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MEET THE KROCKS: We are a married couple who started on a life-changing whole food, plant-based weight loss journey in June 2018. To date, we have lost over 250 pounds combined and we aren’t done yet! Read Our Story
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I love my sweets and anything with chocolate is at the top of my list! When we started on this whole food, plant-based (WFPB) journey, I thought I’d be giving all of that up, but this recipe proved me wrong!
I’d heard about people making “nice” cream using blended up bananas instead of your traditional milk/cream base, but I had never tested it out.
At the beginning of our journey, we had a decent mid-range blender. It wasn’t super high speed, but it performed the basic blending tasks we needed up to that point. I made some banana “nice” cream with it and I was NOT impressed. I had to add a lot of extra liquid, so it was never thick and creamy. No matter how much I blended, it didn’t “taste just like ice cream” like I was promised. Even when I added cocoa powder or other fruits, it still tasted overwhelmingly of banana.
A few months later, we decided to invest in a Vitamix (Ascent Series A2500) and I couldn’t wait to test out more banana “nice” cream. I was blown away at the difference a good high speed blender made! It turns out SO thick and creamy and all of the “banana film” goes away. This was a game changer for me.
The best part is you only need THREE ingredients! It took me several tries to get the balance of ingredients JUST right – but I think I finally got it. The other day I had a sample of some Halo Top vegan ice cream, and honestly, I would have preferred to just eat my chocolate banana “nice” cream! I’d even pick it over “regular” ice cream! It’s that good.
You know I love meal prep and batch cooking. This is the perfect recipe for that! Before we switched to WFPB, I had actually experimented with making my own low calorie ice cream. To try and keep my portions under control, I bought 12 of these amazing Tovolo 6 ounce “mini sweet treat” ice cream tubs. They are adorable and PERFECT for this recipe. I was so excited to get use out of them again! I find that the amount of “nice” cream you get from one banana fits perfectly inside one of the 6 ounce containers.
Check out the recipe below and let us know if you try it out!
Three Ingredient Chocolate Banana Nice Cream
by Krocks In The Kitchen
Ingredients
- – 6 frozen ripe bananas (broken into 2-3 inch chunks)*
- – 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa or cacao powder
- – 1/2 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk (or plant milk of choice)
Directions
- Measure out your cocoa or cacao powder into the blender first. Then add your almond milk and finally, frozen bananas, breaking up the banana chunks as you go.
- If you do not have a high speed blender like a Vitamix or Blendtec, I would recommend trying a food processor. If you use a regular blender, you will likely have to add a lot of extra almond milk to make it blend. By the time you add enough almond milk, you’ll end up with chocolate banana soup!
- If your blender comes with a tamper, you will want to use that while blending. Turn your blender on low speed and increase until you are blending at the highest speed. It is best to have two people so one of you can control the speed and the other can concentrate on the tamper!
- Using the tamper, push down towards all four corners of the blender cup and keep repeating. You have to move pretty fast and keep hitting all of the corners to get everything blending smoothly. This will take some practice, but I promise it gets easier over time!
- Keep blending until smooth and there are no chunks of banana left. It usually takes about 1 minute in my Vitamix.
- After you turn the blender off, transfer the “nice” cream to a large bowl. Give it a mix and make sure all of the cocoa powder is incorporated.
- Quickly transfer into your freezer safe container(s). You want to move quick so it doesn’t thaw out. This will keep the consistency creamy since it doesn’t thaw and re-freeze as much.
Enjoy!
Makes 6 servings.
*See recipe notes & tips below for more info.
Recipe notes and tips:
The bananas can be as ripe as you want – the riper they are, the sweeter your “nice” cream will be. I usually wait until they at least have spots on the peel before I freeze.
Your bananas should be frozen for at least 24 hours before you make this recipe. To freeze, peel your ripe bananas and break or cut into 2-3 inch pieces. I store them in a 1 quart Ziploc Freezer bag, which also allows me to make sure I’m using close to the same amount of banana each time I make this recipe. Each bag usually just barely fits six average sized bananas, so I just stuff the quart size bag until no more bananas can fit :)!
I love the 6 oz Tovolo containers, but you can store in any freezer safe containers. I recommend portioning it out into smaller containers if possible. If you store all of it in one container, you’ll have to let it thaw and soften for a few minutes each time you want to scoop out a portion.
Practice makes perfect when using the Vitamix tamper! Try to quickly push down towards all four corners of the blending cup and keep repeating. This will make sure everything stays moving and you don’t overheat your blender. I learned this nifty technique from a demonstration video featuring a chef from Vitamix HQ – check it out here!
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Made this today. Soooo yummy!!!! Thank you!
Awesome! I am going to try making it and putting it into a Popsicle mold this week!
Another successful recipe! I was a hero when my partner came home and discovered chocolate ‘nice’ cream! Just delicious, keep up the good work, guys!
Glad you liked it! This is one of my favorites 😀
Only one dessert recipe on your website? And in only one flavour? Any other dessert recipes?
We will work on some more! 🙂
I love making ‘nice cream’ too! Recently I added a small bit (maybe 1/4 cup) of baked hannah yam potato (I know another way to eat some potato – but Hannah’s are soooo good)! to my nice cream . . . no added nut milk….it was so smooth and creamy and delicious. I use my small ninja food processor that has double blades, works well for me. I only make the serving I am going to eat at a time. ..cherry is another delicious flavor – after chocolate of course.
Good ideas! I would have never thought to add that! I have tried cherry but I just love chocolate so much I keep going back to it 🙂
what is hannah yam? never heard of it.
It is a white sweet potato…light beige skin, creamy white flesh. They can be bought at Whole Foods stores or ordered on line. At a recent stop at a local grocery near me, I was really surprised to see them on the shelf there. A bit pricey but a very tasty potato.
Just made some! I could taste the bananas so I added more cocoa powder and a tsp or two of imitation vanilla. It tastes great! Thank you for posting this. 🙂
I can never taste the bananas but Brian always can no matter how much cocoa powder I add! LOL 🙂
Put frozen cherries in, or mangos, or strawberries along with bananas and chocolate. It is delicious
This is delicious and so easy. I love the containers. I may have to buy a couple more sets so I can always have my freezer stocked with Nice Cream.
This is so nice – I made it last night and added some walnuts and unhulled tahini for bonus omegas and calcium. Which, yep, that would bump up the caloric content via plant fats, but I’m looking to increase those nutrients in my diet and this was a very nice way to do it. I had it with some frozen blueberries. Nom! It was equally as nice as the vegan chocolate ice cream thing I’d had the previous night and more satisfying knowing it was delicious *and* good for me with basically no sugar outside the fruit 🙂
I made this yesterday and froze it right away bought the same cups you used. I checked it today and it’s frozen rock hard, not creamy anymore. Is this normal? Thanks for all the great recipes. Love your site:)
You may have to let it sit out a bit before enjoying. The faster you transfer to the containers and get into the freezer without letting it melt at all, the more creamy it will remain. Also, the less almond milk you use, it will be creamier. I actually make this with just two ingredients (frozen bananas and cocoa powder) all the time – but it takes a little more muscle and control of the Vitamix!
I have made this twice for my husband. He is addicted to ice cream and I am going plant based and thought why not try this on him. OMG he absolutely loved it. I think I have a real chance of getting him off dairy. He told me it is as good if not better than the soft serve from Dairy Queen. Thanks for sharing. Any other nice cream ideas will be greatly appreciated.
So glad I found this recipe. My husband loves ice cream & he loves this. Dairy free is such a plus. He wouldn’t give up ice cream and your recipe gave him a solution.