The fear of losing ice cream is often a big deterrent for people considering a whole food, plant-based (WFPB) way of eating. A decade ago, back when I first changed my diet, there was no such thing as vegan ice cream, it just didn’t exist. But then I learned about the magic of bananas and it changed my world! Did you know you can make amazing, no, Trimazing ice cream from bananas? It’s true! And while most grocery store freezers are now stocked with vegan ice creams, they’re full of refined ingredients and added fat, not healthy-WFPB things, so we still opt for Nice Cream.

What’s great about Nice Cream is that you can have it pretty much any time you get the craving for it. There’s no running to the store in your pajamas at the last minute, because you’ll have all the ingredients on hand with only a little prep. So let me show you how easy it is to make!

Banana Prep

Overripe bananas are the best for this, making this a great zero waste recipe. I don’t like to eat bananas particularly (though I adore Nice Cream, Banana Boats, and banana chips, weird, I know), but Alan loves them and eats one every morning. However, he doesn’t like them if they get even one brown spot on them, so we can end up with lots of overripe bananas if we’re not careful. But it’s okay because I simply peel and freeze them for Nice Cream another day. You can leave them whole, like I pictured, or slice them. I slice them and freeze on a silicone baking sheet overnight and then remove the frozen chunks to a big glass jar I keep in the freezer. Now you’re prepared for Nice Cream any time!

Making Nice

Now that you have frozen bananas, you can easily make Nice Cream.

Put frozen chunks from four bananas (about 3 heaping cups of chunks) into a blender or food processor with 1/4 cup plant milk of choice and 1 teaspoon of vanilla. Blend! You may need to stop and stir a couple times at first until things start to break down, or, if you have a Vitamix blender, use the tamper to push the frozen bananas down into the blades. Add more plant milk if you need it.

You end up with amazing soft serve Nice Cream! If you want it a bit firmer, scrape into a freezer-safe container and freeze about an hour. If you freeze it overnight, it will get pretty hard to scoop later, so be prepared to set the frozen Nice Cream container on the counter for about 20 minutes so it thaws a bit after longer freezing times.

Add-Ins

So that was the basic Nice Cream recipe. But like Baskin-Robbins, there’s more than one flavor of Nice Cream!

And by the way, did you know that one of the pioneers in modern veganism, John Robbins, was heir to the family Baskin-Robbin fortune but walked away, turning down his ice cream inheritance in favor of plant-based living? Read all about it in this VegNews article and then check out his landmark book, Diet for a New America.

You’re only limited by your imagination for Nice Cream flavors. Add in some ingredients before or after blending the bananas, depending upon how chunky you want the additions. Here’s some combinations we love:

• Strawberry: add frozen strawberries before blending
• Chocolate: cocoa powder, maple syrup or a date before blending, and optional vegan chocolate chips after
• Chunky Monkey: blend with peanut butter and stir in chopped peanuts after blending
• Hawaiian (based upon my old favorite Dairy Queen Blizzard choice): frozen pineapple (I use the cores, they’re the best in this) and coconut before blending
• Green Tea: Blend in matcha tea powder
• Cherries Garcia: add frozen dark cherries and cocoa powder to the blend, and stir in optional vegan chocolate chips
• Sakura (Preserved Cherry Blossom): https://trimazing.com/preserving-cherry-blossoms

Nice Ideas

If you have extra Nice Cream leftover, why not make popsicles for later? I love these Freezycup Stainless Steel Ice Pop Molds from Life Without Plastic and these reusable stainless steel popsicle molds from Amazon. They make it nice and easy to have a quick, healthy snack or dessert any time. I fill them up, write the flavor on the side with a Sharpie, and pop in the freezer til later.

Have some fun with it. Think about what ice cream flavors you’ve usually bought and consider recreating them. Make several flavors, add sliced fruit on top, and make it a sundae!

This Nice Cream is absolutely delicious and I’ve not met anyone yet who didn’t like it. We make it for the grandkids whenever they come over and I don’t think they have any idea that the big sundae glass overflowing with chocolate or strawberry Nice Cream is anything other than regular dairy ice cream! Freeze some bananas today and enjoy a frozen treat tonight!