The Best No-Churn Ice Cream Is Made with a Food Processor

No-churn ice creams are great in theory but disappointing in practice. The texture is almost always off, usually too icy or weirdly fluffy—the churning, as it turns out, is kind of important. But you can make dense, silky ice cream without a dedicated ice cream maker (and without any cooking or any eggs). You just have to break out the food processor.

Why no-churn ice creams usually miss the mark

Ice cream is a mixture of three things: Tiny crystals of frozen water, concentrated cream left behind by that water, and minuscule pockets of air. When you pour an ice cream batter into a countertop ice cream maker, the dasher (the paddle-like piece that sweeps around the bowl) not only introduces air into the mixture, it smooshes the batter onto the sides of the freezing bowl in a thin layer, then scrapes it off, freezing it rapidly. This agitated, expedient cooling means the water never gets a chance to settle in one place. Instead of a leisurely, slow freeze, which allows water to form large crystals that clump together, it forms a bunch of seed crystals which all have to share the same limited water supply; the motion of the dasher prevents the seed crystals from hanging out next to each other too long, eliminating the possibility of chunky, icy clusters.

Sugar also helps. According to Harold McGee’s “On Food and Cooking,” it depresses the freezing point of the water, leaving about a fifth of it unfrozen, even at “freezing” temps of 0 degrees Fahrenheit. “The result is a very thick fluid that’s about equal portions of liquid water, milk fat, milk proteins and sugar,” he writes. “This fluid coats each of the many millions of ice crystals, and sticks them together, but not too strongly.” This is what gives ice cream its unique texture, and allows us to “taste the birth of creaminess, the tantalizing transition from solidity to fluidity.”

Without churning, the ice crystals grow large and no air is introduced, resulting in a solid, icy block of cream. This is why most no-churn recipes introduce air first, whipping cream until firm peaks form, then folding it into a base of flavored sweetened condensed milk. This usually results in a frozen treat that resembles ice cream but feels a little too fluffy or icy and grainy on the tongue. It also tears when scooped, leaving behind a jagged, crystal-flecked mess.

How the food processor solves these problems

Our family of food processor ice creams start off similarly to the classic no-churns, only we whip chilled evaporated milk instead of heavy cream. We tried heavy cream, but found we prefer the leaner, lighter flavor of evaporated milk, which didn’t obscure the other ingredients and resulted in a denser, almost gelato-like final product. The protein in the milk also stabilizes the foam created by whipping. Once the milk is whipped to the softest of peaks, we fold it into a flavored base of sweetened condensed milk, then pour it into a loaf pan and get it in the freezer.

If this were a typical no-churn recipe, that would be the end of it, but we take a much needed extra step. The ice creams tasted fine after the first freeze—and they were plenty aerated—but the texture was grainy. While the fat from the dairy helped keep the crystals on the small-ish side, they were still large enough to distract our tongues, so we decided to break them up with the blades of the food processor until the ice cream resembled a thick milkshake. After a final stint in the freezer, the ice cream came out creamy, silky and scoopable, without distracting icy bits.

Is it cheating to call this “no-churn”? Maybe, but let’s focus on the fact that you can make smooth, creamy ice cream without purchasing an ice cream maker.

You have to chill

All of these recipes follow the same basic format: Whip a can of chilled evaporated milk in a chilled bowl, then fold it into the flavor base, freeze, process and freeze again. It may seem finicky to chill a bowl, but it’s crucial. The milk fat in the evaporated milk is what traps the air, creating a stable foam that aerates the ice cream. But fat melts, and wobbly, melty fat can’t form the strong network required to trap the air.

You can get away with a room-temp bowl when you’re whipping cream, but evaporated milk is much leaner, and the small amount of fat needs all the chilly support it can get. Set yourself up for success. Chill the bowl.

Stiff peaks are the enemy

You can whip the evaporated milk with a hand mixer or a whisk, but I found the hand mixer to be a touch too efficient. The goal is soft mounds that could barely be classified as peaks. “Under-whipped” dairy still has some elasticity—stiff peaks are a sign that the network of fat molecules have been packed with air, almost to their breaking point. Further agitation could cause the foam to break completely, leaving you with deflated, greasy ice cream. Using a whisk gives you greater control, allowing you to approach the soft peak stage gradually, without accidentally overshooting it.

Vanilla is not synonymous with “plain”

We’ve got five flavors for you to explore, but let’s start with the quintessential classic: our Food-Processor Vanilla Ice Cream. I’m not sure when “vanilla” became the go-to word to indicate that a person or activity is plain, boring, or conventional—that is not how I would describe a spice sourced from gorgeous, finicky orchids. I suspect it’s a skill issue. If you can’t make vanilla exciting, you’re doing it wrong.

Our surprising secret ingredient for vanilla ice cream that sings? Full-fat Greek yogurt. No, we’re not making one of those cursed “protein ice creams,” though the extra protein does help to further stabilize the mixture. The acid in the yogurt is what takes the flavor from flat to fabulous. According to Dr. Arielle Johnson’s “Flavorama,” sour is a natural flavor booster. “Sour doesn’t keep to itself either,” she writes. “it balances and dampens our perceptions of sweet, bitter, and excessive saltiness, by interfering with the joining up of those taste buds and their taste molecules or by turning down the volume on their competing signals in the brain.” Any pure vanilla extract will work, but we’re partial to seed-flecked vanilla paste.

Puree your fruit for the best strawberry ice cream

Pale pink ice cream studded with chunks of fresh strawberries certainly looks pretty, but the water content in the fruit renders those chunks rock hard and icy. We puree the fruit in our Food-Processor Strawberry-Balsamic Ice Cream to ensure a rich, creamy body and fresh flavor throughout. We add a little sugar to the puree; this not only tempers the sourness of the strawberries, but depresses the freezing point of the puree so the extra water doesn’t affect the final texture of the ice cream.

Taking a cue from the Italians, we also add dark, sweet-tart balsamic vinegar to perfectly complement the rosy notes of the strawberries. No need to use a spendy traditional balsamic here; we had success with decent imported supermarket brands such as Lucini and Cento.

Espresso intensifies the flavor of our double-chocolate ice cream

We know from experience that sweets made only with chocolate or cocoa tend to be one-note in flavor, so for richness and complexity in our Double-Chocolate Ice Cream, we use both. We also include a tablespoon of instant espresso powder. Instead of giving the ice cream a mocha vibe, it makes the flavor of the chocolate more pronounced.

The flavors that we associate with “good” chocolate, like fruitiness, bitterness and a little acidity, are also prominent in espresso. Adding a tiny bit of espresso powder turns up the volume of those characteristics, so our tongues and brains perceive the ice cream as intense, refined, and ultra-chocolatey.

Olive oil ice cream is luxury on a spoon

Olive oil and lemon is a classic Mediterranean flavor combination that’s just as brilliant in our Food-Processor Lemon-Olive Oil Ice Cream as it is in a salad. Olive oil adds a luxurious creaminess when emulsified into the ice cream flavor base, along with peppery, fruity flavor notes that hint at savoriness. It’s incredibly lush, and balanced by two sources of lemon flavor: lemon juice for tartness and flavor-balancing acid and zest for a heady, floral lemon flavor and aroma without any additional acid or potentially icy water.

Bring on the mix-ins

Our Coffee-Chocolate Chip Ice Cream—also made with instant espresso powder—is the only recipe that explicitly calls for mix-ins, though you could certainly add whatever inclusions you want to any of the five flavors. Finely chopped bittersweet chocolate is a natural companion for the coffee ice cream base, but we also like chopped candy bars in vanilla, nuts and/or brownies in the double-chocolate, even more chocolate in the strawberry, and crushed amaretti cookies or crumbled shortbread in the lemon-olive oil.

No matter which combination you go with, the steps are the same: Fold the inclusions into the ice cream after it’s been run through the food processor, just before its final freeze. The milkshake-like texture is thick enough to keep the mix-ins from sinking to the bottom, so you get a great distribution of bits throughout.

For flourishes, it’s hard to go wrong with standard sundae toppings—to upgrade your cherries, go with amarena—though I highly recommend finishing the Lemon-Olive Oil Ice Cream with a drizzle of the peppery fat and a sprinkling of flake salt for a savory sundae that’s a bit more adult than the standard chocolate fudge.

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Claire Lower

Claire Lower is the Digital Editor for Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street, with over a decade of experience as a food writer and recipe developer. Claire began writing about food (and drinks) during the blogging boom in the late 2000s, eventually leaving her job as a lab technician to pursue writing full-time. After freelancing for publications such as Serious Eats, Yahoo Food, xoJane and Cherry Bombe Magazine, she eventually landed at Lifehacker, where she served as the Senior Food Editor for nearly eight years. Claire lives in Portland, Oregon with a very friendly dog and very mean cat. When not in the kitchen (or at her laptop), you can find her deadlifting at the gym, fly fishing or trying to master figure drawing at her local art studio.