Berry Blender Soft Serve
Angela | December 23, 2010When I was young, my grandmother made the absolute best homemade strawberry ice cream. It was a big production that involved an old fashioned ice cream maker, rock salt, and I honestly don’t know what else besides strawberries – and, I probably don’t want to know. There must have been heavy cream somewhere, because that ice cream was the most delicious, creamy, sugary concoction ever. In the heart of Texas summer, it tasted like heaven. To this day, my favorite ice cream flavor is strawberry, but, I hardly ever have it.
We don’t eat enough ice cream to justify buying it by the half gallon, nor do we need to eat that much ice cream. But every so often, even in Seattle in winter, I crave a little ice cream treat. That’s where my Ninja Professional blender comes in. This blender is honestly my favorite kitchen item, and I came this close to not buying it. For shame!
Aside being able to blend the stuffing out of just about anything I want, I can make up a very reasonable ice cream facsimile in less than one minute. No rock salt needed. That’s just plain awesome. In case you are a little odd like me and I like a cold treat on a cold day, here is my berry soft serve creation. Enjoy!
Test Kitchen Tuesday’s Berry Blender Soft Serve
Downloadable Word Document Recipe
Note: You’ll need a high-powered blender like a Ninja, Blendtec, or Vita-mix to pull this off.
Serves 2
Ingredients:
- 1 cup skim milk (or, almond, soy, etc.)
- 1 frozen banana (I have started freezing them in halves instead of small chunks; the blender can take it and it’s just easier!)
- 1 cup frozen mixed berries (or just strawberries)
- Optional: 1/4 cup granulated sugar
- Optional: Whey protein powder with either a berry or plain flavor
Directions:
- Add all the ingredients into your high-powered blender in the order listed and blend for about a minute until the mixture is soft serve consistency. You may have to scrape down the sides once to make sure everything is fully incorporated. The longer you blend, the thicker it will get.
- Serve and enjoy!
- I have found the easiest way to scoop the goodness out of my Ninja jar is to use a rice server/spatula thingy. Works great and doesn’t scratch the blender jar.
- You can also freeze it for a couple hours to get a more frozen ice cream consistency.
Nutrition:
Honestly, there is no ice cream you can buy that has this good of a nutritional profile. With just three ingredients, it’s about as good as it gets!
For one serving without protein powder or sugar. (Click to enlarge.)
Thank you for the recipe. I just got my Ninja Blender 2 days ago but the recipe book was not included. I hope that the blender would do the wonder as all the reviews mentioned. It took me a long time to find this one.
Thank you.
I will print out the recipe and try it tonight with the kids.
Glad to help, Parinya. It seems there is a common theme that the recipe book is not included. Good luck with it, and enjoy. I just love my Ninja blender – I hope you do too!
I got my blender yesterday and am excited to use it. All I got with the blender was a rinky dink little booklet with a few recipes. In searching for recipes I found your site and so far, the best one!! Even better than the recipes on the NINJA site! Thank You so much. I will be trying this recipe.
Hi Alice,
You are so sweet, thank you.
I hope you enjoy. I just love my Ninja blender, so I’m always trying to come up with new things to make in it!
Angela
I made this tonight and while it was delicious, it was not frozen like in your picture. I use a Ninja 1100. Maybe I need to freeze the milk into ice cubes first?
Hi Judy,
Oh, that’s too bad! Were the banana and strawberries frozen? They need to be frozen to get the soft serve texture. You could also freeze the final result for about 45 minutes to get a frozen but still creamy texture…
Have you experimented with chocolate Ice Cream? I saw a recipe for it somewhere on Ninja site and now can’t find it. It contains frozen chocolate Milk and frozen milk or crean (not sure which is frozen.
Would love a healthy chocolate icecream. Heck vanilla too. They have one using vanilla bean which is way overpriced. I may try one w/ vanilla extract.
Thank you!!
Hi Lisa,
You know, I’m not much into chocolate ice cream (I don’t know why, just never have been!), so I haven’t tried it. However, lots of folks have asked for vanilla so I need to sit down and figure that one out. I think if you used frozen 2% milk (perhaps freeze it in ice cube trays), pure vanilla extract, and a sweetener like liquid Stevia you could probably come close! I think anything less than 2% milk wouldn’t be very creamy in the end. Please let me know if you have any success!
I found a vanilla ice cream recipe somewhere. I have not made it so I can’t attest. It calls for whole vanilla beans which are very very pricey. Here it is
Lisa, I just realized — I HAVE tried chocolate flavor. DUH. I made a “faux frosty” that is super delish — here: http://testkitchentuesday.com/2011/07/12/faux-frosty/. This one was for the magic bullet but you could do it in a Ninja.
Also, for hte vanilla, I had another idea: Try freezing plain yogurt (or greek yogurt) and adding a little stevia and vanilla extract, and blending it all up. I am guessing that will be pretty creamy. But, I will try it myself and report back!
oops, here it is:
$ whole vanilla beans
2 1/2 cups whole milk
2 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 1/2 cups light cream
1 tbsp vanilla extract
5 cups heavy cream
Place vanilla beans in pitcher & pulse intil the beans are fairly ground. Remove and set aside.
Scald the whole milk in saucepan. Remove from heat and cool. Pour milk into pitcher and add sugar, salt and light cream. Blend until very smooth. Pour into large mixing bowl and add the extract. Stir lightly and add the ground vanilla bean.
Refrigerate ice cream mixture for 1 hour, then pack and freeze.
The chocolate ice cream recipe that I can’t seem to locate called for chocolate milk frozen into ice cube trays as well as whole milk and light cream. I am freezing come of them right now and am going to play around a little.
I also saw a vanilla ice cream recipe that is much simpler (again have not tried). Have no specific measures but it called for Ice, vanilla extract, sugar and milk.
I wonder if the vanilla beans are worth it? The just might be. Let me know how it works out for you!
One word – YUMMO. I ran out of ice cream, and this totally fit the bill with zero guilt. My ninja just arrived so I am going a little crazy with it. I also made the frosty for my sons and they loved it ! On my way to buy some dates to try the bars. Thanks for all of the recipes !
Hi Lynne,
Yay! Glad you liked it. And, that faux frosty is one of my all time favs – chocolate yumminess with zero guilt.
Enjoy your Ninja!
Hi, I love this. My hubby just got me a ninja pulse for our anniversary and it came with this very similar recipe:
Very Berry Ice Cream
1 1/2 cup frozen mixed berries
1 cup heavy cream or milk or low fat milk
1/3 cup sugar or splenda
1 tsp vanilla
Put everything into processor bowl and pulse continuously for 30 seconds or until all ingredients are well blended and forms ice crystals. Serve as is or freeze for an hour to create a very thick consistency.
It tastes great.
Hi Becca,
How nice of your hubby!
This is one of my fave recipes – gives you a sweet satisfaction with very little guilt.
Thanks for dropping by!
Angela
Just tried this one – yum!!!
Except now I’m shivering! lol!
Thanks for this recipe and all the other Ninja recipes!!
I just received my Ninja 2 days back and this was the first recipe I tried. Needless to say, it was a winner, the hubbie and I gulped it down in minutes!
Hi K,
Glad you liked it and thanks for your note! Happy blending!!
I tried this recipe and ended up with more of a smoothie consistency. The post says the longer you blend the thicker it would become. I have the mega kitchen system and used the regular pitcher
Hi Cam,
If you are getting a smoothie consistency, you probably need less liquid. You could solve this by adding more fruit if you are trying to solve it real time, or using a little less liquid next time. The end result should be more of a soft serve consistency, which you could freeze to get harder “ice cream” (that is what I did for this photo). Hope that helps!
Hi Angela,
I made this too…my first thing! You had drooling for days while I was waiting for that machine to arrive. HA! I used frozen raspberries. I had the same results with more of a smoothie consistency than soft serve even after blending longer. I’ll try your advice to Cam and use either more fruit or less milk. I was also wondering if you used the (Mega) 72 oz container or the 64 oz. food processor bowl to make yours?
Hi Sue,
I made this before I had the Mega, so I used the 72 ounce jar on the Ninja Professional blender. I would definitely reduce the milk to 1/2 cup and add maybe 1/2 more frozen banana if you are getting more of a smoothie (do the milk first, and if it is still too thin, add more banana or berries). Also, in the picture, I had frozen it for about 2-3 hours, I think. Hope that works for you – let me know!
Good strawberry thickie
Add ice to Ninja and process
Add frozen strawberries
Add frozen banana or small apple
Add 3 Tbs. cottage cheese
Add stevia sweetner to taste
Add honey to taste
Add dash vanilla flavoring
Process until thick, scrape down, process until the consistency of ice cream
Even the grandchildren ask for the “strawberry ice cream” in the Ninja