go bananas

I love ice cream. Loooooove ice cream. Especially cookies n' cream or anything that combines caramel, chocolate and nuts. Or coffee. (See, honey? I am so easy to please!) 


I could probably eat ice cream every evening. In fact, I know I could. Unfortunately, ice cream doesn't exactly fit into the healthy eating category. In an ongoing effort to make healthier choices we decided to try making our own ice cream. Except it's not actually ice cream. But it tastes a lot like it. Confused?

Banana soft serve. I started seeing this pop up all over the blog world  but didn't really believe bananas could be a convincing substitute for ice cream. Plus? I'm not a huge fan of banana-y things. But when we started a nutritional challenge at our gym that eliminated ice cream I was ready to give this thing a try.

End result? It's so delicious. I mean, it's not ice cream. But it's a pretty amazing substitute and it's just fruit.

And it's so ridiculously easy.

First - freeze bananas in chunks. I just break off small chunks and plop them on a cookie tray and throw it in the freezer. Done. (We used two bananas on this particular night)

 Hi Cindy, have you heard of natural light? You should try it sometime.

After a couple hours the bananas are ready to go. Just dump them in a food processor. On this particular night we added some frozen strawberries for a different flavor. Cinnamon is a great mix-in, too. Or, if you're not doing a nutritional challenge with your gym you could mix in chocolate chips, oreos, caramel....the options are truly endless.


We add some coconut milk to the mixture (good fats!) to make it even creamier. I use the canned variety so there's no added sugar, but you could use any milk (almond, soy, normal milk, whatever). I don't measure it, but I would guess it's somewhere around 1/4 - 1/2 cup for 2-3 bananas.

Then, turn on the food processor. We have to stop it a couple times to push the frozen deliciousness down the sides of the processor, and then moments later we have dessert. It's definitely edible right now, but we've found it's even better after about 15 minutes in the freezer. We usually just dish it into mugs, pop them in the freezer and anxiously watch the clock.

And it's just fruit (well, and a little milk, which is optional). Apparently fruit really can be dessert!

Even if you don't love bananas you might surprise yourself with this dessert. The banana flavor is subtle (the riper the banana the sweeter the end result!), and if you add some favorite mix-ins it would be even less noticeable.

I realize I'm no food blogger, so if you want to see some pictures that will make you drop everything and freeze some bananas right this minute I recommend checking out Espresso and Cream's version of this delectable snack. (No really. It's worth the click!)

Enjoy! : )