Hi friends! I get a lot of questions about my banana ice cream. I guess a few people have tried and struggle with blending, or make it extra smooth, or needing to add other things to make it creamy. I looked online and all the videos I found for it are super complicated! I didn’t understand why because I’ve seriously been making this one ingredient ice cream… you know…  just bananas with a lot of ease for a while now. Well, ever since I started eating bananas, haha.

This recipe is not complicated. It’s painfully easy. But sometimes a little visual guidance can be the best way to understand how truly easy it is. So I put together a video for you guys. I’m definitely still not a Youtuber (or am I technically one since I have a youtube page??), this video will show you that, haha. But I think it does the trick to get the ease of recipe across. And ideally, it’ll help to inspire you guys to eat more fruit.

Organic and fair-trade bananas

I mentioned this in the video, but it’s absolutely worth mentioning here, that if you’re stocking up on bananas, then the best bananas you can have are the ones you grow in your own yard or ones that you buy locally. If you don’t live in an area where that is an option, then you should only be buying organic and fair-trade bananas. (Well, really, this rule should really apply to any fruit in general). I’m not going to go deep into it now, but keep in mind that any purchase you make affects someone else and this planet we call home 🙂 Organic and fair-trade as often as you humanly can! K? Cool!

 

What you’ll need for this banana ice cream recipe:

The equipment

You don’t want to use a regular blender for this project. Using a high-speed blender or a decent quality food-processor is important. There are a lot of different types of high-speed blenders on the market these days. Ranging anywhere from 75 – 600$. We spent about 350$ for it. Which was certainly an investment for a kitchen tool, but its something we use. And not just every day, but multiple times a day. Maybe dramatic, but our purchase was life-changing for us. It completely changed our meal set up, in the best of ways.

A high-speed blender will have the power to properly blend frozen fruit in ways that a basic blender won’t. A food-processor will absolutely work for frozen bananas. And perhaps other frozen fruit too, but I haven’t tried it.

This is the blender we have at home, but something like this one, for 79$ should work too. We bought our refurbished and it was great. Another option is checking craigslist or there are a ton on eBay for a second-hand one.

If you have the choice, I do suggest getting a taller blender vs a wider one. I’ve found it MUCH easier in the taller one. When using the wider one (at friends or family homes) I have to stop the blender to smash the mixture down more.

Ripe bananas

I cannot express enough how eating ripe food is important. Under-ripe food is terrible for digestion and your body as a whole. (Read more about better digestion HERE). Yellow bananas are not ripe. You need spotty bananas. The more spots the better. This is why buying locally or growing things yourself also comes into play. Most industrial-produced bananas are picked, packed, and shipped at least a month before they even make it to your grocery shelves. Also, the riper your bananas are, the more delicious (sweeter) this recipe will be which is great!

Freezing your bananas

Break up your bananas into smaller pieces. Anyway between 3-4 pieces a banana is great.  You can lay them out on a tray or plate or toss them right into a bag to freeze. You can re-use any bag over and over again until it completely falls apart. Ideally, you’ll have frozen your bananas at least overnight. Please be sure that your bananas are spotty! More spots = better in all the ways.

How to make banana icecream

Well, the best way to understand this is by watching the video 😉  But in short: place one ripe fresh (not frozen) banana at the bottom of your blender, then add your pieces of frozen banana. I use roughly 6-8 bananas (whole bananas, not individual pieces) per batch. Then place the lid on top, and with your tamper (this is important), start blending, and smashing the bananas down with the tamper. You’ll have to adjust blender speed as necessary, but anywhere in the middle range is great.

You might find, that at some points, it could be helpful to give your blender a break in the process. This is dependent on how frozen your bananas are or how many bananas you’ve placed inside. Turn off blender, take off the lid, and with spoon or tamper, you push your banana mixture further down into the blender. Put the lid back on, and repeat the process until you have creamy, smooth banana icecream 🙂

The video

Additional add-ins

Plain banana ice cream is surprisingly delicious, but adding a scoop of raw cacao powder is amazing for those chocolate cravings (ps. chocolate cravings typically signify low magnesium). Passionfruit is my favorite add-in. I also love blueberries or blackberries. I also add a touch of spirulina powder in mine or Marlowe’s too.

The key to add-ins is the placement in your blender. Fresh fruit should be placed at the bottom of your blender. Frozen fruit on top. Any powders can be placed whenever. But if you place the frozen blueberries at the bottom, you’ll find that your blender is more likely to jam.

Final notes:

  • The riper the bananas the better. I can’t stress this enough. Ripe food is crucial for your digestion. It also makes the ice cream taste that much better.
  • The bananas featured in the video, while they are ripe, ideally we wait until they are even spottier to freeze.
  • The longer your bananas sit in your freezer, the more than will stick together in the bag. Just use a knife to carefully break them apart.
  • If you suffer from digestive problems, bananas are a great way to give your stomach a break (outside of fasting of course).
  • Even bananas have protein. 1 banana has about 3% of your daily recommended value of protein (which I actually think the recommended amount is far too high, but that’s a whole another story).
  • I get a lot of questions about eating a high banana diet + constipation. If you are eating them ripe, then you will not have a problem!!
  • Make this a special treat! Add a homemade chocolate sauce (do you want a recipe for this?) some berries, some coconut whip cream (there is a recipe in the cookbook), and more! This is already a great recipe for when you are kids have a sweet tooth, but jazzing it up with some extra toppings can make it feel extra special too 🙂

Alright friends! I hope you enjoy this post, the video, and definitely this recipe! Tag me on insta if you try it 🙂 Cheers friends!

2 Comments

  1. Thanks a lot for the video! I will straight away freeze some bananas to make ice cream like this and would love if you would also share the recipe for the homemade chocolate sauce with us :-)))

    • yesss! I hope you love it! Will def. share chocolate sauce recipe! Just need to pick up the ingredients at the market next week 🙂