1/2 cup coconut cream or raw cashews for a richer taste
- 2-3 tbsp chocolate chips or sugar free chocolate chips
Instructions
- *Be sure to buy pure peppermint extract, not mint or imitation peppermint. Add more extract for a more powerful mint flavor, adding slowly because a little goes a long way. If using the optional nuts, soak them 6 hrs to soften, then drain completely.Start with bananas that are turning brown. Peel and cut into pieces, then freeze in an airtight bag or container. To make the ice cream, blend all ingredients until completely smooth. You can add the chocolate before or after blending. Serve immediately in a bowl, or transfer to a container and freeze until firm, then scoop out with an ice cream scoop.View Nutrition Facts
Notes
More Healthy Ice Cream Recipes:
Chocolate Peanut Butter Nice Cream
I used half an avocado rather then the coconut cream and to give it both a creamy texture and to make it green, it turned out great.
Pandan makes a beautiful green color in recipes.
We have a Hamilton Beach blender. Does that work? Also, when creating, do you just make the ice cream liquid then blend or freeze before blending? Can you freeze in a Snap-ware container or do you need ice cream trays? Then after blending do you freeze it again and serve? How do you make it so creamy without coconut cream?
I was worried this would be one of the healthy desserts that mostly takes like banana, but the peppermint does a great job of covering it up! All the kids loved it too, definitely going in the family recipe book