Chocolate SunButter Banana Ice Cream

If you’re vegan, I’m willing to bet you’ve made banana ice cream before. You know, the magical kind made with nothing but frozen bananas that is somehow amazingly similar to dairy ice cream? I used to make it frequently, but after a while it slipped off my radar (once I got an ice cream maker, probably). However, Nate requested it again recently and I couldn’t believe how long it had been since I whipped some up!

Plain banana ice cream is pretty good, but I like mine best with a tablespoon or two of nut butter and cocoa powder. It’s so good, you’d swear you paid $6 for a tiny pint of it, not made it yourself out of bananas that were ripened beyond recognition.

Check out how gloriously silky smooth that ice cream looks… can you believe it’s all just bananas?!

I realized recently that we had a peanut butter situation in our house – 4 different types of peanut butter. That is just a waste of cabinet space! I’ve slowly been working on clearing them out (yum), and I’m down to one kind now. So when it came time to make this banana ice cream, I thought, why use up the last of my peanut butter? Time to try something new: SunButter!

I’ve posted many recipes with SunButter before, mainly smoothies. Sunflower seed butter has a strong flavor, similar to peanut butter, and it pairs well with bananas and chocolate. (What doesn’t?!) It’s great for those with nut allergies, but I also just happen to like it better than peanut butter in smoothies and the like. This ice cream is kind of like a peanut-free Reese’s peanut butter cup. It’s just to die for! And it’s even more special when sprinkled with colorful chocolate-covered sunflower seeds from Trader Joe’s. So fun! They make me feel like I’m eating confetti.

I can’t recommend this ice cream enough. If you keep an ever-growing supply of frozen bananas in your freezer (umm like I do), you can whip this up at a moment’s notice to satisfy a chocolate craving. And you know I don’t usually include calorie counts in my recipes, but I feel compelled to mention that this one is just 170 calories/serving. Pretty incredible for ice cream!

And if you just happen to make a quadruple batch and remember that half the recipe is still in your freezer while writing a blog post about it… well, it’s totally guilt-free.

Have a fantastic Labor Day weekend! I will be relaxing, taking care of wedding things (no doubt), and dirtying all the spoons in my house sneaking scoops of this ice cream.

5.0 from 2 reviews

Chocolate SunButter Banana Ice Cream

 

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Hands-on time

10 mins

Total time

10 mins

 

Author: Erica

Yields: 2 small servings

Ingredients

• 2 frozen bananas, sliced into coins
• 1 Tbsp sunflower seed butter
• 1 Tbsp cocoa powder
• chocolate-covered sunflower seeds for topping, optional

Instructions

1. Whirl frozen banana slices in your food processor until light and creamy. (You will have to stop to break up clumps several times.) Add sunflower seed butter and cocoa powder and process until combined.
2. Eat immediately as soft serve (this is what I usually do!) or freeze in a covered container for at least 2 hours, then scoop and enjoy. The ice cream stays nice and soft when frozen - perfect for scooping directly out of the freezer :) Top with chocolate-covered sunflower seeds for a real treat!

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