In this caramel nice cream recipe, dark caramel sauce is blended together with frozen bananas to get a creamy, soft-serve texture with a truly delicious caramel flavor. No need to wait for it since it is also scoopable right out of the freezer.
If you are looking for more with overripe bananas, try our banana peanut butter oatmeal cookies.
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What can you expect?
Have you tried making nice cream yet? You may already know that if you blend frozen sliced bananas in a high-power blender, it will reach a smooth, creamy consistency. It is incredible that ripe or, better yet, overripe bananas can be turned into ice cream.
It feels colder, though, when you eat it. The nice cream melts easier than regular dairy-free ice creams. It will be more like a vegan soft serve than hard scoopable ice cream. However, you cannot beat the fact that nice cream is the healthiest, one-ingredient, truly whole foods plant-based ice cream you can ever try.
To make caramel nice cream, other recipes only added a swirl of caramel flavor on top. But we wanted to do one better. We wanted truly caramel-flavored ice cream. So we made a luscious vegan caramel sauce from coconut sugar and coconut cream and blended them together with the frozen banana slices. It turned out to be absolutely delicious.
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Ingredients
To make the best caramel nice cream ever, you need only 4 ingredients. It is an easy dessert recipe, albeit not quick, since you need some overnight prep work to freeze the bananas.
- Overripe frozen banana slices → The ones with brown spots that you may not want to eat but are perfect for baking. They are the sweetest and softest possible.
- Coconut sugar (we use this one) → Since coconut sugar already has a caramel flavor, it is the best type of sugar to make a vegan caramel sauce. I know most people would choose cane sugar and brown sugar over it, due to price or availability. And that is fine.
- Coconut cream → It is the thick, creamy canned full-fat version (we use this one).
- Dairy-free butter → You just need a tiny bit. There is no huge difference between skipping it or not, but it tastes better with it.
- Optional add-in: sea salt flakes → We know that salted caramel is pure heaven. So if you want to add a bit of sea salt flakes to turn this recipe into a salted caramel nice cream, be my guest. Let us know in the comments how did it go.
🛒 You can find detailed measurements for all ingredients in the printable version of the recipe card at the bottom of this post.
Instructions
Overnight preparation
This is a pretty simple vegan ice cream recipe with only 4 ingredients. But there is one crucial step you need to take the night before or if you have a quick freeze shelf in your freezer at least 1-2 hours before you want to make your nice cream.
- Peel and slice bananas into 0.5-inch thick. Use a freezer-friendly ziplock bag and place the slices in one layer if possible. Spread it around and make it flat.
- Freeze them until they are hard and completely frozen. It may depend on your freezer, but overnight is always the safest bet.
- Place your canned coconut cream in the refrigerator overnight. Try to avoid shaking while doing so. You don’t want to mix the inside up.
Making caramel sauce
- Take a saucepan and heat it over medium heat.
- Add dairy-free butter and let it melt.
- Once it is melted, turn your stove to low heat and add the coconut cream part of the can (the fatty white part, not the opaque liquid) and coconut sugar. Mix them well.
- Simmer on low heat until 20 minutes. Stir occasionally. It only needs to bubble up, not boil.
- You are probably ready if the caramel sauce sticks to the spoon. It will thicken some more after cooling down, so don’t worry.
Making caramel nice cream
You need a food processor or a high-power blender like Vitamix* to make a smooth nice cream base. Hand blenders and regular blenders may not be able to deal with it.
- Add all frozen banana slices to your blender.
- Start on low speed, then increase it to maximum within 2-3 seconds. Don’t over blend it. The heat from the blender can melt it prematurely. Use a tamper to ensure all frozen banana chunks reach the blades properly. See how smooth it got?
- The caramel sauce needs at least an hour to be cold. To avoid melting your nice cream, only add it to the blender when you are sure. Add ¼ cup of the caramel sauce to your blender.
- Blend them quickly, just until they are combined. You will get a lovely caramel-colored and flavored, nice cream. Use the leftover sauce to drizzle the scoops after serving.
Top tips
- Why overripe bananas? – Not to get too scientifical, but the unripe bananas have 70-80% starch content. As the fruit ripens, the starch turns to sugar. This means overripe bananas are the sweetest and softest. The starch content is much higher if it is not ripe enough, so they are not as sweet. If you use the sweetest overripe, you will have a sweet banana nice cream even without the caramel sauce.
- All ingredients must be cold – I cannot emphasize enough that all nice cream recipes, not just this, will melt quicker than regular dairy-free ice creams. You need to ensure the caramel is as cold as possible and the bananas are completely frozen. You also need to work quickly to enjoy it before it melts.
- Nice cream is only ONE ingredient – You don’t need to add any other liquid ingredient. I saw recipes calling for maple syrup or almond milk. They are not necessary at all. You will have the perfect texture with just bananas. And the caramel sauce is sweet enough to make it a real treat.
- It is a super dark caramel sauce – Coconut sugar is dark sugar. Therefore, the sauce will be quite dark as well. Don’t worry. It doesn’t mean burnt. It means that the sauce has a rich, intense caramel aroma.
Serving ideas
The nice cream base is the perfect start to come up with different flavor variations. You can serve this caramel nice cream recipe in bowls right out of the blender container and drizzle it with the leftover caramel sauce. Then add one or more of the below toppings:
- Dark chocolate chips
- Chocolate sauce
- Carob chips for an even healthier WFPB-friendly (whole foods plant-based) option.
- Raisins or dried cranberries
- Chopped nuts (cashews, almonds, peanuts, walnuts, pecans)
- Seeds (sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, hemp seeds)
- Shredded coconut (or even better toasted coconuts)
- Pretzels
- Sprinkles
- Cinnamon – Everything is better with cinnamon. This is one of my favorite spices to add to dessert recipes. It doesn’t only just perfectly with bananas, but with most fruits. You will find it in our apple crumble, in our blueberry crisp, in our cranberry jelly, in our strawberry puree, in our vegan pumpkin cheesecake, as well as in our mixed berries sauce drizzled on top of vegan panna cotta and vegan rice pudding.
Equipment
You need either a strong food processor or a high-speed blender. We use Vitamix to make this recipe. Immersion blenders, as well as regular blenders, may not be able to do a proper ice cream texture.
If your manual says that your blender can crush ice cubes, then you are probably good to go, and it would be worth a try. Otherwise, use your food processor. You need to scrape the sides several times, but it will be all right in the end.
Storing tips
Take a freezer-safe container and scoop the caramel nice cream in it. Store it in the freezer for up to 1-2 months. Other nice cream recipes usually freeze up to a pretty hard consistency, and you will need 15-20 minutes at room temperature to get it scoopable. However, since we added a nice gooey caramel right into the base, it is scoopable right out of the freezer.
FAQs
Nice cream is usually used for vegan ice cream recipes that use frozen bananas as the base. They are usually homemade. I haven’t found them in any stores yet. You can add different frozen fruit and other flavors and get creative with it.
Sadly, that would not work. You will get a smoothie instead of a nice cream. You need the water content of the bananas to turn to ice to get a soft serve-like texture.
Yes, they probably do. It depends on what additional flavor or fruit you add. This caramel nice cream recipe blends frozen bananas with a very dark, strong caramel sauce, and still, there is a subtle banana flavor at the back when you taste it.
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The Best Caramel Nice Cream
Ingredients
- 5 Banana (medium) approx 20 oz
- 1 cup Coconut sugar
- ½ cup Full-fat coconut cream (canned)
- 1 Tbsp Dairy-free butter
- 1 pinch Sea salt flakes optional
Instructions
Overnight preparation
- Peel and slice bananas into 0.5-inch thick. Use a freezer-friendly ziplock bag and place the slices in one layer if possible. Spread it around and make it flat.
- Freeze them until they are hard and completely frozen. It may depend on your freezer, but overnight is always the safest bet.
- Place your canned coconut cream in the refrigerator overnight. Try to avoid shaking while doing so. You don’t want to mix the inside up.
Caramel sauce
- Take a saucepan and heat it over medium heat. Add butter and let it melt.
- Once it is melted, turn your stove to low heat and add the coconut cream part of the can (the fatty white part, not the opaque liquid) and coconut sugar. Mix them well.
- Simmer on low heat until 20 minutes. Stir occasionally. It only needs to bubble up, not boil.
- If you see it thicken and the caramel sauce sticks to the spoon, you are probably ready. It will thicken some more after cooling down, so don’t worry.
Caramel nice cream
- Add all frozen banana slices to your blender.
- Start on low speed, then increase it to maximum within 2-3 seconds.
- Use a tamper to ensure all frozen banana chunks reach the blades properly.
- When the caramel is cold, add ¼ cup of caramel sauce to your blender and blend them until combined. It should be quick to avoid heating it at all. Ready. Enjoy!
Notes
- Food processor or high-speed blender is a must-have piece of equipment – Most probably, immersion blenders and regular blenders may not be able to do a proper ice cream texture. If your manual says that your blender can crush ice cubes, then you are probably good to go, and it would be worth a try. Otherwise, use your food processor. You need to scrape the sides several times, but it will be all right in the end.
- All ingredients must be cold – I cannot emphasize enough that all nice cream recipes, not just this, will melt quicker than regular dairy-free ice creams. You must ensure the caramel is as cold as possible and the bananas are frozen. You also need to work quickly to enjoy it before it melts.
- It is a super dark caramel sauce – Coconut sugar is dark sugar. Therefore, the sauce will be quite dark as well. Don’t worry, it doesn’t mean burnt. It means that the sauce has a rich, intense caramel aroma.
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