The Ultimate No-Churn Ice Cream Recipe (Only 6-Ingredients!)
This smooth and rich homemade ice cream is made with just 6-ingredients without a machine and has an endless amount of flavor variations—it’s the perfect recipe to whip up on a hot summer day when you don’t feel like turning on the oven!
We’ve all been there before. It’s a blazing 92°F in July and all you’re craving is something sweet and refreshing without slaving over the stove. That’s where no-churn ice cream comes in! Instead of spending time making custard, you just have to whip together some heavy cream and condensed milk for a light and refreshing treat.
How To Make Ice Cream Without a Machine?
Ice cream is traditionally made from a custard base of milk, cream, egg yolks, and sugar that’s poured into an ice cream maker. While it churns, this machine will freeze the custard base while breaking up any ice crystals that form, thus producing it’s beautiful creamy texture we all know and love. This is why you can’t expect perfect ice cream if you forego the machine and just put your custard in the freezer—you need to have the agitation of an ice cream maker to break up any ice crystals, otherwise you’ll end up with a solid, frozen dairy block.
With several key ingredient changes, however, you can get a perfect pint of scoopable ice cream whenever you want! It all goes back to the chemistry behind it all, which I’ll explain in a bit.
The Secret Ingredient to No-Churn Ice Cream
When it comes to no-churn ice cream recipes, I’m not always the biggest fan. They have a high ratio of sugar and butterfat to keep the ice cream soft, which often makes the end result less flavorful or cloyingly sweet. When I developed this recipe, I set out to create a more balanced no-churn base. Ultimately, everything came down to two key ingredients: nonfat milk powder and vodka. Both of these ingredients combined will lower the freezing point and ice crystal formation of the base, thus producing a more traditional soft and creamy texture!
Ingredients You’ll Need
- Sweetened condensed milk. Like most other recipes, this no-churn ice cream relies on sweetened condensed milk as its base because of its high sugar content and low water content to prevent iciness.
- Nonfat milk powder. This is an ingredient that’s not typically found in no-churn recipes, but it makes a big difference in the end product. Nonfat dry milk is just a powdered form of skim milk, but when it’s added to an ice cream base, it absorbs excess water and provides a richer, smoother, and softer mouthfeel (even without churning)!
- Vodka. Yup, you read that right—vodka. Similar to salt and sugar, alcohol lowers the freezing point of ice cream, which will keep it soft and scoopable. You won’t taste it, I promise! Just a couple of tablespoons of alcohol, and your ice cream will have the perfect, scoopable consistency without adding too much sweetness.
- Kosher salt. To balance the sweetness and reduce the freezing temperature.
- Heavy cream. When an ice cream maker churns a traditional custard base, it actually aerates the mixture to give it body and creaminess. Since we can’t replicate this with a machine, we’ll incorporate the air into the ice cream before freezing! After mixing together the condensed milk base, you’ll fold in whipped heavy cream to aerate the mixture and give it volume. One pro tip: make sure you use cold heavy cream in this recipe—it will whip up much faster and easier than warm cream.
- Vanilla bean paste. You can use vanilla extract, but I’ve found that vanilla bean paste adds a much deeper flavor and beautiful specks of vanilla bean all throughout.
Flavor Variation and Topping Ideas
The best part of this recipe is that it’s a blank canvas for any mix-ins! You can use whatever toppings you want, but here are some flavor ideas to get you started:
- Cookies & Cream. Chop or crush 16 regular Oreos and fold them into the ice cream.
- Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough. Add 1 to 1 ¼ cups of edible cookie dough bites with ¼ cup chopped chocolate chips to the ice cream base.
- Mint Chocolate Chip. Replace the vanilla bean paste in the recipe with 1 teaspoon of peppermint extract and 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract, then fold in ½ to ¾ cup of mini dark chocolate chips or chopped chocolate.
- Sprinkles. Fold in ¼ to ⅓ cup.
- Reese’s cups or brownie bits. Add 1 to 2 cups of chopped Reese’s cups or bite-sized brownie crumbles to the base along with (optional) chopped chocolate chips.
- Fudge sauce, peanut butter, or Nutella. Swirl in spoonfuls of sauce into layers of the base as you pour it into the loaf pan, then gently swirl with a knife before freezing.
Some of my favorite topping ideas include:
- Chocolate magic shell.
- Caramel sauce.
- Homemade hot fudge.
Hope you guys enjoy this recipe—stay cool this summer and happy ice cream making!
The Ultimate No-Churn Ice Cream Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
- ½ cup nonfat milk powder
- 2 tablespoons vodka, or another non-flavored alcohol
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- 2 cups cold heavy cream
- 1 tablespoon vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract
- 1 to 2 cups mix-ins of choice1 (see note for flavor variations)
Instructions
- In a large bowl, whisk together the sweetened condensed milk, nonfat milk powder, vodka, and salt until well combined. Set aside.
- Add the heavy cream to another large bowl, then use a hand mixer or stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment to whip the cream on medium-high speed until stiff peaks form.
- Add around ⅓ of the whipped cream to the sweetened condensed milk and lightly stir to lighten the mixture.
- Add in the rest of the whipped cream, then gently fold to combine until there are no streaks of condensed milk left. If adding mix-ins, fold them in at the end until just combined.
- Pour the mixture into a 9×5 loaf pan, then use a rubber spatula to smooth the surface. Sprinkle over any additional toppings, if desired, then cover the pan with plastic wrap, gently pressing it to the surface of the ice cream.
- Place the loaf pan into the freezer and chill for at least 6 hours (preferably overnight) before scooping and serving.
Notes
- Cookies & Cream. Chop or crush 16 regular Oreos and fold them into the ice cream.
- Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough. Add 1 to 1 ¼ cups of edible cookie dough bites with ¼ cup chopped chocolate chips to the ice cream base.
- Mint Chocolate Chip. Replace the vanilla bean paste in the recipe with 1 teaspoon of peppermint extract and 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract, then fold in ½ to ¾ cup of mini dark chocolate chips or chopped chocolate.
- Sprinkles. Fold in ¼ to ⅓ cup.
- Reese’s cups or brownie bits. Add 1 to 2 cups of chopped Reese’s cups or bite-sized brownie crumbles to the base along with (optional) chopped chocolate chips.
- Fudge sauce, peanut butter, or Nutella. Swirl in spoonfuls of sauce into layers of the base as you pour it into the loaf pan, then gently swirl with a knife before freezing.
