Strawberry Cheesecake Nice Cream is the perfect healthier recipe to fix your sweet craving. This dessert is naturally sweetened from fruit and takes just a few minutes to blend up.
What is nice cream?
Banana ice cream is often coined “nice cream” as it is a healthier alternative to traditional ice cream by using frozen bananas. It is typically also dairy-free and vegan friendly. When frozen bananas are blended it creates a similar texture to ice cream and provides natural sweetness from the fruit itself rather than added sugar.
Are bananas healthy?
Bananas often get a bad rap but they are a great source of fiber, potassium, and naturally occurring sugars. One medium banana contains roughly 105 calories, 3 grams of fiber, and 10 percent of daily potassium needs.
For this recipe, you can use any bananas but ripe bananas work best. As bananas sit out, they ripen and start to turn from green to yellow to brown. The riper the banana, the sweeter it will be because the starch in the fruit begins to convert to sugar.
How to make frozen banana nice cream
First, freeze your bananas
I’m a big advocate for reducing food waste. So my message today—never throw away brown bananas!
There are so many different ways to use them up. When in doubt, simply freeze bananas in chunks to use for later use.
Nice cream is also a great way to use up those ripe bananas going brown. For this recipe, freeze 3 bananas for at least 2 hours or overnight. You’ll want them to be completely solid in order to get the ice cream-like consistency
Then, blend all the ingredients together
After the bananas are frozen, the recipe is very quick to make. Add your bananas, milk, and cream cheese into a food processor or blender and blend until smooth. You can use any milk of your choice. I like to use greek cream cheese for this recipe to double the protein, but you can use any cream cheese you have on hand. You can also use a plant based cream cheese to make this recipe vegan friendly.
Finally, add in your strawberries and pulse a few times. I like to leave strawberry chunks but you could also blend so the strawberries are smooth.
Customize it your way
The great thing about one-ingredient banana ice cream is it’s totally customizable. I love this strawberry cheesecake flavor, but you can always change it up. Start with blending frozen bananas together and then at the very end pulse in your favorite mix-ins. Think about your favorite ice cream flavor and turn it into frozen bananas “nice cream”. Here are some ideas:
- Oreos
- Chopped nuts
- Sprinkles
- Fruits
- Peanut butter
- Mini chocolate chips
- Cocoa powder
- Toasted coconut flakes
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Here are some other healthy recipes to use up ripe bananas
Strawberry Cheesecake Nice Cream
Ingredients
- 3 ripe bananas, sliced and frozen
- 2 tablespoons milk of your choice (almond milk, soy milk, coconut milk, banana milk, etc.)
- 2 tablespoons cream cheese of your choice (greek cream cheese, light cream cheese, or vegan cream cheese)
- 1 cup strawberries, diced into large chunks
- Crushed graham crackers, for topping
Instructions
- In a food processor or blender, blend together frozen bananas, milk, and cream cheese until smooth. Scrape down in between blending as needed to ensure all banana chunks are incorporated.
- Add in strawberries and pulse until just dispersed throughout, with some strawberry chunks still remaining.
- For soft serve consistency: top with crushed graham crackers and enjoy right away after blending. For a harder ice cream consistency: pour mixture into a large bowl or 9×9 baking pan and freeze for at least 4 hours. Scoop out and top with crushed graham crackers before enjoying.
- Store leftover ice cream in a tightly covered container for up to 3 months. It will harden over time, so you may need to let it sit out for about 10 minutes before scooping.
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