Using frozen bananas to make ice cream seems to be all the rage lately. Even though I’ve 
snagged several recipes for this non-dairy frozen delight from Pinterest over the last several months, I had never made it until last night. I’m here to tell you that if you need a sweet treat this summer that won’t leave you feeling guilty, this ice cream will do the trick!
The general idea is that you take some frozen bananas and use them as the base. When pureed in the blender or food processor, frozen bananas become soft and oh-so-creamy. From there you can use as many different mix-ins as you can dream of. Want strawberry ice cream? Throw in some chopped frozen strawberries. Want chocolate ice cream? Mix in a couple tablespoons of cocoa powder and a little vanilla extract. While a subtle taste of bananas remains, the flavors of the mix-ins are what stand out.
In addition to being low calorie, this “faux” ice cream is also great because it is gluten-free and vegan! The recipe I used was for Vegan Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream from The Lemon Bowl blog. For each 1/2-cup serving (this recipe makes 4 servings), there are 108 calories and 4.4 grams of fat.
Step-by-step instructions for making one-ingredient ice cream along with some more flavor ideas can be found here. Once you get the hang of it, you won’t even need a recipe!
-Katie Huffman
