Home » Headline, Occasional Indulgences, Snacks, Vegan, Vegetarian

Vegan Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

5 September 2010 16 Comments

I’ve started to notice some leaves on the ground, but I’m choosing to ignore them and milk these last couple weeks of sunshine. I know that soon my ice cream maker will be headed back in storage, and so I decided to make one last batch of homemade ice cream. I chose a recipe that is vegan, and features really natural ingredients- I even got to use the mint growing in my garden! This mint chocolate chip ice cream doesn’t taste like the kind you buy at the grocery store. It’s much more refreshing and it tastes like real mint leaves. I love that it uses coconut milk instead of cow’s milk, so that I can actually eat it! It might be a little bit too minty for some people, but I haven’t had regular ice cream in so long that I really enjoyed this.

Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream (recipe from here)

  • 1 cup fresh mint leaves
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 1 14oz can full fat coconut milk
  • 1/4 cup baby spinach leaves, packed
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • pinch of salt
  • 1/2 cup vegan chocolate chips

In a medium saucepan combine the mint leaves, sugar and water and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Let it steep for 15 minutes.

Pour the contents of the saucepan into a blender jar, add the coconut milk, baby spinach, vanilla and salt. Liquefy for about a minute or until smooth and green.

Strain the mixture into a medium size mixing bow.  Let it cool in the fridge for an hour or until the bottom of the bowl feels completely cold.

Once chilled, strain it again into your ice cream maker’s bowl, and freeze in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. (I used my KitchenAid ice cream maker attachment). Place a food storage container (where you want to keep your ice cream) in the freezer.

A few minutes before the ice cream maker is done churning, melt the chocolate chips in the microwave in a dry glass bowl.

When the ice cream maker is done churning, remove your food storage container from the freezer and spread about half of the ice cream on the bottom. Drizzle about half of the melted chocolate all over the ice cream and stir to break up the chocolate into tiny chips. Repeat with the other half of the ice cream and the rest of the melted chocolate.

Cover the bowl and freeze until firm. Serve and enjoy!

16 Comments »

  • Sophie said:
    I love the last picture,..very cool!

    this ice cream with spinach in it looks quite tasty!!

    Special too!

    # 5 September 2010 at 6:34 pm
  • evan said:
    What a lovely summer dessert-so fresh and light!
    # 5 September 2010 at 6:42 pm
  • Cara said:
    Looks very refreshing!
    I like how you added the spinach to make it extra green.
    Too bad I don’t have an icecream maker.
    # 5 September 2010 at 11:37 pm
  • Xiaolu said:
    What a great way to celebrate the end of summer with ice cream made from homegrown herbs. Wish I had a machine so I could try this!
    # 6 September 2010 at 3:24 pm
  • Jennifer said:
    Yum! I LOVE the combination of chocolate and mint. Beautiful photos!
    # 6 September 2010 at 4:02 pm
  • Koko said:
    Thanks Sophie!
    Thanks mom!
    Thanks Cara! Check out this for making ice cream without and ice cream maker….more time consuming, though. http://www.davidlebovitz.com/2007/07/making-ice-crea-1/
    Thanks Xiaolu- check out the above link!
    Thanks Jennifer!
    # 6 September 2010 at 4:10 pm
  • Juliana said:
    Wow! This ice cream looks so yummie, like the idea of using coconut milk…looks very refreshing :-)
    # 8 September 2010 at 12:48 am
  • Leah @ Why Deprive? said:
    This ice cream looks awesome! I love that you included spinach!
    # 8 September 2010 at 6:44 pm
  • Koko said:
    Thanks Juliana! You can definitely taste the coconut milk, but I love coconut milk!

    Thanks Leah. It was so cool that the spinach could make the green colour, without there even being a spinach taste!

    # 8 September 2010 at 11:37 pm
  • Baking Serendipity said:
    Mint chocolate chip is one of my favorite ice cream flavors! I love your final picture, in the grass. The green colors are fantastic!
    # 12 September 2010 at 5:34 am
  • Ana said:
    is it possible to use almond milk instead?
    # 30 December 2010 at 3:43 pm
  • Koko (author) said:
    It’s definitely possible…but it won’t create the richness that the fat in coconut milk provides. If you are okay with that, give it a try! :)
    # 30 December 2010 at 4:47 pm
  • Lauren (PB&G) said:
    This looks SO good! My dad loves mint chocolate chip ice cream. I would love to make this for him – what amount of dried mint leaves would you recommend? I have plenty dried from my boyfriend’s mom, but no fresh!
    # 14 February 2011 at 9:33 pm
  • Koko (author) said:
    Hmmm….I would say the usual ratio is about 4:1 or 3:1 fresh to dry. So you could try using just under a quarter cup, and see how that works, but you might have to experiment a bit. Hope it turns out okay!! :)
    # 15 February 2011 at 12:47 am
  • Lauren (PB&G) said:
    Thanks, I’ll give that a shot when I break out the ice cream maker! I’ll let you know how it turns out =)
    # 20 February 2011 at 1:43 am
  • Belated Birthday Celebration! « Peanut Butter and Ginger said:
    [...] was inspired by Koko’s Kitchen. On a whim I decided to use the dried spearmint leaves I had in my cabinet instead of the [...]
    # 22 February 2011 at 5:36 am

Leave your response!

Add your comment below, or trackback from your own site. You can also subscribe to these comments via RSS.

Be nice. Keep it clean. Stay on topic. No spam.

You can use these tags:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

This is a Gravatar-enabled weblog. To get your own globally-recognized-avatar, please register at Gravatar.