4-ingredient Cauliflower Ice Cream & Smoothie

Make this healthy cauliflower ice cream two ways, as an ice cream shake, and as scoopable ice cream. You cannot taste the cauliflower! And this recipe is an incredible way to get one of the most nutritious vegetables on the planet into your diet.

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4-ingredient Cauliflower Ice Cream & Smoothie

As you know, I am a big proponent of smoothies without bananas.

I love bananas actually, and their intriguing ability to turn into dairy-free ice cream is indeed remarkable, but we have a daughter who can't eat bananas so we have to work out recipes that also include those without bananas.

If you are familiar with my recipes, you know that I use frozen zucchini quite often in smoothies as a thickener. And today, I am using frozen cauliflower!

To be honest, I didn't boil/steam my own cauliflower and chop and puree. Instead, I bought frozen cauliflower rice and microwaved it to cook it. Then I cooled it and measured out what I need for this recipe.

It's just ridiculously convenient and the frozen cauliflower rice is just cauliflower so I'm quite excited about it.

Of course, it's a just a few extra steps to boil fresh cauliflower, chop and cool and puree, so don't be deterred if that is the route you want to take. Plus, the colors of cauliflower - purple and orange - provide a lot of fun color potential, don't you think?

How Healthy is Cauliflower?

Now, just to re-assure you, my smoothie does not taste like cauliflower, I promise! The cashew butter has a strong influence which proves cauliflower is actually the perfect blank slate. You can use your imagination and adapt it the way you want.

And so your final result with be creamy and delicious, and rich in all the good things cauliflower is known for, including vitamin C, vitamin K, folate, pantothenic acid, vitamin B6, choline, dietary fiber, omega-3 fatty acids, manganese, phosphorus, and biotin.

And while this recipe is primarily for an ice cream smoothie bowl, so many visitors clamored for a way to go further and convert this smoothie to actual cauliflower ice cream so I obliged! It was quite easy actually, and involved the addition of only one extra ingredient.

How to Make Cauliflower Ice Cream

You start by microwaving or steaming the cauliflower - either store-bought cauliflower rice or fresh cauliflower. Chop it up, blend it into a puree with milk, and allow the mixture to cool in the refrigerator.

There is at least one overnight task, so read the recipe the night before you want to make it!

On cooking day, to make the smoothie shake, blend all but one of the ingredients.

To make the ice cream, blend up the ice cream ingredients.

Now...if you intend to use an ice cream maker. And I suggest you consider buying on if you make homemade ice cream often - it really reallly improves the creamy texture. Makes it less icey. The one I recently purchased is in my Amazon store if you want to check it out.

And if you do intend to use an ice cream maker, remember to put the ice cream machine's tub in the freezer overnight. We keep our tub in there all the time so we are always ready to make ice cream.

On cauliflower ice cream making day, put frozen cauliflower cubes in your blender jar about a half-hour before you intend to blend so they thaw a bit and are easier to blender.

Add in the rest of the ingredients, blend until creamy and taste-test, adjusting for sweetness.

If you are using an ice cream maker, pour that mixture into the ice cream maker and churn according to the machine's instructions.

It will be like soft-serve when complete, and you can either eat it that way or freeze in a parchment-lined loaf pan for 2-4 hours so you can scoop it! If you intend to freeze, take a moment to sprinkle toppings before you put it in the freezer. Cover the loaf pan to avoid freezer burn.

If you are not going to use a ice cream maker, pour the blended mixture straight into the parchment-lined loaf pan, cover and freeze one hour. Take it out, chop it up, blend again, and restore it to the loaf pan, cover, and freeze again. The more you do this, the creamier it will get. Sometimes we do it only once, haha. And then eat..It's up to you.

So there you have it.

 A cauliflower smoothie and a cauliflower ice cream recipe. Enjoy this healthy dessert for breakfast!

Like working with recipes with sneaky nutritional ingredients? Here are two other recipes that use white beans:

2-ingredient Strawberry Protein Preworkout Bites
White Bean Edible Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough

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