This Dairy-Free Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream is made with 6 good-for-you ingredients and takes 5 minutes of hands-on prep time! It’s ultra rich and creamy, and no one would ever guess that it’s dairy-free!
This recipe was originally published on July 2, 2016! The photos have been updated and a step-by-step video has been added just above the recipe card, but the recipe remains unchanged!
This recipe goes out to all my lactose-intolerant soul-sisters (and misters). Those of us who truly can’t eat dairy without serious consequences. Those of us who wish we could go swimming in a sea of ice cream or sail away on a boat made of cheese. Those of us whose tastebuds scream for the cream but our tummies beg us to stay away. This Dairy-Free Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream is the answer to all your dairy-less life problems.
I have tried my hand at many dairy-free ice cream recipes with next to no luck. They all turn out icy or rock-hard and definitely lack in the creaminess department. Not this Dairy-Free Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream…oh no
I struck pure gold here, and I credit the success to the use of coconut cream! Using coconut cream instead of other non-dairy milk makes this dairy-free ice cream just as creamy (or dare I say creamier) than it’s dairy-full counterparts.
Let’s start with the fact that there are only six, good-for-you ingredients that make up this Dairy-Free Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream! It is free of dairy, gluten, soy, and refined sugar!
Plus it can be made vegan by substituting maple syrup for the honey! You can even make this paleo if you use creamy almond butter instead of peanut butter! There are so many healthy options with this amazingly creamy dessert recipe!
How to make Dairy-Free Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream
Let’s continue with the fact that this recipe is insanely easy!
1. Make the Peanut Butter Balls
The first thing you need to do is make the frozen peanut butter balls! Everybody knows that the absolute best chocolate peanut butter ice cream has giant chunks of peanut butter mixed in.
There have been (many) times that I actually added extra peanut butter balls to store-bought ice cream because there simply wasn’t enough! So pretty please don’t skimp on peanut butter in this recipe!
There’s nothing fancy about making the chunks…just dollop globs of your favorite peanut butter onto a tray lined with waxed paper and toss them in the freezer for at least one hour (preferably a little longer) until they’re completely frozen.
2. Use a Vitamix
Next, add all of the ingredients for the ice cream base into the container of your Vitamix and blend until smooth! Then pour the mixture into an ice cream maker and let it churn! It’s very important that (unlike many other recipes) you do not chill your ice cream base (meaning the chocolate mixture in the Vitamix)! It must go directly from the Vitamix into the ice cream maker.
The bowl of your ice cream maker must be frozen in order to churn the ice cream!
3. Turn the machine on before pouring!
Important tip: When using an ice cream maker it is crucial that you turn the machine on before you pour the mixture into it! Pouring ice cream into an already moving container ensures that it will not freeze to the bottom or sides, which could hinder the churning process by preventing the machine from rotating.
When your Dairy-Free Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream forms a ball and no longer has a liquid consistency, it is done! At this point it could become so thick that the ice cream maker stops rotating, which is another indicator that it’s ready!
4. Put it all together!
Now you’re left with a heap of frozen chocolatey, peanut buttery goodness and your frozen balls of peanut butter! The peanut butter “globs” will thaw very rapidly, especially if you choose to use an all-natural variety. This just means that you need to mix in the chunks as quickly as possible when you remove them from the freezer!
5. Add the peanut butter balls.
You can either mix the peanut butter balls in by hand, or add them to your ice cream maker before the base forms a ball too solid to add mix-ins . Since I am usually doing 1.5 million other things while my ice cream is churning, I choose to mix them in by hand because I miss my window of opportunity! š
6. Freeze
You will have to toss this Dairy-Free Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream in the freezer for at least 1 hour for it to fully harden. But trust me…it is so worth the wait.
Something very important to know about me is that I believe Chocolate Peanut Butter is the only flavor of ice cream worth eating. All other flavors are dead to me. If I walk into an ice cream shop and they do not have chocolate peanut butter…or a chocolatey ice cream with the option to add a peanut butter topping, or they have a chunk-less chocolate peanut butter flavor, I usually just don’t order anything.
I know, I sound like a brat…or I could just be a woman who knows exactly what she wants and will settle for nothing less. Yep. let’s go with that.
Dairy-Free Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream: Substitutions & Ingredients
This ice cream is absolutely the best when made exactly as written! There are NO substitutions for coconut cream, you will sacrifice creaminess and texture if you try a different dairy-free liquid.
- Peanut Butter: If you are allergic to peanuts you can use any nut or seed butter! Or go crazy and use chocolate flavored peanut butter or nutella, the possibilities are endless! Although my favorite is simple, creamy peanut butter!
- Honey: Maple syrup can be used in place of honey! That is the only other liquid sweetener I have tried! However if you try others {agave, brown rice syrup, etc} let me know how it goes in the comments below!
That’s it! Since the list of ingredients is super short, so is the list of possible substitutions! š
IF YOU MAKE SOMETHING FROM JOYFOODSUNSHINE I WOULD LOVE TO SEE YOUR CREATIONS! DONāT FORGET TO RATE THIS RECIPE AND LEAVE A COMMENT BELOW! ALSO, FOLLOW ALONG WITH ME ON INSTAGRAM, PINTEREST, FACEBOOK, YOUTUBE AND TWITTER FOR MORE RECIPE INSPIRATION AND A GLIMPSE INTO OUR EVERYDAY LIFE!
Dairy-Free Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream
Ingredients
Frozen balls of PB
- Ā¼ cup creamy peanut butter
Ice cream:
- 1 (14 oz) can coconut cream
- Ā¼ cup honey Vegan: use maple syrup
- Ā¼ cup creamy peanut butter
- 2 TBS unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
- Ā¼ tsp sea salt
Instructions
To make PB Balls:
- Cover an 8x8ā baking pan with wax paper. Drop 1 tsp spoonfuls of PB on the waxed paper. Put in the freezer to harden.
To make Ice cream:
- Add all ice cream ingredients in the order listed to the container of a Vitamix (or other high-powered blender).
- Blend for 30-60 seconds or until the mixtures is smooth and homogenous.
- Turn the ice cream maker on and pour the mixture into the machine while it is spinning. (**See note below if you do not have an ice cream maker)
- Let the ice cream churn for 20-25 minutes until it becomes a firm ball or the ice cream maker stops rotating.
- Add the peanut butter chunks at the end of churning. You can add them to the ice cream maker just before the mixture becomes too hard, or you can mix them in by hand.
- Transfer to an airtight, freezer-friendly container and put in the freezer for at least 1 hour, or until completely frozen.
- Makes about 1 pint of creamy DELICIOUSNESS!
Video
Notes
Nutrition
This Dairy-Free Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream is one of my top 10 favorite dessert recipes ever. I am so excited that I get to share it with the world! I hope that it will be just as life-changing for you as it was for me. Want to take this to a whole new level? Serve it on top of dairy free brownies (recipes here, here, and here) or on top of cookies (like these, these or these)!
This post contains affiliate links, which means that if you purchase a product through a link you clicked on here, I receive a portion of the sale. Thank you for supporting JoyFoodSunshine!
Lori Landsberg
IF I were to substitute monkfruit sweetener for the honey, what ratio would you recommend?
Laura
Hey Lori, I am not familiar with monkfruit sweetener. So I cannot advise on that substitution!
Teresa Y.
Lori Landsberg, I just made this recipe. My grandson cannot have dairy, sugar or peanut butter. I used Lankato Maple flavored syrup (made with monk fruit and you can get in on Amazon or Sprouts) for the maple syrup substitute. I used Sun Butter for the peanut butter but I added 1 tsp of Classic monk fruit and 1 tsp of Golden monk fruit and 1 tsp extra of cocoa powder. It turned out great. But next time I will add more cocoa powder and adjust the Monk fruit just because I like chocolate!
bee ling
THank you, it’s a wonderful, easy recipe! I tried and was a success – my first dairy-free ice-cream. I just used a normal electric hand whisk. THank you!
Laura
So glad you love it!
Faith
WARNING: COCONUT AFTER-TASTE!!!! This recipe turned out pretty good, however, I did not care for the coconut oil after-taste. If you don’t mind the after taste then this is a great dairy-free recipe for you, The texture was spot on! Just like real ice cream! Maybe I just need to find a substitute for coconut cream, Oat milk maybe?
Laura
Thanks for your comment Faith! I never taste the coconut, but my husband does! He can tell if there’s even a shred of coconut in a recipe! LOL! Some people are super-tasters for it, maybe you are one of those people! š
Josie
Iāve made this several time and it definitely did not leave a coconut aftertaste at all!! In fact, it the best ice cream Iāve made and I served it to non-coconut lovers and they loved it!
Melanie
It’s very hard to impress me, and this ice cream is AMAZING. Thank you so much! I made it for a friend who is off dairy for now, and WOW I am going to keep making it for myself! I also love that it doesn’t need to be refrigerated pre-churn. Thanks again!
Laura
Thank you Melanie! This is one of my favorites! š
Farah
Darn, I love peanut butter chocolate ice cream but I’m alergic to coconut. Your pictures make it look amazing though!
Bart R.
Same here for my better half. Substitution suggestions???
Erin
Oh my…amazing! Iāve been busting out dairy free ice cream non-stop since getting my ice cream machine last week and you have blown my mind with this one! It is so rich and creamy. Not one tidbit of icy texture. Thank you! I subbed in cashew butter and cacao instead of cocoa. Simply perfect!!! Tomorrow…vanilla is happening! Yay!
Emily
This ice cream is SO delicious. I usually donāt bother with chocolate peanut butter but my daughter convinced me this was the recipe for our ice cream today. I especially loved getting random leaves of peanut butter in the ice cream – we only had crunchy peanut butter and creamy sunflower seed butter – the combo turned out amazing! Thank you!!!!
Regina
I have a standard type ice cream maker (metal container with lid, inside a big bucket that you put salt and ice in).
So would I just put the mixture in the container, put the lid on, start it churning, THEN add the ice and salt?
Xenia
Came out great! I added an extra 2 Tbs of cocoa powder and an extra 1 Tbs of honey. I also substituted sunflower butter for peanut butter, as I mainly eat Paleo. I’m amazed, b/c it actually tastes like it was made with peanut butter. Also, you know that hole in the ice cream maker cover, the one you pour the mixture through? I discovered it has a secondary purpose – when the mixture is getting close to being done, you can put the handle end of a rubber spatula in and scoop out some almost-finished ice cream to eat. I’m sure I ate enough to fill a dessert dish during the last 5-10 minutes of churning :-))) I was enjoying it so much I forgot all about stirring in the sunflower butter blobs from the freezer! They had to go in later. Thanks for an excellent recipe!
Laura
So glad you enjoyed it! And thank you for the note about sunbutter!! And that hole is PERFECT for sneaking bites! š
April King
First of all, the recipe is absolutely delicious. I guess it would be difficult to have chocolate peanut butter ice cream that is not delicious.
Anyways, for those who are not trying to make foods without refined sugar, I used 2/3 cup of cane sugar in place of the 1/2 cup of honey. It came out absolutely perfectly. Creamy and yummy, and a bit easier to make.
Laura
I’m so glad you love it April! I just made some this week too! Honey is a natural, unrefined sugar too! š
Diana
This recipe has just one first place at our house for the best ice cream ever!! Thank you so much!! We have recently had to go dairy-free, and I was anxious about finding good dairy-free ice cream. (The only other one I’d tried was pretty awful.) This was superb. I made a 4x recipe so that we could churn it in the big ice-and-salt type machine, and it was fantastic. Even my husband loved it, and he hates all things coconut. Thank you again!!!
Diana
Laura
Thank you Diana!! This is one of my favorite recipes of all time and I’m so glad you love it too!
Laurie Board
Iām about to purchase an ice cream maker (2 qt) and wanted to find some great recipes to try. Will this recipe double? Since weāve gone vegan, my biggest challenge is keeping plenty of āgoodā munchies and snacks on hand. My husband plows through a batch of homemade Chex mix in only a few days! Just curious whether ingredient measurements would double across the board. Thank you!
Laura
Hey Laurie! This recipe fills an ice cream maker that has a 1 1/2 quart capacity bowl. I actually have two bowls that I always keep frozen, so if I need to double the recipe I make half in one bowl, and when it’s done churning I immediately use the second one!
Lauren
Did anyone have a coconut taste / flavor when they made it? I usually stay away from coconut based cause you end up tasting the coconut but everyone says this is amazing so I wanna try it!
Emily
Itās great! I also didnāt like the thought of coconut ice cream, but when I tried it, to my surprise I found out that the chocolate and peanut butter is a perfect way to take down the taste of coconut to just a mere hint of coconut. And the creaminess from the coconut makes it even better than the store bought dairy ice cream Iād been craving.
Liz
I made this recipe using the coconut cream from Trader Joe’s, I replaced the honey with confectioners swerve, unfortunately this made the mixture a little thicker and I think it affected the end result. The texture is silky and flavor is delicious. The only reservation I have is the amount of fat and calories from an entire can of coconut cream are a little too high for me to eat regularly.
Laura
Hey Liz! Yes using a different sweetener would change the texture of the ice cream for sure! But I’m glad you like it and can enjoy it for a special occasion treat!
Jess
Ughhh… so anyone else not realize that coconut cream and cream of coconut are not the same thing?? š¤¦š»āāļø
Melody
Just a reminder to all who donāt have coconut cream āon handā. If you put your full fat coconut milk on the fridge for the day, you can open it and use only the thick white firmed up parts at the top of the can – thatās coconut cream! And much cheaper than buying it separately.
Margaret
I was wondering what brand “coconut cream” you are using so I can find it in the grocery??? I do have TRADER JOE’S Coconut cream on hand.
I am not happy w any store bought non dairy they are not creamy like SWEET RITUAL in Austin TX.
Laura
I have used Trader Joe’s Coconut Cream! I also really love Thai kitchen as a brand or Sprouts!
Naomi
Hi, I tried making this following the recipe exactly, but instead of using a Vitamix, I used an immersion blender. The mixture got grainy with tiny white dots. It’s now in the freezer and the texture is still pretty grainy and not really creamy. Any idea what went wrong? Thanks
Laura
Hey Naomi! I am unsure why that would happen! Maybe it’s the choice of blender! Did you make any other modifications to the method?
Margaret
I have a question too for the blogger or the world…I don’t have a VITAMIXER can’t afford one right now. I have a nutribullet and an immersion blender, Will it turn out? Has anyone tried alternate blender????
Laura
Yes it absolutely will! This recipe is very easy to blend and can work in any blender!
Angie Oh
Hey Naomi,
That happened to me as well. The coconut cream split. I searched on YouTube for what to do when your cream splits and saw a video that said heat it gently. So I poured it into a saucepan and put it on low heat. It became smooth again within a few minutes. The mixture was room temperature at this point. I poured it into my blender on ice-cream mode. The texture was good and creamy after that. Hope it helps.
Sarah
What is the reason for not chilling the ice cream base?
Laura
It doesnāt need to be chilled before itās churned in the ice cream maker.
Brinn
I was a little confused by this too because when I read that I thought she meant you donāt have to freeze the base of the ice cream maker, as in the bowl of the maker. But after reading further I realized she was referring to the actual ice cream after being blended when she said ābaseā. You do indeed need to freeze the bowl of the ice cream maker. Donāt know if this helps but I thought perhaps you read it the same way I did.
Sarah
Brinn, thank you. I did understand though that she meant the ice cream mixture. š I’ve just never heard of not chilling it before putting it in the ice cream maker and I wondered if there was a reason why she emphatically said not to do so.
Laura
It will become solid and be difficult to churn if itās chilled!
Amber
So is this why a layer of my ice cream has always stuck/frozen to the sides of the ice cram maker bowl as it churns? Mine has never come out in a lovely big ball of ice cream like in your video.
Amber Green
p.s. And my ice cram maker was always already turning before adding my chilled ice cream base, as the instructions said (both the turning and the chilling). You might just move into superhero status here!
Laura
LOL Making sure the ice cream maker is already churning is important! š
Paula
So easy, so delicious!
Love that it can be made from pantry ingredients.
Thank you!
Carolina
After how amazing the greek yogurt brownies came out, I had to try this recipe and I’m glad I did! So yummy! I didn’t have an ice cream maker so it was more labor intensive than I usually like to do but it was worth it! Had a little trouble figuring out the best freezer friendly container to use…what do you usually use?
Joanna
I’d like to try this right away, but don’t have coconut cream on hand, just full fat coconut milk. Do you know if it will still firm up using that? Or would it be best to wait until I can get the coconut cream? Thanks
Laura
You absolutely can use full-fat coconut milk. Be sure to use the entire can (both liquid and solid portions). It won’t be quite as creamy, but I have made it using full-fat coconut milk instead of cream and it is still amazing!
DAWN BAMBRICK
Third time making it this month!! YUM!!! My future son-in-law and I ate it all as soon as it finished churning – never made it to the freezer. I think I have just won a permanent place in his heart. LOL. š š š
Sheila
This is just perfect. The kids are bugging me to make ice cream and I guess peanut butter flavor would be a great choice. Thank you so much for sharing the recipe. I can’t wait to try it.
Gina
An ice cream recipe that I don’t feel guilty eating! I love the protein-sugar ratio.
Laura
Thank you Gina! It’s my absolute favorite!
Chelsie
Thank you for his awesome recipe. I have tried many dairy free ice cream recipes and this was by far the creamiest! I am so excited to try your other ice cream flavors on your amazing blog! I love your blog and I think your family is beautiful.