How to Make Healthy Ice Cream

“Ice cream” and “healthy” are two words that do not generally go together well, and this is mostly due to the fact that ice cream is generally made using heavy cream as the base ingredient, which is packed full of saturated fat and carbohydrates.

However, it’s easy to use healthy ingredients to take care of all the other basic requirements of an ice cream recipe. So, the primary conflict in making healthy ice cream is to find a substitute for the heavy cream that maintains the same, or at least a very similar, flavor and texture. The good news is, there are actually several ways to do this.

But first, let’s start with a basic recipe for making ice cream. I’m going to use a variant of the popular “5 Minute Ice Cream” recipe, which is one of the biggest regular hits on sites like Instructables, HowStuffWorks, and LifeHacker (here’s a link to the Instructables version off of which this is based.)

From the market you’ll need a bag of frozen fruit of your choice. Blueberries, strawberries and raspberries are all good, affordable choices.

The next issue is the sugar. You only need 1/2 a cup, but you need to be careful what kind you use. The best choice is dried sugar cane juice, which you aren’t likely to find at the local chain grocery. You’ll probably have to go to a natural foods or health foods store, or if you have any sort of Latin markets nearby, they may sell it in a form called “panela” which looks like a big block of some sort of brownish cinnamon candy. The reason for using dried sugarcane juice is that it is the only form of sugar that retains significant amounts of the original nutrients from the sugarcane plant. White sugar, and all other processed sugars, have the nutrients bleached out of them during the refining and bleaching process, and to metabolize them your body has to leech nutrients already on hand. If it isn’t in a granulated form, such as with panela, you may also need to use a fine grater on it to get it down to very small granules (or, if you have a strong enough blender or food processor, you might be able to cut it down that way.)

Next up is 2/3 of a cup of substitute for heavy cream. You have a few options here. Perhaps the simplest is to mix half a cup of cottage or ricotta cheese (preferably a low-fat variety) with a half a cup of vanilla yogurt (try to get a brand that is naturally flavored without fructose corn syrup.) Mix and blend these separately and let stand for at least an hour, then refrigerate for at least a few hours prior to use. Another possible substitute is Greek yogurt, which is basically just regular plain yogurt with more whole milk blended in. While not 100% healthy this is still far better for you than heavy/whipping cream. If you don’t have a local store that carries it, a pretty good recipe can be found by following this link.

The final ingredient is one tablespoon of vanilla. If you want to increase the thickness/creaminess while adding a bit more nutritional value, consider adding a sliced banana, although you may also need to adjust the ingredient amounts a bit to accommodate it.

All of this stuff is simply dumped in the food processor or blender – if you have multiple settings try the Chop setting first for best texture. The resulting blend can then be eaten on the spot, or you can freeze it for a bit to improve the firmness of the texture and cool it down to a more traditional ice cream like level.

I’ve tried this now using both the cottage cheese mixture and Greek yogurt, and while the end result doesn’t taste quite like the kind of ice cream you are used to getting in the carton at the supermarket, it is mildly sweet and pleasant and the texture is a close enough match to be satisfying. Give it a try as the hot months approach!