Name: Chocolate Nice Cream
Prep time: 5 min
Total time: 5 min
Ingredients: 2 frozen bananas (sliced); 1 tbsp soy milk (or other plant milk); 1 tbsp cocoa powder

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Are you dreaming of creamy, cool ice cream with no dairy and no added sugar? This chocolate nice cream recipe is here to melt its way into your heart!

4 scoops of chocolate nice cream in a glass dish

If you’ve never tried nice cream then this recipe will soon become a favourite! We’ve been making it at home for years, and have transformed hundreds of surplus, brown bananas into this creamy, frozen treat.

We’ve even served it at community meals and charity feasts, and everyone’s always amazed by not only how delicious it is – but how simple it is to make!

Our chocolate nice cream recipe is:

Refined sugar free
Dairy free
Super quick
And can be made without an ice cream maker

Slices of frozen banana on a tray, a spoonful of cocoa powder, and a small dish of soy milk

Ingredient tips

There’s just three ingredients:

Frozen bananas
Plant milk
Cocoa powder

As the sweetness of the nice cream comes from the banana, you’ll want to use ripe bananas. Those bananas with brown blotchy skin, even the ones that have gone a bit mushy – they are perfect for rescuing and transforming into this tasty ice cream!

You can taste the bananas, but the more ripe they are, the less banany, and the more chocolaty the nice cream will taste. I don’t actually like bananas raw, but I love them in this nice cream!

The plant milk helps the frozen banana to blend up nicely. You can use whatever you have on hand – we tend to use soy or oat milk.

A bowl of nice cream seen from above next to a dish of cocoa nibs, banana slices and grated chocolate

How to freeze bananas

Whatever you do – don’t freeze bananas in their peel. They’re impossible to peel nicely when they’re frozen – trust me, I know this from experience!

You can either:

Peel the bananas and pop them straight into a container in the freezer. This is what I do when I’m feeling lazy. Then I just separate and slice them when they are frozen.

Or slice them first, spread in a single layer on a tray lined with baking paper and freeze for at least an hour or until hard.

You can use the slices straight away to make this nice cream, or simply transfer them from the tray into a container for longer storage. By freezing the slices on the trays first, you avoid having one big lump of banana that’s all stuck together!

Handy conversion tip! 1 medium banana is equivalent to 100g, 3.5oz or just under ½ cup of banana slices

Step by step

Banana slices, cocoa powder and soy milk in a blender

STEP 1 – Put all the ingredients into a food processor (or a high power blender)

STEP 2 – Process until smooth, pausing to scrape down the sides if necessary

STEP 3 – Enjoy immediately, or transfer to a container and freeze for a couple of hours for a firmer, scoopable texture

Scooping out a scoop of chocolate nice cream

STEP 4 – Scoop and enjoy!

Serving and storage

We find that 1 medium banana makes one serving of two scoops of nice cream. You can adjust the servings in the recipe card to suit you. But we always recommend doing at least two bananas so you have enough volume for it to blend well.

You can dig in straight away and enjoy your nice cream straight after blending. This way it’s like a creamy, frozen smoothie.

Or transfer it to a container, cover and put it back in the freezer for a firmer texture. Wait a few hours and you should have a good texture for scooping.

We recommend eating the nice cream on the same day you make it, as it tends to harden and become less creamy the longer it stays frozen.

Enjoy with extra banana slices, grated dark chocolate and cocoa nibs for extra decadence!

Banana slices, cocoa nibs and grated dark chocolate on top of the finished nice cream

Want more tasty summer treats? Check out these other vegan no bake desserts!

Our Lemon and Elderflower Ice Lollies are also super refreshing.