One of the treats I enjoy a lot is ice cream. I’m sure many of you enjoy it too. I’ve been asked if I could share a recipe on how to make a gluten-free and low carb ice cream that actually tastes good. It took me a moment, while pondering the general idea of ice cream making it hit me. It’s really simple and to state my case I share my vegan dark chocolate ice cream recipe with you. All you need is one ingredient, some patience and an ice cream maker.
Vegan Dark Chocolate Ice Cream: Alpro Dark Chocolate Almond Drink
It took me a moment to realize that in the end milk is the key ingredient for ice cream. Seeing the obvious can be difficult at times. On top of that, you can add cream, sugar, fruits or flavors like cinnamon. While doing stuff in my kitchen I refilled my fridge with my favorite almond milk.
This milk or plant drink – shout out to the dairy lobby for being afraid of competition! – is sold by Alpro. I use their products basically daily in form of milk, yogurt or quark (oh, and for baking too). The unsweetened and unroasted almond milk is my go-to choice. But they have a big variety of almond based milks. One of them is the dark chocolate almond milk:
Vegan Dark Chocolate Ice Cream – Alpro Almond Dark Chocolate
It was the perfect milk to try this out. It tastes great, is low carb and gluten-free too, all that I’ve been looking for. The liter of Alpro dark chocolate almond milk has 470 calories with only 76 grams of carbohydrates. Most of those carbohydrates are sugars, but as this liter makes 4 servings the nutritional information looks neat: 118 calories and 19 grams of carbs – for vegan dark chocolate ice cream!
Vegan Dark Chocolate Ice Cream: Dietary Restrictions
If you are soy, dairy or gluten intolerant this recipe can be of great help for you. It’s easy to make and fits into your restricted dietary lifestyle.
As this milk contains almonds, please be aware that you shouldn’t consume it if you allergic to them. If this is the case, don’t fret. Alpro has chocolate milk based on soy or coconut too. Just use them, or any other brand for that matter. They don’t sponsor me. But feel free to let them know they should (contact in English, French, German), and I share more Alpro based recipes!
Vegan Dark Chocolate Ice Cream: A Balanced Diet
Yet, while those statistics are great, I want to emphasize on a holistic healthy lifestyle. Ice cream is a treat and you need to be aware of that. It’s something that you eat occasionally in your otherwise healthy diet, full with vegetables, plenty of healthy fats, great sources of protein and carbohydrates.
My recipe can help you if you are struggling with cravings, as you can have some ice cream without letting your insulin peak too high. Keep in mind though that there is a reason for your cravings. Quite often the reason being based on your macro- and micronutrients (especially the micronutrients) being off. Or in some cases it could be triggered by underlying psychological issues. Please keep this in mind when cravings hit you.
Please be aware that this is no medical advice. If you are unsure about the reason for your cravings seek medical advice from a professional.
If you are living a healthy lifestyle with a holistic approach you are able to make ice cream part of your diet. It’s the balance that is important. Once you have a balanced diet in your life, cravings will in most cases usually slowly disappear and a treat will feel like a treat.
A healthy lifestyle contains also some physical activity. Keep in mind that you can never outrun – and should never! – a bad diet. This means, don’t use sport to punish you because you overate. Don’t do sport to eat more. That’s not sustainable and will be detrimental to you physical and emotional health in the mid- and long-term.
Vegan Dark Chocolate Ice Cream: An Experiment
I made this recipe on purpose so minimalist. The thought behind not adding anything, except some vanilla and chocolate chips (because I love both), was to see if this works on such a simple level.
And it did, even though I had some weird technical issue with the ice cream maker. For some reason, a small portion of the Alpro dark chocolate almond milk stuck to the bottom of the cooling unit. This slowed down the cooling process tremendously and put everything into the freezer for a while.
Once I tried the finished vegan dark chocolate ice cream I was very happy. It tasted really good and that with only one single ingredient. I used the dark chocolate milk because I really liked the chocolate taste it has. It has a very good chocolate taste and combined with the taste of the almond you end up with a great product.
The next step in this vegan dark chocolate ice cream experiment will be to add vegan whipped cream. This will hopefully make the texture smoother and enhance the flavor as it adds fat. Of course, this will change the nutritional information and increase the fat content, thus the overall calories.
Maybe you have a chance to try it before I have a chance to. It would be great to get your feedback. If you enjoyed this article, please share it on social media. Also, send it to friends who are on dietary restrictions, so they can enjoy it too. Consider to sign up for my newsletter and get notified when I have new content.
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- 1 liter dark almond milk (I used the one from Alpro)
- chocolate chips (optional)
- vanilla, fresh or aroma (optional)
- Take the almond milk, add the optional ingredients and place it into your ice cream maker. Turn it on and wait until it's done. This usually takes around 45 to 60 minutes.
- Enjoy!