One of my all time favorite treats has got to be ice cream.  You can’t go wrong with it, can you?  The problem for me is it’s hard to find a good one that doesn’t have a bunch of processed junk, chemicals, additives, preservatives and so on used in it; all food-like product ingredients that deliver nothing to the body systems when it comes to our health & vitality.

So I wanted to come up with a real food ingredient ice cream with minimal, whole food ingredients (this has three!) that tasted amazing and hit the spot for a reward day treat.  Being that pistachios are one of my all time favorite raw nuts and nut milks to make, I decided to do this dairy-free, paleo & vegan-ingredient-friendly version.

When making ice cream, you need one piece of equipment to make it “set it and forget it” easy to do:  an ice cream maker.

If you don’t have an ice cream maker, here are 6 other ways you can make ice cream that I found in Saveur magazine.

But for this particular recipe, I used an ice cream maker (this is the exact model I use) simply because it’s easier for me to set it and forget it and work on meal prepping other food for my week.  Takes a grand total of 2.2 seconds to pour ingredients into an ice cream maker and press the “on” button. 

For this homemade pistachio ice cream I did 2 versions.  Each one yielded just over a pint.

Version 1:  made with homemade pistachio milk  (Taste:  this was ice cream consistency but had a little bit of a sorbet texture because of the water content of pistachio milk)

Version 2:  made with coconut milk & pistachio milk combo (Taste:  this is what you see pictured on this blog post. True ice cream consistency and tasted amazing)

Ingredients

Version 1:

2 cups homemade plain pistachio milk (the version made w/ coconut milk option- see the recipe)

2-4 tablespoons of raw coconut sugar

1/4 cup whole pistachios 

Version 2:

1 cup homemade plain pistachio milk (no coconut milk in it)

1 cup full-fat coconut milk

1/2 cup raw pistachio butter (1 cup raw pistachios blended well)

2-4 tablespoons of raw coconut sugar

1/4 cup whole pistachios

Kitchen notes:  you’ll see in the directions below, but when you blend all your ingredients, try it first at 2 tablespoons coconut sugar.. then 3.. then 4.. I ended up at 4 for this version and it tasted like silky creamy ice cream.  It depends on your palate and/or if you want to keep the sugar content down.  But overall at 4 tablespoons of raw coconut sugar, it was a total of 48 grams of non-refined sugar in the entire pint of ice cream (compared to store bought ice cream in the same size pint usually has over 100+ grams of processed sugar).

More Kitchen Notes:

Sugar-free version:  If you want to keep it sugar-free, try it with stevia.  Again, at the ingredient blending stages, add a little bit, blend it, and keep doing it until you get your desired “sweet” taste you want.

Lower-Fat:  I made a version with light coconut milk.. it was definitely good, but not the super creamy ice cream texture I wanted.  If you want that texture use the full-fat coconut milk.

Directions:

1.  Super simple:  add all ingredients to a blender and mix until all incorporated.  Remember what I mentioned above in terms of tasting the sugar stages to your palate..

2. Add your mixture to your ice cream maker and let it mix for about 20-25 minutes.  At the last 5 minute mark, I took a small handful of leftover pistachios (about a 1/4 cup) and put them in the ice cream maker to get incorporated for a chunky version.  

That’s it!  Really easy to do and you have a super creamy homemade ice cream that doesn’t have all the junk in it that “draws away” from our health.

Remember to enjoy in moderation while following a healthy 80/20 lifestyle and eating according to your metabolic type for optimal health, energy, vitality and athletic performance.

Buon Appetito!

What’s your favorite ice cream?

Let me know below in the comments and we’ll look into making it real food remix-style!