Banana Chickpea Ice Cream

Banana Chickpea Ice Cream made with 5 simple ingredients is a rich, creamy, perfectly sweet healthy frozen dessert! This luscious decadent mind-blowing ice cream recipe is vegan, dairy-free, refined sugar-free, and secretly healthy, but you’d never guess it! No ice cream maker needed!

Chickpea ice cream, can you believe it?!

If you’ve been around The Roasted Root for a while, you know that making healthy dessert recipes out of whole foods is a hobby of mine.

Take beans for instance.

Incredibly versatile for making all sorts of goodies, from cookies to brownies to cake, and as we’re seeing in this post, vegan ice cream, beans are absolutely magical in desserts.

If you’re new to the concept of using beans to make delicious healthy desserts, just let my 6-Ingredient Peanut Butter Chickpea Cookies, Flourless Chickpea Banana Bread, Double Chocolate Vegan Black Bean Cookies, and Dark Chocolate Chickpea Brownies guide you.

Why This Recipe Works:

When blended with other ingredients, beans create a creamy luscious treat and its starch content helps bring volume and soft texture to any dessert.

What we’re making here is ice cream out of chickpeas, ripe bananas, and peanut butter for an incredibly rich and delicious healthy ice cream that is infused boldly with banana and peanut butter flavors.

One of my favorite parts about this recipe is that it is sweetened almost entirely with banana. I add a couple tablespoons of pure maple syrup, but this can be omitted or adjusted upward to your personal taste.

No ice cream maker, fancy maneuvers, eggs or heavy cream needed.

All you need is 5 ingredients and a high speed blender or a food processor!

To summarize, this ice cream recipe is vegan, dairy-free, refined sugar-free and just so unassumingly wild!

I know what you’re wondering.

What Does Chickpea Ice Cream Taste Like?:

Non-dairy ice cream made out of beans. Is it any good? The very short answer is a resounding YES!

Thick, creamy, loaded with peanut butter and banana flavor, nice and sweet but not overly so, this incredible ice cream recipe is just so tasty!

As long as you like the flavor of peanut butter and banana, you’ll absolutely adore it, as they shine through predominantly in this treat.

I will say, even though the chickpeas become nice and creamy, they do give a somewhat different texture to the ice cream that is likely imperceptible if you aren’t expressly told this ice cream is made with garbanzo beans. It has a silky texture as long as you blend the ingredients well enough.

In this sense, the texture is not identical to regular ice cream, but it is still sultry smooth and enticing.

In fact, this is my newest favorite guilt-free ice cream that I don’t mind putting on repeat because there’s just nothing naughty about it.

Yet it tastes naughty.

You’ll just have to try it to believe it.

Let’s discuss the simple chickpea ice cream ingredients. You’re going to love this!

Ingredients for Chickpea Ice Cream:

Chickpeas: Canned chickpeas bring creaminess and bulk to this healthier ice cream recipe. They help replace the dairy and eggs in a traditional ice cream recipe as when blended, chickpeas become very creamy and have an amazing custardy consistency.

You will need just under two cups of cooked garbanzo beans, which equates to one can of chickpeas.

Ripe Bananas: Adding that amazing banana flavor and also a great deal of sweetness and creaminess to the ice cream, ripe bananas are a star character here! They make the ice cream taste sweet without the need for a huge amount of added sugar, and they also give it a silky smooth texture.

Be sure to use very ripe bananas with plenty of brown spots for the best results, as unripe bananas will not taste as sweet nor will they have the creamy texture we’re looking for.

Peanut Butter: Bringing rich, delicious flavor to the ice cream, peanut butter gives this tasty frozen treat a delicious flavor twist and delectable texture.

Because the peanut butter makes up the majority of the healthy fats in the ice cream, it plays a pivotal role in adding richness without the need for dairy products.

If you prefer using almond butter, cashew butter, or sunflower seed butter, feel free to make the swap. Just note that whatever you use, you will be able to taste and it will play an important part in the flavor profile of the ice cream.

For those of you with nut allergies, replace the peanut butter with an additional ripe banana. The ice cream will still be silky smooth, it just won’t have as rich of a flavor and will taste primarily of bananas.

Full-Fat Canned Coconut Milk: Used to help blend all of the ingredients together into a smooth consistency, full-fat canned coconut milk is a crucial ingredient even though we don’t need very much.

I recommend sticking with full-fat canned coconut milk rather than replacing it with a lighter non-dairy milk like almond milk, cashew milk, soy milk, or oat milk, because other non-dairy milks contain less fat and more water which produces an icy consistency versus a creamy consistency. Coconut cream works too!

Pure Maple Syrup: While the bananas add a great deal of sweetness to the ice cream, I find I like just a touch more sweetness. A little pure maple syrup helps boost the sweetness of the ice cream. Feel free to increase the amount for a sweeter treat.

Sea Salt: Major flavor enhancer! A little sea salt brings out the flavors in each individual ingredient, making the ice cream taste big and bold with deliciousness. Don’t skip it if you don’t have to!

Pure Vanilla Extract: Adding rich, warm flavor to the ice cream, a little vanilla extract goes a long way. It will still be delicious without the vanilla extract, so if you don’t keep it on hand, feel free to leave it out.

Optional Additions:

If you love chocolate ice cream, add 3 tablespoons of raw cacao powder or unsweetened cocoa powder to add a chocolate element. 

Make a batch of my Paleo Edible Cookie Dough and add it to the ice cream to make a healthy cookie dough ice cream recipe. 

You can also make my Paleo Salted Caramel and swirl it throughout the ice cream base before freezing it to get yummy ribbons of caramel. 

Add 1 to 2 tablespoons of instant coffee granules for some coffee flavor.

Let’s make banana chickpea ice cream!

How to Make 5-Ingredient Peanut Butter Banana Chickpea Ice Cream:

Add all of the ingredients for the chickpea ice cream to a high-powered blender and blend until completely smooth.

Pour the ice cream base into a freezer-safe container (a tupperware container or a loaf pan works great). If you’d like, swirl more peanut butter into the ice cream base. Cover the ice cream and freeze until solid, about 3 hours.

Thaw the ice cream for 8 to 15 minutes when you’re ready to serve.

Scoop this healthy peanut butter banana ice cream into bowls with an ice cream scoop and enjoy! I like sprinkling a few chocolate chips on top for some added yumminess.

Store ice cream in an airtight container in the freezer for up to 3 months.

And that’s it! A truly addicting homemade ice cream recipe that will drive you wild and leave you feeling energized rather than put you into a sugar coma.

If you try the recipe, feel free to drop a comment below (and give me a 5 star rating if you please!) to let me know what you think!

If you love nice creams, check out my Banana Nice Cream and my 3-Ingredient Chocolate Banana Ice Cream.

Also check out these healthy desserts that happen to be reader favorites.

More Healthy Dessert Recipes:

• Double Chocolate Black Bean Brownies 
• 6-Ingredient Banana Chickpea Bars 
• Strawberry Oatmeal Bars
• 3-Ingredient No-Bake Banana Oatmeal Cookies 
• Coconut Flour Cookies 
• 4-Ingredient Flourless Healthy Brownies 

Enjoy this easy treat all summer long!

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