Nice Cream Is Guilt-Free Ice Cream

Ice cream’s pretty perfect, right?! Sweet, cold, comes in every flavour under the sun and solves all your problems. The only thing is that it’s not exactly healthy. Yes, we know that you didn’t really want that pointed out.

But what if there was an alternative to ice cream that had some hidden health benefits thrown in. Sounds too good to be true, but this Veggie Month we present to you nice cream. A sneaky way to ramp up your kids’ five-a-day without them having a clue.

Nice cream is a fruit or veg-based frozen dessert that cuts out the dairy usually found in ice cream. That’s fab if you’re lactose intolerant or following a vegan diet. What’s even better is that you don’t need an ice cream machine to make it, just your trusty blender.

While the trend started with using bananas, things have got a lot more inventive since then. It turns out you can make nice cream out of all sorts of fruit. And why stop there? Veggies can get in on the action too.

So, here are some of the concoctions you could whip up yourself:

Everyone loves avocado and can’t stop at just putting it on toast and snapping it for Insta. Turns out that it’s great in desserts and has been a lifesaver for vegans trying to get the texture right in mousses for ages.

Put that silky, velvety vibe to good use in your next nice cream creation. Check out the Healthy Maven’s recipe to trick your kids into thinking they’re chomping on regular choccy ice cream, when actually it’s rammed full of healthy fats and antioxidants. Winner, winner, nice cream after midweek dinner.

OK, so it sounds weird using chickpeas in your ice cream, but just think of your lovely smooth hummus right out of the blender. Harness that gloopiness and swap the garlic and lemon for dates and coconut milk and before you know it, yummy nice cream.

We love this recipe for chickpea nut butter nice cream from Unsweetened Caroline, because it tastes so fudgey. If you’re a bit bamboozled by her use of cups to measure ingredients, then it’s 200g for the chickpeas and dates, and 113g of peanut butter.

Cutting out dairy can be tough, but coconut is your best friend and making nice cream out of it is a no brainer. The high oil content and richness of coconut milk mean it tastes oh so decadent and you’ll totally not miss the cream.

It’s also a good one for mixing with other flavours, which is exactly what the Minimalist Baker has done with this vanilla combo. Great if you love how versatile coconut milk is, but are not struck on the flavour.

If you really wanna convince the kids and ramp up those likes on Instagram, then the word of the moment is unicorn. What it means in reality is making several flavours of nice cream and swirling them together to make a magical, delicious mess.

To make her unicorn nice cream bowl, Carina Berry uses spirulina and pitaya powder, but you can use different fruits to get the right colours. Add raspberries, blueberries or mango to her basic nice cream recipe and you’ll have vibrant colours to swirl in.