Vegan Chocolate Coconut Banana Ice Cream Recipe

Vegan Chocolate Coconut Banana Ice Cream Recipe

Today we are making a Vegan Chocolate Coconut Banana Ice Cream Recipe! If you haven’t heard of one-ingredient banana ice cream, or “nice cream,” as it goes by, this is a great base to make ice cream using one ingredient: frozen bananas. Yup, when you freeze chopped bananas, they get this creamy texture that’s like soft serve when blended (which is perfect as a healthy ice cream if you have a sweet tooth, because bananas have a lot of natural sweetness so there’s no need for a ton of added sugar like traditional ice cream has). Now, it isn’t the same when the bananas are at room temperature, so you’d never guess this was the secret ingredient to make ice cream with one fruit, all vegan, healthy and full of vitamins and minerals!

Plus, you can customize a basic nice cream recipe to make it have whatever flavor combinations you prefer. Want a chocolate ice cream? Add cocoa powder. Want to make it like a Bounty chocolate bar, all chocolate-coconut flavored? Add in some coconut flakes and dark chocolate chunks. Did I give it away?! Well … that’s exactly what we’re doing today!

This vegan chocolate banana ice cream was inspired by the flavors of the popular Bounty chocolate bar, which is a bar coated in chocolate with a chewy coconut filling. Here’s to a treat that’s dairy-free, gluten-free, soy-free, refined sugar-free and peanut-free. It caters to most major dietary restrictions, and is the perfect summer treat to make when you have a load of browning bananas to use up! I love sharing healthy alternatives to popular desserts, and banana ice cream is one of the healthiest ways you can make ice cream – so let’s get into it!

Why You’ll Love This Healthy Chocolate Coconut Banana Ice Cream Recipe

Low Waste: This recipe combats food waste by using up all those leftover, brown bananas you have on the counter, waiting to make some banana bread (which, let’s be honest, are we really going to be making banana bread this week? Possibly. But would it be nice to have some other options for banana recipes? Definitely. And no, you don’t need an ice cream maker). The best part is that you aren’t even supposed to make this recipe with super yellow, fresh bananas.

Instead, you have to wait until they have all those brown spots, not to the point where they’re mushy, but spotty enough that you don’t want to eat them (maybe it’s just me, but spotty bananas are not as appealing as the freshly yellow ones, right?!) When this happens, you peel and chop up the slightly overripe bananas, toss them into a Ziploc and freeze them. Then you have a few sliced bananas, all frozen and ready to go, for this recipe. And no fruit went to waste either!

Substitutions

Frozen Bananas: These make the base of this recipe. I do not recommend to use any other fruit as the base. Raw cashews or almond milk are the base of other dairy-free ice cream recipes, but they would not work as replacements here without changing the proportions of other ingredients and adding in extra sweetener.

For example, almond milk is low in fat and will form ice crystals in the ice cream without other added fat. Usually, store bought ice creams use guar gum as a stabilizer and xanthan gum as a thickener, but with bananas we don’t need any of that!

Raw Cacao Powder: Cacao powder is the raw form of unsweetened cocoa powder, which is commonly used in baking. You can buy cacao powder online, in the natural section of grocery stores or in health food stores to make a fully raw recipe. Alternatively, replace it with regular cocoa powder (which is not fully raw).

Maple Syrup: Use pure maple syrup, with only one ingredient on the label. You can substitute with agave nectar, or even soft Medjool dates. Just make sure the dates are very soft to the touch, and to pit them before using. I don’t recommend to use them unless you have a very high speed blender, because there may be pieces of date chunks floating around the ice cream, which isn’t very fun as they can be hard to break up. However, for a completely raw ice cream, I would recommend to use dates or raw date syrup.

Vanilla Extract: I use a Madagascar, alcohol-free vanilla extract. It has a stronger vanilla flavor versus a cheaper, diluted vanilla. You can also use a freshly scraped vanilla bean for best results (and to keep it completely raw).

Vegan Chocolate Coconut Banana Ice Cream Recipe Notes

• For just a chocolate ice cream recipe, omit the coconut and add in just vegan chocolate chips instead. Note that the recipe won’t be refined sugar-free if using chocolate chips, unless they’re made with a natural sweetener. Most brands are not, but there are some sugar-free chocolate chip brands out there!
• Although using cocoa powder, vanilla extract, maple syrup and chocolate chips are not raw (for those on a fully raw diet), you can substitute these with raw ingredients. Cacao powder, freshly scraped vanilla bean (or omit the vanilla), dates and cacao nibs can be substitutes.

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If you make this Vegan Chocolate Coconut Banana Ice Cream Recipe, then leave a comment and star rating! Don’t forget to tag your photos @peanut_palate on Instagram. Enjoy!