This Strawberry Banana Nice Cream recipe is a dairy-free, vegan, plant-based, and paleo dessert made with only FOUR ingredients that your whole family will love!
Table of Contents
Time to make nice cream!
Now that summer is peeking its sweaty head around the corner, I’m gonna share one of our family’s favorite ways to cool down from the inside out: Strawberry Banana Nice Cream—or as we fondly call it, “2×4” ice cream!
Why do we call it “2×4” ice cream? Because it requires just two minutes and four ingredients to whip up. Plus, just like a 2×4, it’ll knock you out cold with its frosty fruitiness. Just remember to always remember to stock your freezer with ripe, sweet bananas, and you’re good to go. (Yes, this chilled treat is basically frozen banana ice cream!)
If you own our red cookbook, Nom Nom Paleo: Food For Humans, you’ve already got the recipe for this chilly, crowd-pleasing frozen dessert—just flip to page 260! I make this nice cream all the time so a few years ago, I whipped up a batch that Henry (and his then eight-year-old assistant photographer, Lil-O) shot for the blog, and now everyone on the interwebs can make this dairy-free, refined sugar-free, ice-cream-maker-free dessert at home!
Ingredients
- Frozen ripe bananas: I always have a bunch of overripe speckly bananas on my counter that I throw, peeled, into a Ziplock bag in the freezer. That way I always have frozen bananas on hand to blend into this nice cream! Unfortunately, there’s really no good substitute for the bananas in this recipe.
- Frozen strawberries: No need to use fresh strawberries—frozen strawberries are picked and frozen at the peak of flavor and ready to be blitzed into nice cream. (Yes, you can substitute another frozen fruit like pineapple, blueberries, or mangoes!)
- Full-fat coconut milk or coconut cream: Both unsweetened coconut milk and coconut cream work in this recipe, the fattier it is, the creamier the nice cream! You can substitute another nut milk (e.g. almond milk) if you’d prefer but coconut milk/cream gives this dessert the best texture.
- Vanilla extract
How to make strawberry banana nice cream
Grab your frozen bananas and chop ’em into ½-inch coins.
Measure out 1 cup of frozen strawberries and roughly chop them.
Dump the sliced bananas and strawberries into the food processor bowl (or a high speed blender like a Vitamix)…
…and pour in the coconut milk and vanilla extract.
Lock on the lid and pulse the mixture a few times until the fruit is uniformly chopped into medium chunks. Then, blitz it for one to two minutes or until the mixture is smooth, creamy, and soft-serve consistency.
See? It tastes just like fruity ice cream!
I love to eat the soft ice cream right away, but if you prefer to firm it up, you can store it in a sealed container in the freezer for up to several weeks. Just make sure to let the ice cream thaw for for a few minutes so that you can scoop it.
As I mentioned above, a few of the pics in this post were shot by Lil-O.
Henry’s got a creaky neck and back, and figured he could use some help with the photography around here. Besides, everyone needs a succession plan.
=
Plus, we pay pretty handsomely around these parts. Mostly with food.
More healthy frozen dessert recipes
Looking for more recipe ideas? Head on over to my Recipe Index. You’ll also find exclusive recipes in my cookbooks, Nom Nom Paleo: Food for Humans (Andrews McMeel Publishing 2013), Ready or Not! (Andrews McMeel Publishing 2017), and Nom Nom Paleo: Let’s Go! (Andrews McMeel Publishing 2022).
PRINTER-FRIENDLY RECIPE CARD
Strawberry Banana Nice Cream (Frozen Banana Ice Cream)
Ingredients
- 3 frozen medium bananas peeled
- 1 cup frozen strawberries roughly chopped
- ½ cup full-fat coconut milk or coconut cream
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Grab your frozen bananas and chop ’em into ½-inch coins.
- Measure out 1 cup of frozen strawberries and roughly chop them.
- Dump the sliced bananas and strawberries into the work bowl of your food processor, and pour in the coconut milk and vanilla extract.
- Pulse the mixture a few times until the fruit is uniformly chopped. Then, blitz it for one to two minutes or until the mixture is smooth and creamy.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
I make this weekly using different frozen organic fruit. Love it❤❤❤
Looks delicious! Will definitely be trying this. My favorite smoothie combo is mango banana, so I think I’ll try that combo for this ice cream as well.
I made this for the first time & it was so good!
Making this at the moment… I have fresh strawberries, and I forgot to remove the peel from the overripe bananas before freezing them, but I’ll give this a shot because I think it’s such a better recipe than just about anything I can buy at the grocery store.
I might add pistachios: they’re cheaper than I’ve ever seen them up here in T.O.