How to Make Your Own Vegan Ice-Cream (simple!)

Rainbow Nourishments

Homemade vegan ice cream is pretty easy (easier if you buy an ice-cream maker, to save having to keep returning to the freezer, to churn the mix). Just mix your ingredients, pour into the chilled bowl, turn it on and in 20 minutes, you have homemade ice cream!

Homemade ice cream only lasts a few weeks in the freezer, but tastes much nicer and you can vary up the flavours beyond vanilla, strawberry and chocolate!

A simple fruity ice-cream like above is nice, just interchange the ingredients (raspberry, peach, blueberry, whatever’s in season).

Avoid caffeine (chocolate, coffee ice-creams) for pregnancy/nursing. Keep ice-cream away from pets (due to cocoa, nuts, salt, dried fruits). Read more on food safety for people and pets.

Homemade Vegan Mint Choc Chip Ice Cream

This vegan mint choc chip ice cream (Rainbow Nourishments) is a plant-based version of one of England’s favourite flavours. This 4-ingredient recipe does not even need an ice-cream maker. It uses coconut cream, vegan chocolate, vegan condensed milk and fresh mint (or peppermint extract).

Optional ingredients are salt and vanilla extract, but Anthea says these will make the ice-cream easier to freeze (choose real vanilla extract, some ‘fake’ vanilla is made with castoreum from beavers – also tastes vile).

You can even whizz in a few spinach leaves (check medication, due to vitamin K) to sneak in some vitamins! To make it really green, you’d need to use a vegan food dye (the one of choice for ‘green’ is usually a little matcha.

This 2-ingredient vegan chocolate ice cream (Rainbow Nourishments) just needs a hand or stand-mixer. Use full-fat plant milks or cream for better texture. Low-fat options often freeze harder and less creamy.

Add small amounts of alcohol (like a splash of rum or vodka) to the mix to keep the ice cream softer if you want a scoopable texture straight from the freezer. Obviously for adults only!

Why Choose Vegan Ice Cream?

Chantal Kaufmann

Choosing vegan ice cream means you’re skipping the dairy farms where animals often face tough conditions. Cows on dairy farms spend much of their lives in confined spaces and are separated from their calves early on. And male calves are still shot dead, as they are of no financial value in the dairy industry. Or turned into veal.

Vegan ice-cream is free from cholesterol and lactose, and easier to digest. The ‘fats’ are good fats like nuts, which also give protein and calcium. Making vegan ice cream typically uses fewer resources like water and land compared to dairy farming.

Vegan Ice Cream Recipes (from Munich, Germany)

The Vegan Ice Cream Bible offers recipes by a woman who uses fresh, seasonal and organic ingredients, to sell in her own vegan ice-cream parlour!

Matching base recipes with ideal flavour pairings, the recipes are divided by season, to make the most of natural affordable ingredients. Recipes include:

Black Forest (cherry chocolate)
White Coffee, Earl Grey & Orange
Coconut & Lime
Salted Pretzel & Caramel
Turmeric Latte
Walnut & Maple Syrup
Plus sorbet recipes

Author Lucy Allary is the founder of a plant-based ice-cream shop in Munich, Germany. Interestingly, she has a take on why to eat vegan ice-cream that is often not mentioned.

She says that cows are fellow females, so she doesn’t want to take their calves away from them, to drink their milk.

Booja Booja (vegan ice cream from Norfolk)

Most supermarket own-brand vegan ice-creams are not that nice, and very expensive. Actually, all good vegan ice-cream is expensive, so if you treat yourself, then get a good one!

Booja Booja is not sold in supermarkets, so find it in local health stores or farm shops. It’s made with a just a few (mostly organic, including nuts) ingredients, and packed in cardboard boxes that are easy to recycle.

This is really nice ice-cream! You’ll think you could finish the whole tub, but the rich ingredients means it actually fills you up quite quickly, so enjoy it with fruit coulis, or a few scoops in a bowl. Or use the vanilla version to serve with home-made apple crumbles etc.