An easy no-bake vegan dessert recipe.
This pistachio nice cream is such an easy dessert recipe! It’s only got 5 ingredients in and takes barely any time to put together. Plus, the blender and freezer do all the hard work for you. With a bit of planning, you can have this dessert ready in no time. You just need to make sure you’ve frozen the banana in enough time to use it and that you’ve given yourself plenty of time for freezing the nice cream once it’s done before you want to eat it! If it’s for an event, we’d recommend making it the night before to save time and stress. This way, you’ll know it’ll definitely be ready for enjoying in time.
This may not be authentic ice cream, hence the ‘n-ice’ cream… but it’s still a tasty frozen dessert. We absolutely love ice cream, but it can be a faff to make at home. You often need an ice cream maker and a lot of churning action. Plus, lots of freezer room! I’m not sure about you guys, but we often have neither of those things available. That’s what we love about nice cream. It’s a no-churn, no-bake, easy, vegan dessert. It’s naturally sweet from the bananas and dates, and it’s nutritious too: including 2 of your 5 a day. We also love that this recipe doesn’t need any dairy alternatives to make, which can often be expensive. This is a much more affordable and easy-to-make dessert option.
A pistachio lovers dream.
Pistachio is one of my favourite nuts and flavours in general, and its flavour really comes through in this recipe. It also gives this dish a lovely subtle green colour. Top tip: the more of the brown skin you take off the nuts before blending, the greener your nice cream will be. We’d also recommend soaking the pistachios for as long as possible, as the softer they are, the smoother the nice cream will be. We don’t mind having some smaller pistachio bits throughout our nice cream: we like the texture it gives. But if you’re after a super smooth nice cream, this recipe is not that!
This pistachio nice cream has a delicious date caramel swirl.
You could just make this nice cream using only pistachios and frozen bananas. However, to take it up a notch, we’ve added a smooth date caramel swirl. Dates have an incredible natural sweetness and toffee-like flavour, especially when blended. It’s a great healthy vegan alternative to caramel. We’ve added in a pinch of salt and some oat milk which helps get it to the right consistency.
The key to getting smooth dates is to blend them beforehand. It also helps to have a high powdered blender to break them down. All you need to do to make the date caramel is mix the softened dates, salt and oat milk in a blender for a few minutes until smooth. Add more or less oat milk, depending on your desired consistency. It’s that easy!
Top tips for swirling: add the pistachio nice cream to a container first, then add small dollops of the caramel in staggered rows across the nice cream. Using a small spoon or knife, swirl through the blobs from one end of the container to the other. Repeat until a swirly marble pattern has formed.
This pistachio and date caramel nice cream recipe is:
- an easy vegan dessert recipe
- creamy and nutty
- healthy and delicious
- vegan and dairy-free
- naturally sweet
If you enjoyed this dessert recipe, try one of our other delicious recipes:
Pistachio Nice Cream Dessert Recipe – With Date Caramel Swirl
Ingredients
For the nice cream
- 100 g pistachios shelled
- 250 g frozen banana
For the date caramel
- 75 g pitted dates
- pinch of salt
- 2 tbsp oat milk
Method
- Add the pistachios to a pan of hot water, and bring to a boil. Turn down the heat and leave them to soak in the hot water for 30 minutes.
- Whilst the pistachios are soaking, add the dates to a bowl of hot water and leave to soak for 15 minutes.
- Drain the water from the pistachios and add them to a blender, then add the frozen banana chunks. Blend on high until the nice cream is smooth.
- Transfer to a container and leave to one side.
- Drain the water from the dates and add them to a blender along with the salt and dairy-free milk. Blend until smooth.
- Bring back the pistachio nice cream, then spoon little blobs of the date caramel onto the nice cream. Using a spoon, swirl the date caramel into the pistachio nice cream. Place the lid onto the container, then put it in the freezer for 5-6 hours, preferably overnight.
- Serve with crushed pistachios on top