This homemade vegan ice cream recipe is easy, rich ‘n creamy. The best vegan vanilla ice cream—incredible vanilla flavor, made with simple ingredients.

Now that the official first day of summer is fast approaching, we’ve got to start getting serious about getting in shape for bikini season making the best friggin’ vegan vanilla ice cream recipe ever! Because ice cream is soooo much better than bikinis. And way less judgmental, ya know? 😉

Today’s vegan vanilla ice cream recipe is one of my absolute favorite ice cream recipes of all time because it’s so GOOD. Like, super good. It’s easy to make, oh-so-delicious, and bursting with that vanilla flavor you know you love to love.

Wanna hear more? Let’s make this!

homemade vegan vanilla ice cream recipe

This vegan vanilla ice cream is everything you’d hope for: rich and creamy, bursting with vanilla flavor, and sweet enough to satisfy that sweet tooth, but not too sweet that you can’t enjoy more than one scoop. Try your hand at making this homemade vegan vanilla ice cream and enjoy. Bonus: this vegan ice cream is dairy-free, healthy and refined sugar-free.

What is Vegan Vanilla Ice Cream?

What a mysterious and intriguing question! In general, vegan vanilla ice cream is vanilla ice cream that’s made without animal products. That means: none of the usual ice cream ingredients, such as: eggs, heavy cream, etc.

For this particular vegan vanilla ice cream, we’re gonna rely on coconut milk and coconut cream to replace the heavy cream, and a few other vegan ingredients to create non-dairy, plant-based vegan vanilla ice cream. And if you were actually more in the mood for chocolate vegan ice cream, try this dark chocolate nice cream recipe or my all-time favorite best vegan chocolate ice cream.

How to Make Vegan Vanilla Ice Cream

Learn how to make vegan vanilla ice cream in just a few super simple steps.

Chill

About 24 hours before, grab the freezer bowl of your ice cream maker and place it in the freezer to chill.

Add Ingredients

Day of, add all vegan vanilla ice cream ingredients except the vanilla bean pod into a good food processor.

Blend

Blend all the ingredients together until well mixed.

Scrape & Blend Again

Now, scrape the contents of the vanilla bean pod into the food processor and watch it blend beautifully into the ice cream mixture. Here’s where I get my vanilla bean pods.

Pour & Churn

Pour your vegan vanilla ice cream mixture into the chilled freezer bowl of your ice cream maker. Churn your ice cream according to your ice cream maker’s directions. Here is the ice cream maker I use. Churn until firm.

Enjoy

Enjoy the best vegan vanilla ice cream ever! Or, if you like it firm, go ahead and scoop your homemade vegan ice cream into an ice cream container and chill it until firm.

Vegan Ice Cream Recipes We Love: 3 Ingredient Mango Ice Cream · 4 Ingredient Banana Peanut Butter Ice Cream · Coconut Chocolate Chip Vegan Ice Cream

3 secret ingredients for rich vanilla flavor

What makes this vegan vanilla ice cream the best vegan vanilla ice cream? In my opinion, three secret ingredients. You see, I spent oodles of time testing different amounts of vanilla, sweetener and coconut milk vs. coconut cream, guar gum vs. no guar gum and more. But something was always missing: an element of creaminess, lack of iciness and a flavor complexity.

These three ingredients solved it all: raw cashew butter, pure almond extract and real vanilla bean.

Raw cashew butter added a boost of creaminess to the texture of this vegan ice cream, and it helped to cut down on the iciness that’s par for the course in homemade vegan ice cream recipes. Lastly, it added a nutty, cookie-like flavor that helped to balance out the coconut flavors present in the coconut milk and coconut cream.

Then, I started playing around with different amounts of vanilla extract and found that none quite worked. So I threw in some almond extract, just to see what happened. Guess what? It brought out a special level of sweetness and flavor complexity that really drew out the vanilla in this vegan vanilla ice cream.

Lastly, I used moist, freshly-sealed real vanilla bean pods to kick up the real vanilla flavor for the best vegan vanilla ice cream ever!

The best vegan vanilla ice cream—rich and creamy vegan ice cream made with real vanilla beans and simple ingredients.

Recommended Tools for the Best Vegan Vanilla Ice Cream

Raw Cashew Butter + Vanilla Bean Pods + Pure Almond Extract

My 3 secret ingredients to creating the tastiest, best vegan vanilla ice cream. These 3 ingredients create creaminess, richer vanilla flavor and add a little sumthin’ sumthin’ to your new favorite vegan vanilla ice cream recipe.

Ice Cream Maker + Extra Freezer Bowls

I’ve been using the heck out of my ice cream maker! And tbh, I have several of them-that’s how much ice cream I make… 😉 The extra freezer bowls come in so handy-I can freeze multiples in advance and make several batches of vegan ice cream in a row without having to wait 24 hours for the first one to freeze.

So what do you think of today’s vegan vanilla ice cream recipe? You’re sooo ready for it, right? 🙂 I can’t wait to hear what you think! Leave me a comment below and let me know—I love hearing from you. Thank you for stopping by and sharing in these sweet dessert moments with me. ‘Til the next one…

Sending you all my love and maybe even a dove, xo Demeter ❤️

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📸 Did you make this vegan vanilla ice cream recipe? Take a pic and share it on Instagram with the hashtag #beamingbaker & tag @beamingbaker. I’d love to see it! 📸

More Vegan Ice Cream Recipes

• Vegan Chocolate Ice Cream
• 4 Ingredient Almond Butter Paleo Ice Cream
• Coconut Milk Ice Cream
• Almond Joy Vegan Paleo Ice Cream
• Best Strawberry Vegan Ice Cream
• Dark Chocolate Nice Cream
• Cashew Vegan Ice Cream

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