This Vegan Ice Cream is rich, creamy, and incredible easy to make with only 5 ingredients! I share a ton of useful tips to make this your best homemade ice cream!

Ice cream. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who doesn’t like it. A creamy custard spun magically into a thick, creamy, cooling, sweet dessert of all flavours? Yes yes yes. I’ve made many vegan ice creams over the years: strawberry, chocolate, mango, even blueberry! Yes somehow, I never made my favourite flavour: vanilla bean.

Yes friends. I’m that girl who loves vanilla ice cream. In a world of over 1,000 ice cream flavours, I’ve chosen vanilla bean. Something about that classic flavour gets me every time. I love seeing the vanilla bean dots throughout. I mean, I’ll try ALL the flavours – but this one just gets me. Today I’m sharing a really simple vegan vanilla ice cream that’ll rock your world.

Vegan Vanilla Ice Cream Ingredients

This ice cream is a cashew and coconut cream based ice cream. The two flavours come together in such a way that you don’t even end up tasting either of them, just a delicious ice cream flavour. All the ingredients are important in here, so I want to get into each of them:

Cashews: cashews are the base of this ice cream, along with coconut milk. The two are combined to make like the ultimate cashew milk that make this the kind of ice cream that Gav scooped directly into his mouth from the container. You want the best possible quality, so I recommend doing the most. Soak your cashews overnight. Use the best quality you can find. This is my favourite brand.

Vanilla Bean Paste/Vanilla Bean Extract/A Vanilla Bean: Vanilla Bean Paste is my go to for this recipe. I use the one from Nielssen Massey which I go through at alarming rates because what’s a dessert without vanilla extract? You can also use a few vanilla beans or vanilla extract of equal amounts.

Coconut Milk: I use canned full fat coconut milk. Surprisingly, you don’t have to separate the liquids here. Since I had to make a kind of cashew milk anyway, I decided to use the liquid from the canned coconut milk as the “water” of the cashew milk. It takes it over the top, you don’t have to try and separate it, and you get amazing ice cream.

Sugar: ⅔ cup goes a long way in this recipe. If you want a slightly less sweet ice cream, use ½ cup instead. I used regular cane sugar, but you can use brown sugar or white sugar.

Sea salt: a pinch of sea salt always acts as a flavour enhancer, and balances the sweetness.

Ice cream making Tips & FAQ

• I used an ice cream maker to make this recipe that was gifted to me by my bestie Kellie. Needless to say, I’ve made ice cream way SO many times now that I know how easy it is to make with an ice cream maker! Ensure your ice cream maker freezer base is ready! It can be tempting to shorten this time but it’s necessarily to get the mixture cold enough to turn it into ice cream. I just leave my base in the freezer, which means it’s always ready!
• It’s important to use full fat coconut milk. Don’t use lite. Also remember we are using the full can of coconut milk. Also, do not substitute coconut milk powder. It isn’t creamy enough and will result in icy ice cream.
• Don’t rush your ice cream base (the actual mixture) chilling time. I made it after 10 minutes in the freezer, and after a few hours in the fridge and after whole night in the fridge. The last two were far more creamy, set much faster in the ice cream maker, and were much easier to scoop. I highly recommend chilling the cashew cream for the right length of time.
• If you live in a hot climate (like I do) I recommend doing this in the coolest part of your house or turning on your AC if you have one. This ensures the mixture solidifies properly.
• Always cover your finished ice cream as per the recipe, otherwise ice particles will form in it and result in some small ice chunks.
• If you’re not using an ice cream maker; follow my tips from my chocolate avocado ice cream to get the best texture.

This vegan ice cream is:

• Creamy
• Smooth
• Easy to make
• Incredible flavour

Okay friends, let’s get to making ice cream!! Enjoy so much!!

Enjoy friends! If you make these Vegan Ice Cream, please snap a photo and tag #jessicainthekitchen on Instagram! We’d also love it if you would leave a comment below, and give the recipe a rating! Thanks so much!