📋 Banana Coconut Nice Cream Recipe

banana nice cream in a waffle cone bowl with a spoon, garnished with coconut and lime zest , with whole limes in the background

4.67 from 3 votes

📋 Banana Coconut Nice Cream Recipe

This Banana Coconut Nice Cream is an easy, vegan, and healthy no churn ice cream substitute made with bananas and coconut milk. Topped with toasted coconut and lime zest for the perfect balance of sweetness. And it's a great way to use up your overripe bananas! Weight Watchers friendly at only 2 WW points per ½ cup serving!

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Keyword banana, coconut, lime, nice cream

Special Diet Vegan

Prep Time 7

Cook Time 3

freezing time 8

Total Time 8 10

Servings servings

Calories 96kcal

Author Terri Gilson

Ingredients

1 400 ml can light coconut milk
6 bananas frozen or fresh
1 tablespoon amber rum
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Garnish:

2-3 tablespoon lime zest
½ cup toasted unsweetened coconut

US Customary - Metric

Get Recipe Ingredients

Instructions

Toast coconut: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Place ½ cup coconut in a shallow pan (a pie plate or 8 inch round cake pan) and bake for about 2-3 minutes- watch it closely to avoid burning. (see NOTES)
½ cup toasted unsweetened coconut
In a food processor, blend coconut milk, bananas, vanilla, and rum together until combined and smooth. *If you are using cocoa and making chocolate nice cream, add it here and skip the rum.
1 400 ml can light coconut milk, 6 bananas, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, 1 tablespoon amber rum
Place in a covered dish in the freezer until firm- about 6- 8 hrs (This will depend on your freezer - mine are pretty full so I let it freeze overnight)

Garnish:

Grate lime with grater/zester.
Top nice cream with sprinkles of toasted coconut and lime zest
2-3 tablespoon lime zest

Notes

Expert Recipe Tips:

- For best results, use overripe bananas with plenty of brown spots — they’re naturally sweeter and creamier, which gives the nice cream a better texture and flavor.

- Let the nice cream sit at room temperature for 5–10 minutes before scooping to make it easier to serve without needing to thaw it completely.

- If you don’t have a food processor, blend the bananas and coconut milk in stages with a high-powered blender. Add a splash of milk to help it blend if needed, but be careful not to over-thin the mixture.

- Toast the coconut just before serving (or re-toast it briefly) for maximum flavor and crunch. Freshly toasted coconut adds more contrast to the creamy nice cream.

- To get beautiful strips of lime zest for garnish (instead of small specks), use a vegetable peeler and then thinly slice the strips, as mentioned in the post — it adds both flavor and visual appeal.

📖 Variations

Rum: you can use a ½ teaspoon of rum extract if you want to keep it alcohol free.

Chocolate Nice Cream: you can add 4 tablespoon of cocoa to the mix and skip the rum. You'll want to add it to the food processor in the first step* coconut is optional

Nice Cream Banana Split: You can even make it into a healthy banana split by adding fruit, toasted coconut, some shaved dark chocolate and a little whipped cream, as I did! And if you want to keep it vegan, just use Nutriwhip.

🌡️Storing

This banana nice cream recipe should be stored in the freezer in a sealed container. It will last up to 3 months.

👪 Serving size

This recipe makes 10 servings. However, you can cut it in half, double, or triple the recipe by simply clicking on the blue serving size in the recipe card and selecting the number of servings. The recipe amounts will then adjust accordingly. It's 5 WW points on the blue plan per ½ cup serving.

🍽 Equipment

You will need a food processor for this recipe (see my Amazon recommendations in NOTES). You can freeze this nice cream recipe in any container that is freezer safe, but I usually freeze it in a 9x5 loaf pan with a lid or covered with either Glad press n' seal or saran wrap.

Top tip

Peel your bananas BEFORE you freeze them - saves you lots of hassle and minor frostbite!

Nutrition