Easier to make than you might think – this chocolate and coffee infused banana ‘nice cream’ comes together with in little times with only a handful of ingredients! It’s naturally vegan, gluten free and refined sugar free. You can enjoy this frozen treat ASAP like a soft serve or thick shake or freeze it until firm for a scoopable ice cream treat!
We’re keeping it nice and easy today with this super simple chocolate & banana mocha nice cream.
If you don’t what nice cream is – you’ve been missing out! Nice cream is just another name for vegan or dairy free ice cream. It’s ‘nice’ because it’s healthier and made free from animal products (usually).
Like this recipe, it’s also often made with blended up frozen bananas as the base. That being said, I think technically any dairy free ice cream (like my coconut milk vanilla ice cream) counts too.
In addition to the fact that’s allergy friendly and made entirely up of good-for-you ingredients, it’s also super easy to make and customise to your own personal preference.
Banana Mocha Nice Cream
Our star ingredients:
🌟bananas
🌟cocoa powder
🌟instant coffee powder
🌟almond milk (or whatever milk you have)
🌟vanilla extract
Because bananas do have a strong flavour, I decided to throw cocoa powder and instant coffee in the mix as they are strong enough to tone down the bananas while elevating the overall flavour.
To make this ice cream, simply throw everything except for the chocolate chips into a blender and process until thick and smooth. Once done you can enjoy your nice cream as is like a soft serve, or store in a container and freeze for later. After about 4 hours you should have a scoopable ice cream. If you freeze it for longer you may need to let it defrost for about 10-15 minutes for easier scooping.
Nice Cream Tips & Things to Keep in Mind
Make sure you freeze peeled bananas.
- This may seem quite obvious, but the first time I froze my overly ripe bananas for later I froze them in the peel and had to painstakingly chip off banana peel bits at a time. Not a good time.
Be patient.
- Depending on the strength of your blender of food processor it may take a few minutes to reach the right consistency. Your ice cream will look a lot more like sandy bananas at first but will eventually get to a soft-serve kind of texture if you keep it up.
Add more milk to get things moving.
- If you’re struggling to get your nice cream to blend add a little more milk 1 tablespoon at time to get things moving.
What if I don’t like bananas?
- If you’re not crazy about bananas you might not enjoy this particular nice cream. Since bananas do make up the majority of this recipe, expect a strong banana flavour.
- Other banana-free/dairy-free ice cream recipes you might enjoy:
- Coconut Vanilla Ice Cream (relies on coconut milk/cream for texture)
- Coconut Peach Ice Cream relies on coconut milk/cream for texture)
- Chocolate Coconut Milk Ice Cream (uses sweet potato for texture – you can’t taste it)
- Chocolate Orange Ice Cream (uses cashews for creamy texture)
Serving suggestions & Add-Ins:
- chocolate chips
- chopped nuts
- melted peanut butter
- dairy free hot fudge
- date caramel
Banana Mocha Nice Cream
Easier to make than you might think - this chocolate and coffee infused banana 'nice cream' comes together with in little times with only a handful of ingredients! It's naturally vegan, gluten free and refined sugar free. You can enjoy this frozen treat ASAP like a soft serve or thick shake or freeze it until firm for a scoopable ice cream treat!
Ingredients
- 3 frozen bananas, diced
- 1/4 cup dairy free milk
- 2 tbsp cocoa powder
- 1 tsp instant coffee powder
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 3 tbsp mini chocolate chips, optional (ensure dairy free in needed)
Instructions
- Add all of the ingredients to a blender or food processor and blend until thick and smooth. If you're tough time getting everything to blend add a little more milk to get things moving.
- Your nice cream should resemble soft serve at this point. You can top with chocolate chips and enjoy right away or transfer to a freezer safe container, stir in the chips and freeze for 2-4 hours to solidify into scoop-able constancy.
Notes
- Technically 'nice' cream gets the name from the fact that it's vegan/animal product free, but you can absolutely use a dairy based milk here if you'd prefer.
A Note on FODMAP
- If you're looking to make this recipe low FODMAP friendly make sure that you use unripe bananas. Before freezing they should be firm, bright yellow and without any brown spots. One unripe banana (100g) is considered low in FODMAP but ripe bananas are high in FODMAPs.
Karen Wosilait says
Banana “nice cream” is so, so good, but unfortunately, ripe bananas are low-FODMAP at just 1/3 of a medium banana, so this would have to make 9 servings to be low-FODMAP.
Sarah Nevins says
Hi Karen! Thanks for pointing that out to me! When I first started making low fodmap recipes bananas were still considered to be low fodmap but it looks like that changed a few year ago! I have read that unripe bananas (100g) are still considered low fodmap so I’ll make a note in the recipe – the last thing I want to set off anyones IBS!