Banana Soft Serve

8 Vegan Nice Cream Recipes

8 Banana Soft Serve Recipes to Keep You Cool

Call it banana soft serve, call it “nice” cream, call it vegan ice creamโ€”whatever you call it, if you haven’t tried making banana ice cream at home, stop what you are doing right now and go put some bananas in the freezer! You gotta try this.

If you’ve never heard of banana soft serve before, the concept couldn’t be any simpler. Freeze some banana slices, and then when they’re frozen solid, pulse them in a food processor until you get an end result that is almost exactly the same texture as soft serve ice creamโ€”you’d never know it was only bananas!

Mockup of the pages of the Ultimate Healthy School Lunches eBook
The Ultimate Guide to Healthy School Lunches

Weโ€™ve packed (pun intended!) all our knowledge from years ofย making school lunches into one digital master guide!

buy now

Banana Soft Serve

Banana soft serve is one of my favorite healthy summer treatsโ€”it’s literally just fruitโ€”so I feel totally fine serving this “dessert” to my family all the time. We eat it for breakfast (it’s awesome on top of overnight oats). We eat it for a snack. We eat it for dessert.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with real ice cream, but when you’re looking for a healthier option to enjoy at any time of day, you can’t beat banana soft serve.

Banana Soft Serve

Banana soft serve is great classic styleโ€”just with bananasโ€”but it also lends itself to being awesome with all kinds of mix-ins. I partnered up with my friends at Musselman’s Apple Butter to bring you eight awesome ways to enjoy banana soft serve.

Musselman’s Apple Butter is a great way to add moisture, flavor, and sweetness to all kinds of recipesโ€”including your banana soft serve creations. I love that Musselman’s has no high fructose corn syrup and only three ingredientsโ€”apples, sugar, and spices. It’s exactly how I’d make apple butter at home if I could find the time in my schedule to go pick apples, peel them all, and make apple butter (maybe one day). For now, I rely on Musselman’s!

Banana Soft Serve

Before we dig into the eight banana soft serve recipes, I want to give you a little bit of an overview of how to freeze bananas. For banana soft serve, you only want to freeze ripe bananasโ€”green ones won’t taste right as ice cream. I avoid using too ripe bananas, tooโ€”they just aren’t my favorite. But if you like ’em, go for it!

To freeze the bananas, peel them, then break or cut into small pieces (~1″ in length). Place the pieces in one layer on a baking sheet, and freeze until hard. Then transfer the frozen pieces to a large zip-top bag. I keep a bag of frozen bananas in the freezer at all times. They are great for soft serve, for smoothies, and for banana bread. Alright, onto the recipes!

Classic Banana Soft Serve

It’s really hard to believe that this is just bananas, but it is! Not only is this a delicious treat for any day, but it’s also a good option for sore throats or unhappy tummies.

Apple Cinnamon Banana Soft Serve

All the flavor of apple pie in a super healthy treat! This one uses Musselman’s Apple Butter to give an awesome burst of apple cinnamon flavor.

Chocolate Banana Soft Serve

The chocolate and banana combo is classic for a reasonโ€”it’s super delicious! This is as close the classic ice cream flavor as you’re going to get.

Pumpkin Spice Banana Soft Serve

You know when it’s still 90 degrees outside, but you start to see pumpkin recipes on Pinterest? This recipe combines the best of summer and fall into one healthy treat! Lots of pumpkin pie flavor is added thanks to Musselman’s Apple Butter!

Strawberry Banana Soft Serve

This banana soft serve has the most beautiful bright pink color! We keep frozen strawberries on hand at all times for smoothies and banana soft serve.

Peanut Butter Banana Soft Serve

This is my favorite banana soft serve combo! I like to serve it up with a little chocolate sauce drizzled over top. Sub in almond butter or sunflower butter for a fun alternative to peanut butter.

Carrot Cake Banana Soft Serve

This carrot cake banana soft serve has the flavor of carrot cake and the nutrition of eating healthy fruit! This recipe uses Musselman’s Apple Butter to add spice cake flavor!

Pina Colada Banana Soft Serve

A healthy taste of the tropics! Frozen bananas are blended with pineapple and coconut milk (the full fat stuff in the can) to make a creamy, dreamy treat.

Banana Soft Serve

8 Vegan Banana Soft Serve Recipes

Yield: 1 large serving
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Total Time: 5 minutes

Frozen bananas pulsed in the food processor turn in to dreamy, creamy, vegan ice cream!

Ingredients

For Classic Banana Soft Serve:

  • 2ย bananas, cut into slices and frozen

For Apple Cinnamon Banana Soft Serve

  • 2ย bananas, cut into slices and frozen
  • ยผ cupย Musselmanโ€™s Apple Butter
  • ยผ teaspoonย vanilla extract
  • ยผ teaspoonย ground cinnamon

For Chocolate Banana Soft Serve

  • 2ย bananas, cut into slices and frozen
  • 1 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
  • ยผ teaspoonย vanilla extract

For Pumpkin Spice Banana Soft Serve

  • 2ย bananas, cut into slices and frozen
  • 2 tablespoons Musselmanโ€™s Apple Butter
  • โ…“ cupย pure pumpkin puree
  • ยผ teaspoonย pumpkin pie spice

For Strawberry Banana Soft Serve

  • 1ย banana, cut into slices and frozen
  • ยฝ cupย frozen whole hulled strawberries
  • ยฝ teaspoonย vanilla extract

For Peanut Butter Banana Soft Serve

  • 2ย bananas, cut into slices and frozen
  • 2 tablespoons natural peanut butter
  • Pinch of salt

For Carrot Cake Banana Soft Serve

  • 1ย banana, cut into slices and frozen
  • ยผ cupย Musselmanโ€™s Apple Butter
  • 1ย large carrot, peeled and grated
  • ยผ teaspoonย vanilla extract
  • 2 tablespoons raisins
  • 2 tablespoons chopped walnuts

For Piรฑa Colada Banana Soft Serve

  • 1 banana, cut into slices and frozen
  • โ…“ cup canned pineapple chunks, drained
  • โ…“ cup full fat coconut milk (from a can)
  • 2 tablespoons unsweetened coconut flakes

Instructions

  1. Place all ingredients into the bowl of a food processor. Pulse until the texture resembles soft serve ice cream, about 3 minutes. You may need to scrape the sides of the food processor with a rubber spatula occasionally. Serve immediately, or freeze for 10-15 minutes to solidify.

Notes

Prep time does not include time to freeze bananas.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

24 Comments

  1. Hi!
    Do you have any tips to stop the ice cream from going hard and icy in the freezer? I absolutely love it but find t hard to store.

    1. It is tricky to store. The best luck I’ve had is to store it in small scoops, and then reprocess it in the food processor or blender to get it smooth again when it’s time to eat.

  2. This is my new favorite sweet treat! My whole family is in love with all of these incredible flavors. Thank you for bringing the taste of ice cream back into our lives without the tummy aches and negative side affects of milk products in our tummies. We are buying bananas by the dozen and freezing them.

    Thank you again for sharing!

  3. Hi and thanks for sharing, for some reason in the pina colada recipe it just says ‘cup of pineapple chunks’, ‘cup of coconut milk ‘ does that mean 1 cup of each? Sorry if it’s my mistake I tried to reload the page several times but it won’t appear. Cheers, looking forward to try this!

  4. Tried the strawberry one and was delicious!

    Where did you get the spoons in the chocolate pic? Do you remember?

    1. They were from Crate and Barrel ages ago. It doesn’t look like they are listed on their website anymore. Sorry!