Classic one-ingredient banana soft serve ice cream (aka nice cream) transforms into coffee ice cream with the addition of strong cold brew concentrate. Topped with a 4-ingredient homemade chocolate sauce and no-bake chocolate oatmeal cookie crumbs for the ultimate soft serve experience. Soft, fluffy, and perfectly sweet thanks to the bananas, I’ll let you decide if this vegan, gluten-free ice cream is meant for breakfast or dessert.
Today we’re turning bananas into soft serve ice cream.
Don’t fight it.
If you’ve spent any time on the internet in the past decade, you’re probably familiar with the concept of one-ingredient banana ice cream, where frozen bananas get blended until magically thick, creamy, and soft-serve-like.
If you haven’t spent any time on the internet in the past decade, please, come tell me your life story; I’ll make you a bowl of banana ice cream to snack on while you share.
This simple, I-can’t-believe-it’s-not-ice-cream ice cream starts just like the original: with frozen bananas. Four, to be exact. If you have a few ripe bananas (yellow with small brown spots) lying around now, just peel and cut them into chunks and they’ll freeze within a few hours. I tend to stash a few whole, peeled ripe bananas in the freezer every week just to be stocked up in the event that a banana ice cream craving strikes (which, inevitably, it does).
Pssst: Since this ice cream is made with just bananas, it’s totally dairy-free and vegan friendly. And the cookie crumbs are made from oats, making this totally gluten-free too! Hurray, soft serve ice cream for everyone!
The frozen bananas get blended with a special ingredient: cold brew coffee concentrate. This is the stuff you’d find on the shelves of the grocery store that requires you to dilute it with water or lots and lots of milk before drinking, because, as the name suggests, it’s ultra concentrated. Using cold brew concentrate allows us to use a very small amount of liquid (just 4 Tablespoons) in the blender with the frozen bananas, keeping everything nice and thick and frosty. (FYI, Trader Joe’s sells a great Fair Trade/Organic one, and I’ve used this one and this one, too <–affiliate links)
If you don’t have access to cold brew concentrate, here are your options. You can buy instant espresso powder and dissolve it into 4 Tablespoons of water; you can use two packets of Four Sigmatic Mushroom Coffee (which is powdered coffee that also has some functional mushrooms in there, too! It doesn’t taste mushroomy at all, btw!); you can brew a 2oz cup of coffee with the same amount of coffee you’d use for an entire cup, then let it cool completely. I like to do this in my aero press.(<–affiliate links)
Once bananas and coffee get blended, all that’s left to do is top and eat.
I’m topping mine with all things chocolate, since, hello, it’s me. And, also, I happen to think chocolate, coffee, and bananas are a killer flavor combination.
First, we drizzle on some homemade chocolate sauce. You’ll only need a few tablespoons from this recipe, but I highly recommend making the whole batch, since it lasts for weeks in the fridge and will happily top your ice cream, yogurt, oatmeal, waffles, and whatever else you want chocolate sauce on in the coming weeks.
Then, we crumble on some cookie crumbs. These homemade, 5-ingredient, no-bake, chocolate almond oatmeal cookie crumbs are like a cross between a no-bake cookie and chewy granola; it just gets stirred up in a little bowl and heaped on top of your ice cream.
They’re chewy, crunchy, sweet, and everything I want in an ice cream topper. I’ve even been using them as a granola-substitute on yogurt bowls, too, and it’s totally a dreamy combo.
Finally, we dig in.
This recipe technically could serve four people, if you’re someone who only wants a tiny bowl of soft serve, but we like pouring it into one bowl, sticking in two spoons, and sharing the whole thing between the two of us.
It’s cold, creamy, has subtle hints of both banana and coffee, crunch from bits of almond in the chewy homemade cookie crumbs, and every bite gets a burst of chocolate from both the sauce + the cookie crumbs.
If you’re a coffee lover, you’re going to FLIP over this simple, creamy frozen banana soft serve ice cream recipe. Plus, since it’s really just a bowl of bananas, coffee, oatmeal, almonds, and cocoa powder, it definitely passes as breakfast on a really hot, sticky morning. Or, sure, you could just eat it for dessert. Go ahead, ruin all the fun.
If you make this recipe, let me know how it turns out by leaving a comment below or taking a picture and sharing it with me on Instagram. I love seeing my recipes in your kitchen!
- 4 ripe bananas, frozen (peeled before frozen)
- 1/4 cup cold brew coffee concentrate*
- 2/3 cup quick-cooking or instant oats
- 1/4 cup toasted slivered almonds
- 2 Tablespoons cocoa powder
- 2 Tablespoons maple syrup
- 2 Tablespoons virgin coconut oil, melted
- 1/2 cup cocoa powder
- 1/4 cup maple syrup
- 2 Tablespoons water
- 2 Tablespoons virgin coconut oil, melted
- 1. In two separate small bowls, make the cookie crumbs and chocolate sauce. Simple add all ingredients for each and stir well to combine. Place both in the fridge to chill while you make the ice cream. The cookie crumbs and chocolate sauce will both firm up as they chill.
- 2. Break/cut frozen bananas into 4-6 chunks before placing in high-powered blender or food processor. Add cold brew concentrate, and blend well, stopping once or twice to scrape the sides or using the tamper on your blender, to ensure the banana chunks all get broken up. Continue blending until thick and fluffy (about 1 minute).
- 3. Scoop banana soft serve into bowls (this serves 2-4 people, depending on how much you want!), top with a scoop of oatmeal cookie crumbs and a big drizzle of chocolate sauce, and eat! Banana ice cream needs to be eaten immediately (or within an hour or two of making, if kept in the freezer), as it solidifies into a solid banana chunk if frozen completely.
- *Be sure you are using cold brew concentrate (the kind that instructs you to add water to it before drinking), not just regular cold brew coffee, since it's ultra-concentrated flavor is needed to make this ice cream taste strongly of coffee. See blog post above for substitutions.