Creamy vegan pistachio ice cream. Smooth and wonderfully textured with all the pistachio flavor you can dream of!
This vegan pistachio ice cream has such a gorgeous color.
And I was surprised because when I was first thinking about making it I was wondering if it might require something really green to be added in, like green food coloring or some spirulina or something like that to make it green.
Because while pistachio nuts are green, I didn’t know if the color would hold that well once mixed in with all the other stuff. And looking around the web I saw a lot of recipes adding in a little something something for color. Well… it wasn’t needed here.
The lovely green of this ice cream comes entirely from the pistachios, nothing extra needed, and it’s a really gorgeous pale green.
How to make vegan pistachio ice cream
The base of this recipe is the same as our simple vegan coconut ice cream with some ground pistachios blended in.
You start off with a mix of coconut milk, coconut cream, sugar and syrup and heat that on the stove until it reaches a simmer.
Then you add in some ground pistachios and blend them in with an immersion blender.
I struggled to get it smooth enough with my immersion blender, so then I moved it to my regular blender and finished up blending it there.
If you want to save time, you can just go straight to your regular blender, because the immersion blender doesn’t work quite as well with getting this as smooth as possible.
But if you only have an immersion blender, then don’t worry, it doesn’t have to be all that smooth!
Then you transfer the ice cream mix to a container with a lid and place it into the fridge to cool overnight.
If you’re in a hurry you can place it into the freezer until it’s chilled, that will only take an hour or two, but just keep an eye on it you don’t want to forget it in there.
When your mixture is chilled, the next step is to churn it in your ice cream maker until it reaches soft serve consistency and then smooth it down into a loaf pan, cover with foil and place into the freezer to set.
What is great about this ice cream is it doesn’t get so hard that you can barely scoop it until it’s thawed a bit. It maintains a really great scoop-able consistency even straight out the freezer.
The best vegan ice cream
High fat ingredients make the best ice cream. So this is why we use canned coconut milk and canned coconut cream in this ice cream.
If I am walking in the supermarket and looking for a brand of coconut milk and coconut cream to use for making ice cream I check the nutritional information and the one with the highest calorie and fat content is going to win.
So definitely don’t make this with low fat ingredients or light coconut milk, it really won’t be the same.
I used salted, shelled pistachios. Actually we had to shell them by hand because we couldn’t get ones that were already shelled.
If you use unsalted pistachios, then add a little salt to the recipe when blending, ½ tsp should be fine. But the saltiness really works wonderfully with the sweet creamy flavors in this recipe.
The shelled pistachios were ground to crumbles in the food processor. In theory you could skip that step since you’re going to be blending them into the ice cream mix anyway, but we preferred to grind them up first to make things as easy as possible.
If all you have is an immersion blender then that is an essential step.
I hope you’ll love this vegan pistachio ice cream! It is:
- Creamy
- Smooth
- Beautifully green
- Pistachio flavored
- Wonderfully textured
Keep stored in the freezer and ideally consume within the first week for the best taste results.
More vegan ice cream!
- Our vegan avocado ice cream is another gorgeously green ice cream as is our vegan mint chocolate chip ice cream.
- Our vegan vanilla ice cream recipe is the recipe that started us off on our passion for making vegan ice cream recipes and our vegan peanut butter ice cream and vegan chocolate ice cream are both super rich and decadent.
- Our fruity flavors vegan strawberry ice cream and vegan mango ice cream are a blend of fresh fruit with perfectly textured creamy ice cream!
- If you don’t have an ice cream maker then definitely check out our peanut butter banana ice cream, made in a food processor, and our no-churn vegan cookies and cream ice cream.
So let us know what you think of this vegan pistachio ice cream in the comments and please rate the recipe too. Thanks!
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Vegan Pistachio Ice Cream
Ingredients
- 14 ounces Canned Coconut Cream (400ml) Unsweetened
- 14 ounces Canned Coconut Milk (400ml) Full Fat, Unsweetened
- ½ cup White Granulated Sugar (100g)
- ¼ cup Maple Syrup (60ml)
- 1 cup Roasted Salted Shelled Pistachios (130g) Packed
Instructions
- At least the night before you want to make ice cream, make sure to place the bowl of your ice cream maker into the freezer to freeze.
- When you're ready to make your ice cream, add the pistachios to a food processor and process into crumbles.
- Then add the coconut cream, coconut milk, sugar and syrup to a pot and bring to a simmer, stirring constantly. As soon as it reaches a simmer, remove from the heat and add in the pistachios crumbles.
- Use an immersion blender to blend it as well as you can and see if it's smooth enough, if not, then transfer to a blender jug and blend until smooth.*
- Pour it out into a container with a lid and either refrigerate overnight to chill, or if you're in a hurry, you can place it into the freezer to chill for an hour or two until cold. Just don't forget it in there!
- When the mixture is chilled, pour it out into your ice cream maker and churn according to manufacturer instructions until it reaches soft serve consistency, this can take 20-45 minutes depending on your ice cream maker.
- Transfer the ice cream to a loaf pan and smooth down with the back of a spoon. Cover and freeze until set.
- Scoop and enjoy!
Notes
- If your pistachios are unsalted then add a ½ tsp salt to the recipe.
- If you don't have an immersion blender, then just use the regular blender only.
- It won't be entirely smooth, no matter how much you blend it, and this is okay. You are just going for as smooth as possible, which is not all the way smooth.
- Prep time does not include the time spent chilling or setting in the freezer.
I really adore this recipe! My family and I love it and likes to enjoy this on a hot summer day. Thanks Alison for your wonderful recipes.
So glad you love the recipe Tiffani! Thanks so much for the awesome review.
Made this with the kids this week. The best part was definitely the texture – firm & creamy but plenty of air too, not stiff at all. On texture alone it beats out many national brands, dairy free or otherwise.
For us the coconut really dominated the palate, though. Pistachios were certainly there in color, v texture, and a bit of flavor. But this was coconut ice cream with notes of pistachio, not quite what we’d been aiming for.
Hi Alison
Why do we cook the ingredients? Is it possible to make without cooking it?
Thank you for all the lovely recipes.
Hi Liselotte, it’s just to create a really smooth texture. It homogenizes the fats so that there is no graininess in the texture. However, I don’t always heat it and it also works fine! So you can skip that step if you don’t want to heat it. Just blend everything and then continue as usual.
Hi,
As for the coconut milk from the can. Did you pour all content of the can or just the top part after cooling it overnight in the fridge?
You use the whole can.
Is it ok not to use a ice cream mixer if you don’t have one at home?
Hi Tamra, you can make this without an ice cream maker if you have an electric mixer – you can beat the ice cream mixture in your stand mixer. Then place it into the freezer and before it’s frozen, bring it out a couple more times and beat it again. This will come closest to what you’ll get with an ice cream machine. If you don’t have a mixer either, you can still make it, just make up the mixture and then freeze. However, the texture will not be as ‘light and fluffy’ as you would get otherwise.
???? Thank you so much
Delicious and creamy. It was my first attempt at vegan ice cream and I’m really happy with the way it turned out. Thank you
So happy to hear that Jessica! Thanks for the wonderful rating! 🙂
Hi! I don’t have access to decent coconut milk can I use 2 cans of coconut cream instead of the milk? Or will the fat content be off? I like really hard ice cream that melts in my mouth rather than melting/ready to melt ice cream, so maybe it would help? Thank you!
Hi there, it should work fine! All the best! 🙂
Hi, is the sugar necessary or can we add more maple syrup or agave instead? Thanks!
Hi Renu, sure you can try it like that! I think it would still work great. 🙂
Very creamy and delicious.
This looks just so delectable! Your ice cream is just divine!
Thanks Anna! xo
Is there a way to make this without an ice cream maker? I do have a vitamix. Thanks
Hi Jennifer, the churning incorporates air which makes the ice cream end up more ‘light and fluffy’ so if you have a mixer, you can beat the mixture and then place it into the freezer for a couple of hours and then bring it out and beat it again. I don’t know if a Vitamix will have the same effect, so an electric mixer will work best if you have one.
Thank you!!
I don’t have a ice-cream maker is there anyway of making it without?
Hi Natalie, the churning in the ice cream maker incorporates air into the ice cream which creates that sort of ‘light and fluffy’ ice cream texture. You can ‘cheat’ this a little if you have a mixer, you can beat the ice cream mix with the mixer and then freeze it for a couple of hours (until it’s not yet set) and then bring it out and beat it again. It will go some way towards recreating what the ice cream maker does and either way will still be delicious! xo
Hi Alison can I used oatmilk instead my husband don’t used anything from the can and if I’m using coconut it will be the the one I blend to get the milk…can this work instead of the coconut cream?
If it’s a thick and creamy full fat coconut milk then sure. I don’t think oat milk would be rich enough.
Thank you