No-Churn Vanilla Ice Cream
By Erin Huffstetler | 07/03/2020 | 2 Comments
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No ice cream maker? No problem. This no-churn vanilla ice cream only requires three ingredients and five minutes of hands-on time to make, and produces a rich, flavorful, hard-scoop ice cream. Enjoy it plain, or use it as a base for flavored ice creams.
How Can You Make Ice Cream Without an Ice Cream Maker?
If you were to make an ice cream base, and just stick it in the freezer, you’d end up with a hard, unscoopable block of flavored ice. An ice cream maker solves this by churning the base, while it freezes. This whips air into the mixture, and results in a light, scoopable ice cream.
So, really, to make ice cream, you just need a way to whip your ingredients and a way to freeze them. This recipe accomplishes both – without an ice cream maker. It uses a mixer (or elbow grease) to whip the heavy cream, and a freezer to freeze the ice cream. Easy!
No-Churn Vanilla Ice Cream Recipe
This recipe makes 1-1/2 quarts of vanilla ice cream.
Ingredients:
- (1) 14-oz. can sweetened condensed milk (How to make it)
- 2 cups cold heavy cream
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
What You Do:
Mix the sweetened condensed milk and vanilla extract together in a large bowl.
Whip the cream, until stiff peaks form. This takes about three minutes in an electric mixer, longer by hand.
Use a spatula to gently fold the whipped cream into the sweetened condensed milk mixture.
Transfer the ice cream mixture to a metal loaf pan or brownie pan. Cover, and freeze for at least six hours, before serving.
Scoop; top with your favorite ice cream toppings, and enjoy!
Store any leftovers in the freezer. Unlike many homemade ice creams, this one holds up beautifully in the freezer, and has a long shelf life.
Use This No-Churn Vanilla Ice Cream as a Base for Other Flavors
Start with this vanilla ice cream recipe, and use it to create any flavor you’d like. It’s easy to do.
- Replace the vanilla extract with another extract (mint, almond, coffee, orange, etc.)
- Stir one cup of your favorite mix-in into the sweetened condensed milk mixture (chocolate chips, candy pieces, crushed cookies, fruit, etc.)
- Add food coloring to change the color of the ice cream.
- Drizzle caramel, marshmallow sauce, peanut butter, chocolate sauce or jam over the finished mixture to create ribbons throughout the ice cream
Having a go-to vanilla ice cream base makes it easy to create new flavors on the fly.
Here are a bunch of homemade ice cream toppings that you can use to jazz up your vanilla ice cream.
Butterscotch Shell Topping
Chocolate Shell Topping
Peanut Butter Shell Topping
Chocolate Syrup
Dulce de Leche
Microwave Butterscotch Sauce

No-Churn Vanilla Ice Cream
You don’t need an ice cream maker to make this vanilla ice cream. Only three ingredients and five minutes of your time required.
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 0 minutes
- Total Time: 5 minutes
- Yield: 1-1/2 quarts 1x
- Category: Desserts
- Method: Freeze
- Cuisine: Global
Ingredients:
- (1) 14-oz. can sweetened condensed milk (How to make it)
- 2 cups cold heavy cream
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
Instructions:
Combine sweetened condensed milk and extract in a large bowl.
Whip cream, until stiff peaks form, about three minutes.
Gently fold whipped cream into condensed milk mixture.
Transfer to a bread pan or 8″ x 8″ brownie pan. Cover, and freeze for at least six hours.
Notes
Use this no-churn vanilla ice cream as a base for other ice cream flavors. Here are some ideas:
- Stir one cup of mix-ins into sweetened condensed milk mixture (chocolate pieces, crushed cookies, fruit, chocolate chips, etc.)
- Swap the vanilla extract with another extract (almond, mint, coffee, lemon, etc.)
- Drizzle caramel, chocolate sauce, marshmallow sauce or jam over finished mixture to create ribbons throughout the finished ice cream
- Add food coloring to tweak the color
Do you know how to make Vanilla (or Chocolate), no fat yogurt?
I would enjoy being able to do that!
Thank you,
Janie
★★★
Are you looking for a recipe for yogurt or frozen yogurt?