This Pumpkin Nice Cream is made with sweet smooth frozen bananas, pumpkin spices, and pumpkin puree to celebrate all the fall flavors in just 5 minutes! Bonus, this easy dessert is a guilt-free Vegan Pumpkin Ice Cream recipe made with no dairy or refined sugar.
A Nice Cream recipe is simply an ice cream recipe made in 5 minutes in your food processor using frozen banana slices. It also includes other ingredients like cocoa powder for a chocolate nice cream or pumpkin spice like in this Pumpkin nice cream recipe. It’s a great alternative to my Banana Frozen Yogurt or Avocado Ice Cream.
Ingredients and Substitutions
Let’s see what you need to start with this nice cream recipe.
- Frozen Banana Slices – Ripe bananas work the best because they are softer, sweeter, and reduce the quantity of sweetener needed in the recipe. However, if you only have yellow bananas, the recipe works as well.
- Maple Syrup or any liquid sweetener, like agave syrup or coconut nectar.
- Almond Butter or peanut butter
- Canned Pumpkin Puree or use my homemade pumpkin puree recipe.
- Cinnamon, Ginger, Nutmeg – for a classic Fall taste.
- Coconut Milk – or any plant-based milk you enjoy, like almond milk, oat milk, or soy milk.
- Chopped Pecans or crushed walnuts.
How To Make Pumpkin Nice Cream
There’s nothing easier than this pumpkin banana ice cream! It tastes like soft serve, and it’s only using healthy, wholesome ingredients.
- Before making nice cream, the key is to freeze banana slices. I recommend always keeping some frozen ripe banana slices in the freezer. This recipe is a great way to use ripe bananas and avoid throwing away delicious fruits.
- Peel the ripe bananas, and slice them roughly in slices. The key is to make thin slices of about 1 cm/ 0.4 inches. It’s blending much faster.
- Next, place the banana slices into a single layer onto a baking tray covered with parchment paper.
- Freeze for 4 hours or longer until the banana slices are hard.
- Measure the volume of frozen banana slices called by the recipe—store leftovers in Ziploc bags or containers in the freezer for later.
- In a food processor with the S blade attachment, place frozen banana slices, pumpkin puree, pumpkin pie spices, almond butter, maple syrup, and coconut milk – start with one tablespoon and adjust later.
- Blend for 30 seconds, stop, open the lid and scrape down the sides of the bowl using a wooden spoon.
- Close the lid and repeat until the pumpkin nice cream is smooth and soft like soft serve. If it doesn’t blend well, increase speed or add the extra tablespoon of coconut milk to help.
- Finally, remove the blade of the food processor bowl and stir in the chopped pecans using a spoon.
Serving Suggestion
Depending on how much extra coconut milk you added, the mixture can be perfect or too soft for your liking. To firm up the nice cream, pop it in the freezer for 10 to 15 minutes.
Blender Or Food Processor?
The best tool to make nice cream is a food processor. The bowl is much wider, and the banana slices blend perfectly without adding too much liquid. In a blender, the jug is narrow at the bottom, and you often need to add much more coconut milk to bring the ingredients together.
It results in overly soft nice cream, looking more like my strawberry banana smoothie bowl than a soft serve. Finally, if you use a blender, remember that you will have to use probably two times more milk and freeze the preparation to firm up before serving.
Serving Ideas
Now, scoop out some pumpkin nice cream into small bowls. Top with some of the ingredients below. It can be all of them or just a few:
- Coconut cream or coconut yogurt
- Melted dark chocolate – most dark chocolates >70% are plant-based.
- Almond butter
- Extra chopped pecans
- Vegan Whipped Cream
Storage
Nice cream recipes don’t store very well. They harden very fast because they are no-churn ice cream. You can store extra leftovers in the freezer, but it takes about 20-30 minutes to soften the next day, which to me is very long!
So instead, I prefer to store leftovers in ice cube trays, then ice the frozen ice cubes into a smoothie. Then, when a nice cream craving comes up, use the frozen banana slices and prepare a fresh small batch.
More Pumpkin Recipes
Below I listed more vegan pumpkin recipes for you to try this fall.
Did You Like This Recipe?
Leave a comment below or head to our Facebook page for tips, our Instagram page for inspiration, our Pinterest for saving recipes, and Flipboard to get all the new ones!
Pumpkin Nice Cream
Ingredients
- 2 ½ cups Frozen Banana Slices - about 3 medium ripe banana, peeled, sliced
- 1 tablespoon Maple Syrup
- 1 tablespoon Almond Butter - or peanut butter
- 1 teaspoon Cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon Ground Ginger
- 1 pinch Ground Nutmeg
- 1-2 tablespoons Coconut Milk
- ½ cup Canned Pumpkin Puree - or use my homemade pumpkin puree recipe
- ¼ cup Chopped Pecans - + extra to serve
Serving suggestion
- ¼ cup Dark Chocolate - melted
- ½ tablespoon Almond Butter
- 1-2 tablespoons Coconut Yogurt
Instructions
- Cover a large baking tray with parchment paper, make sure it fits the width of your freezer.
- Peel the bananas, roughly cut them into slices, and place the slices into a single layer in the baking tray.
- Freeze for at least 4 hours or overnight.
- In a bowl of a food processor, using the S blade attachment, place the frozen banana slices along with pumpkin puree, maple syrup, spices, almond butter, and 1 tablespoon coconut milk.
- Blend for 30 seconds, stop the blender, scrape down the side and repeat this process until the nice cream is smooth and no more pieces of bananas are showing. If it's too difficult to blend, add the extra coconut milk.
- Remove the blade from the bowl and stir in the chopped pecans with a spoon.
- Serve immediately or freeze for 10-15 minutes to firm up slightly, and top the bowls with a layer of coconut yogurt, melted dark chocolate. Drizzle some almond butter and chopped pecans.
Absolutely delicious!!! Thank you 🙂