Want to know how to make healthy ice cream? Here are some tips

If you love ice cream, but you don’t love what it does to you, then you will be happy to know there is an alternative.

It’s called nice cream and it doesn’t have any dairy, fat or sugar. Vegans love it, and it’s gaining wider acceptance among people looking for a healthy and great-tasting alternative to ice cream.

What’s in it? The base is frozen bananas that have been blended into a soft-serve consistency. Add just about anything for flavor and color. Recipes abound on the internet; Pinterest is loaded with them, too.

You can make nice cream as healthy and simple as you want by adding fresh seasonal fruit, like stone fruit or berries, or you can flex your cooking skills by trying food blogger Emilie Herbert’s version of Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey.

Local Instagrammer @ladybliss96 whipped up some coffee nice cream using frozen bananas, organic coffee and cashew butter. The result looks delicious.

Shayna Telesmanic, owner of Young Chef’s Academy in Fresno, said nice cream is super simple to make, having made it several times with her two young daughters, Alexandria and Caroline. Telesmanic offers a few tips for first-timers:

▪ About three bananas makes a serving for two.

▪ Make sure your bananas are fully ripe, not just sort of ripe. “You know, the kind of ripe bananas that makes you start thinking about making banana bread,” Telesmanic said. “Then just peel them and put them in the freezer to use later.”

▪ Use a high-quality blender or food processor to get the right consistency for your base. After that, add what you want and blend again. She and her daughters like to make chocolate nice cream by adding cacao powder, chocolate chips, a little vanilla and salt.

You eat it right away or you can freeze it for later.

“It tastes just like soft serve,” Telesmanic said. “And it’s dairy free, has less sugar and no preservatives.”

This story was originally published June 27, 2017 at 11:00 AM with the headline "Want to know how to make healthy ice cream? Here are some tips."