Vegan Almond and Pistachio Ice Cream
On St. Patrick’s Day, our family always has a lot of fun. The naughty leprechaun comes to visit, sometimes he leaves us treats and gold coins, other times he just makes messes all around the house. Someone is always being pinched. We usually eat entirely green in our family for the whole day.
Breakfast might be whole-grain-pioneer-blender-pancakes colored green by adding spinach to the batter with honeydew and green grapes on the side. For lunch a green salad with a green goddess avocado and chive dressing is always in order. For an afternoon snack, I bust out the greenest smoothie you’ve ever seen. Dinner is a whole green affair: an appetizer of celery, cucumber, broccoli and green olives in edamame and avocado hummus. Main course might consist of spinach fettucine with green cashew alfredo (spinach is the star again!) topped with basil chiffonade. This year, we’ll definitely be having THIS very green ice cream for dessert.
Vegan Almond and Pistachio Ice Cream
- 1 can full fat coconut milk
- 1 C. soymilk
- 1/4 C. raw almond butter
- 2 C. packed organic baby spinach
- 2/3 C. raw agave OR pure maple syrup
- 1/3 C. shelled pistachios, roughly chopped
- 1 teaspoon almond extract
Method: In your blender, blend everything except for the pistachios until fully combined, about one to two minutes. There should be no visible spinach pieces! Pour into prepared ice cream maker and let churn for twenty five to thirty minutes, add pistachios during the last few minutes of churning. You can eat it straight away like soft serve, but for the best texture and flavor, pour ice cream into an airtight container and freeze for two hours or overnight before serving. If you don’t have an ice cream maker, you can try this method.
Hesitant to try green ice cream using spinach? Prior to going vegan, Pistachio Almond Ice Cream was one of my very favorites. This is a reverse of that flavor, made vegan and health-ified. I don’t use artificial coloring in my home, so spinach makes the ice cream green, while adding iron and calcium. If you don’t tell anyone, they’d never guess it’s in there! This ice cream tastes every bit as rich, creamy and delicious as dairy ice cream, but with much less guilt!
What are your St. Patrick’s Day Traditions?
Vedged Out 
Isn’t almond butter the best in ice cream??! I posted my almond butter ice cream awhile back and got such a great response. It’s so awesome because it makes it amazingly creamy! I love that you added spinach to it to make it green instead of artificial coloring. Spinach is great because it’s practically flavorless. Love the pistachios too! Looks delish and perfect for St. Patrick’s day!
I wanted to reduce the coconut flavor in this one. Turns out it’s a perfect trick! I had totally forgotten about your almond butter one! I need to go back and take a look again, I’m totally into ice cream right now! You CANNOT taste the spinach. SO awesome!
I bet! Spinach is so mild so it’s a great idea! My almond butter one doesn’t taste like coconut either because it has so much almond butter. All my non- vegan friends on Facebook devoured it and couldn’t taste coconut and was just as creamy as dairy. I don’t like a strong coconut flavor either. I totally need to try this one too! It’s so pretty and festive 🙂
I’ve found if you freeze the ice cream for long enough and eat it cold enough, you can hardly taste the coconut in the other ice creams I make, yeah, but this was is SO good! 🙂
Could this (or any other) ice cream recipe on your site be made in a vitamixer? modification suggestions welcome.
Hi Lola, I own a blendtec, which is similar to the vitamix, this type of consistency for ice cream can’t be achieved in either machine, since the machine actually freezes the ice cream. I do blend my ingredients together in my blendtec before pouring them in. If you’re looking for vitamix ice cream recipes, I would consult your owners manual. I would bet that it calls for many of the ingredients to be frozen before blending, but you’ll never get hard scoopable ice cream from a vitamix, it will be more like soft serve. I do offer a different alternative to an ice cream maker in the post…
Why the heck not? I am already consuming the best part of a bunch of spinach a day in those delicious green smoothies, and this looks really gorgeous and a great way to treat yourself on a hot day :). St. Patrick would approve 😉
You know, I do think St. Patrick would approve!
I dare say that the humble spinach and the mighty potato would have been some of St. Patrick’s favourite staple foods so if you can see your way clear to inventing potato and spinach icecream, you will be up there with the best vegan cooks around 🙂
Hmmm, intrigued…. I’ll bet you could stick some mashed potato in this and no one would notice!
Even sweet potato but I think St Patrick might not be so enarmoured of that ;). Maybe a potato and spinach loaf or sourdough cake might be more appropriate. I might have to come up with a version for Vegan Potluck 😉
You totally could Somer! I added sweet potato to lessen the sugar amount in my chocolate peppermint ice cream and you couldn’t tell AT ALL there is potato!
I remember you did that! Haha! Clever girl!
i think my spinach plants in our urban garden were not ready enough for this much consumption.. they produced slowly and stayed small:))
i love this green color and the creamy texture.. yay for almond butter in it
I buy so much spinach every week it’s ridiculous. I put it in everything, now even ice cream 😉 Hopefully you’ll get a better yield out of your urban garden soon. The almond butter makes it sooo good!
Yum! This definitely looks like a recipe to try 🙂
Thanks! 🙂
I think I wanna come over yours for ice cream party someday! (this and the chocolate ginger for me please?)
THAT WOULD BE SO FUN! You make the dinner! I do have a lovely guest room and loads of snowboarding passes…… 😉
I wanna do an all-green day now :-)!! Very fun! And the showstopper is that gorgeous ice cream. Who’s afraid of spinach? Not me!!
It’s too fun not too! A few years ago the kids weren’t into it, but now they LOVE green as much as I do. Turbo freaks out if his green smoothie isn’t ready as soon as he gets up. Rad. 🙂
How I wish I had an icecream maker when I see posts like these! Almond butter is my all-time favorite nut butter, this sounds amazing.
I got mine second hand! Such a worthwhile investment! We use it all the time, If you buy vegan ice cream, then this will pay itself off in no time! My husband says he loves this so much more than anything store bought. We can’t get enough!
Thanks so much for posting this, Pistachio is my favorite flavor 🙂
Oh my goodness, then you will love this! It’s the best!
I love the idea of eating green all day! That’s so fun. I want to be a kid at your house. 🙂 This ice cream looks and sounds amazing, by the way.
Come join us! 😉 Thanks! xx
Hello! Love this! Wish I had my ice cream machine where I live. I wanna try something similar. Never fear, Somer, I shall email you soon!
This flavor is amazing! I think you would love it just as much as any dairy ice cream. That’s too bad about your ice cream maker! I shall wait patiently for your email frugal. Seriously not a big deal 🙂
Wait a second, you mean someone made spinach green pancakes before me? I felt so original.
Ice cream sounds better anyway.
Sorry Penny, strike that, I got the idea from you…. not 😉 Ice cream is better! I remember the first time I put spinach in pancakes I thought I was so cool and original too, then I found a million other spinach pancake recipes out there. Burst my bubble 😉
Oh well. I do remember learning in some convoluted college class that “Everything in art is derivative.”
YUM! This ice cream looks incredible! Hm… I don’t have an ice cream churner but I’ll attempt this recipe with the alternate instructions instead 🙂 I love the idea of the spinach. Justifies eating another helping, right? 😉
Yup, totally justifies the second helping!
It’s funny – just today, I conned my sister-in-law in giving me her ice cream maker for a couple of weeks. I am going to make this for sure!!
Oh DO it! I have a chocolate ginger one on my site as well that’s to die for! 🙂
Definitely going for the chocolate ginger one too! My husband will think I’m the best wife ever. He’s always buying those chocolate covered ginger chunks as a treat. Thank you 🙂
Love it, Somer!!
Can’t help it. I’ve made like 15 types of ice cream since I got my ice cream maker. Can I post em all or are people going to hate me? 😉 ……
Get OUT!! Is there anything you CAN’T do, woman? We are so trying this. Perhaps it would go well after a gooey Moxerella pizza. And you remind me to have a Thai laksa for lunch — and now I can make it my own self. Why is it with you my mouth is always watering.
Miss you girl. Trying to get back into the swing again. Blog love coming at’cha.
Looks great, but I don’t have an ice cream maker:-(
Wow that pistachio ice cream looks divine Somer! I just have to have an ice cream maker!!
Fun to hear about your Sct Patrick tradition – all green food, how cool!. We don’t celebrate Sct Patrick’s day in Denmark so it’s all new to me.
XXXX
This looks so crazy good Somer! I love that you go all out on St. Patrick’s day – it is SO fun with young kids! I am half tempted to buy an ice cream maker JUST for this. Amazing!
yum! Pistachio is one of my favourite ice cream flavours but I never thought to sneak leafy greens into it before – great idea 🙂
Hi I have awarded you The Very Inspiring Blogger Award. For rules see my today’s blog post. You really deserve this award! 🙂
I’ve been complaining for months (years?) that of all the vegan ice cream flavors we can walk into the store and buy, pistachio is not among them… and pistachio was always my favorite! Thank you SO MUCH for this!
Totally made green pancakes with spinach in them. Can’t wait to make this.
Did you try it yet?
What a tasty looking special vegan ice-cream! It rocks! Yumm!
Thanks Sophie!
Sounds so perfect this time of year- I’m crazy about anything pistachio! 🙂
Me too! Yummy stuff babe 🙂
That is a lot of green food! This looks so so so good- I need to try my hand at vegan ice cream making, my last attempt 3 years ago was a major fail, I think I need to put on my big girl pants and give it another try!
Oh girl, I know you have that Ice cream maker… Warmer weather is coming… It’s time to break it out! Vegan ice cream is delish! Get out those big girl pants!
Wow, I make a delicious pistachio & cardamom kulfi – I need to get round to blogging the recipe. But I love the look of this recipe – the colour is great, spinach, in ice-cream? Now that is fun!
Thanks!
I’m a little behind on reading posts! SO glad I go to this one. This sounds incredible. I think an ice cream machine is in the offing if I can make dairy free ice cream in it!
IT is even better than dairy ice cream! I promise. I bought my ice cream maker secondhand. Totally worthwhile investment!
Wow this was amazing!!! Thank you for sharing. Ps.used almond milk instead of soy and added a small amount of xanthan gum. Yum yum
yay! I just made this for my Persian New Year celebration and it was fantastic. Everyone was delighted that there was spinach in their ice cream! ha ha. The flavor is totally fantastic and the texture was perfect. I made a couple tweaks — used almond milk since one of my guests was soy-free, doubled the added pistachios, and used homemade pistachio butter instead of almond butter. SO GOOD. http://veganeatsandtreats.blogspot.com/2015/03/norooz-persian-new-year-feast.html