Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream (with no refined sugar)

Last Updated on June 2, 2023 by Michelle

Mint chocolate chip ice cream. It’s one of my biggest temptations.

When I decided to stop buying ice cream at the store, I started using my ice cream maker (I love this machine) to whip up all kinds of frozen, creamy alternatives to Breyers, with zero refined sugar or any additives or preservative chemicals. I was hesitant if the mint chocolate chip would meet my high expectations. Oh boy, does it ever!

Table of Contents

Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream With Maple Syrup

Ingredients

4 cups fresh mint leaves (or 2 cups dried mint)

2 cups milk

3/4 cup maple syrup (i highly recommend this syrup)

1 tsp vanilla extract (this is the only one I buy)

1/2 tsp salt (I use this salt)

2 cups heavy cream

1/2 cup cacao nibs, ground up (this is where I get mine) — see notes

1/2 cup chocolate chips

Directions

Blend all but the last two ingredients together on high speed until the mint leaf bits are tiny. Add heavy cream and blend a little more.
Pour your mint cream into an ice cream maker and process, about 20 minutes.
Add cacao nibs and chocolate chips during the last few minutes of churning.

Notes

If you don’t have maple syrup (first of all, I highly recommend you grab some right here and save with code SOULYRESTED), you can use 1 cup of raw cane sugar or refined sugar in place of the maple syrup in this recipe.
The ice cream is on the soft side when it’s done. If you prefer it firmer, just freeze it in a freezer-safe container for an hour or so. Sometimes homemade ice cream turns pretty hard when you do this and needs to set out at room temperature for 10 minutes or so before it’s “scoop-able,” but that’s not the case with this ice cream. It scoops perfectly, right out of the freezer.
I use a vacuum-seal blender which makes the fresh mint retain its gorgeous green color in the ice cream, if I’m using fresh mint. (The pictures in the freezer container and on the cookie are made with dried mint, so the green is less vibrant.) A standard blender causes the ingredients to loose some nutrients when pulverized at the high speed of the blender and the introduction of all that air when blending makes the mint unable to hold its green color. But no worries, tan-colored mint ice cream is just as delicious.
I add the cacao nibs for the added nutritional bonus, and they add a dark chocolate flavor and crunchy texture (they’re also amazing drizzled into a cup of healthy hot chocolate), but feel free to use 1 cup of regular old chocolate chips too.
If you don’t have heavy cream on hand, combine 1 1/2 cups whole milk whit 1/2 cup melted butter… Heat butter, add in milk when almost all melted and combine while heating together. Add maple syrup and vanilla to hot milk then add that mixture, little by little, while wisking, into cold milk. Then pour immediately into ice cream machine. This isn’t quite a delicious and it doesn’t store well (it hardens up to the point you can’t scoop it out) but in a pinch, it works.
This set of stainless steel containers, with a sealed lid, is perfect for ice cream storage. The largest one will hold all of your finished ice cream and, if you choose to enjoy some soft serve and freeze the rest, the middle or small size will hold the left overs.
My favorite way to enjoy this ice cream is plopped on top of a mint chocolate chip cookie baked in a mini cast iron pan, and straight out of the oven.

My Ice Cream Tools of the Trade

Delicious, all-natural ice cream has never been so easy! See my maple ice cream recipe below.

This set of stainless steel containers is dishwasher safe and the lids have a nice seal.

These crushed cacao beans are rich, chocolatey, and loaded with nutrients and powerful plant compounds. I love them in smoothies and shakes, or in cookies along with chocolate chips.

Sourced from world-renowned orchards, the organic vanilla beans make this a flavorful vanilla that will become your favorite.

This maple syrup is the most delicious all-natural syrup. And it’s not just for pancakes! Use code SOULYRESTED for 10% off.

When I can’t justify using a pricier sugar, I still refuse to use refined sugar. This is my go-to replacement for refined. I buy it at my local Aldis

I can’t imagine making homemade peanut butter or real butter–not to mention so many other things–without this vacuum-sealed blender.

Redmond’s Real Salt–the only salt mined in the US–is never heat processed and stripped of their natural trace minerals. Use code SOULYRESTED to save with every order.

Talk to me!

If you have any questions, leave a comment below. And please tag me on ig @souly.rested if you try this delicious ice cream!

More For You:

My Maple Ice Cream Recipe

Maple Peanut Butter (another favorite to make with my vacuum-seal blender)

My Favorite Tools in my farmhouse kitchen

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Let us acknowledge the LORD; let us press on to acknowledge Him. As surely as the sun rises, He will appear; He will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth. Hosea 6:3

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