Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream (with no refined sugar)

Last Updated on July 30, 2024 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!

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

1. Blend all but the last 3 ingredients together on high speed until the mint leaf bits are tiny. Add heavy cream and blend a little more.
2. Pour your mint cream into an ice cream maker and process, about 20 minutes.
3. 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.
• No fresh or dried mint on hand? Use 2-3 tsp mint extract. (Find out how to make your own mint extract here.)
• 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.
• I sometimes substitute carob chips for chocolate chips. Carob chips taste similar to chocolate but they are actually a legume, which is anti-inflammatory, and helps with gut health. Unlike chocolate, which actually inhibits the amount of calcium your body is able to absorb, carob aids your body in digesting calcium (which, of course, this ice cream is full of).
• If you don’t have heavy cream on hand, combine 1 1/2 cups whole milk with 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 whisking, 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.
• Another option is to simply use 4 cups of whole milk if you don’t have heavy cream.
• 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

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

Follow My Podcast for Real Food encouragement

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

Pin this for later!

Click on the image below to pin this post & save it for later.

Find out why SoulyRested was considered to be one of the Top 20 Must-Read Homesteading Blogs of 2018 and then one of the Top Homesteading Blogs of 2021 as well.

Glance at my Resource Page if you’d like to get a glimpse of all the supplies I use and recommend for everything from gardening, to homeschooling, to chicken care, to nature journaling, to maple syrup making.

 

 

I’d love to connect!

To find me in some other neck of the woods, just click any (or every!) icon below: