This simple vanilla ice cream recipe is low carb, keto, gluten-free, grain-free, sugar-free and Trim Healthy Mama friendly.

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Sometimes you just need perfect, plain vanilla ice cream. My homemade keto vanilla ice cream is the wonderful treat of the weekend they’re fantastic with pie served next to a nice warm brownie.

Besides that once you get the hang of making homemade ice cream in your house you never want store-bought again. Yeah, you can find lots of keto versions of ice cream in the store and they’re great but they are made with all sorts of ingredients that aren’t going to be common or things you can find around your home.

But when you take a bite of one of my ice cream recipes it will be so rich and creamy that it is impossible not to love it. Yes, unsweetened plain vanilla ice cream is thick and very tasty.

Ingredients You Will Need

Don’t worry; you only need 6 ingredients to make a batch of this homemade vanilla ice cream. But the best thing about this homemade vanilla keto ice cream recipe is that you control the ingredients.

No weird stuff that you can’t pronounce, like chicory root fiber or soluble corn fiber. I do add a little vegetable glycerin to my ice creams, which keeps them soft and scoopable in the freezer.

That’s always optional. If you can wait to allow your ice cream to temper for thirty minutes, you don’t need to do this step. I must admit that patience is not one of my strong points.

Heavy Cream: Heavy whipping cream is what gives ice cream its creamy texture.

Milk: You can use reduced-carb milk, unsweetened coconut milk. I prefer using reduced-carb milk when I can find it. Fairlife brand is usually available at most local grocery stores, Walmart, and Target.

Egg Yolks: Just add them raw. If you are not comfortable with that for health reasons you can buy pasteurized eggs or lightly cook the base until bubbles start to form around the edge. This is called tempering.

Sweetener: I use my sweetener blend which is a combination of sugar alcohols like erythritol, xylitol, or allulose combined with stevia but you can sub out in the recipe card if you’d like to switch it out to another sugar-free sweetener such as monk fruit.

Vanilla: Be sure to use an excellent vanilla extract so the great flavor of vanilla really pops.

Glycerin: Glycerin is optional but recommended. It helps sugar-free keto ice cream not freeze too hard to scoop.

How to Make Keto Vanilla Ice Cream

Step One: Step one is quite simple as all you have to do is mix all the ingredients heavy cream, milk, the yolks, sweetener, vanilla, glycerin together in a bowl using a whisk or alternatively you can use a blender to do all the combining.

Step Two: The next thing is to pour the creamy ice cream mixture into your ice cream machine and churn as per the manufacturers’ guidelines.

Expert Tip: As this is very easy recipe there is no need to prepare sweetened condensed milk and other recipes before hand for this one.

Step Three: Transfer the mixture freezer proof containers until firm enough to scoop.

Variations

Mint Chip– Add one or two teaspoons of peppermint oil for a mint flavor. Then throw in some chopped chocolate for mint chocolate chunk or chocolate chips for chocolate mint chip.
Cookie Dough– After the ice cream finishes churning, add in small chunks of cookie dough.
Brownie Dough– Make the crust for my Keto Chocolate cheesecake and crumble into small pieces, add those to the ice cream.
Birthday cake- I’ve found that a mixture of vanilla, butter and almond extract replicates the taste of cake batter quite well. Mix those in with some keto sprinkles as well.
Vanilla Bean –Scrape the seeds from a vanilla bean pod and add them during the first step.
Peanut Butter Cup – Add chopped up keto-approved peanut butter cups.
Sea Salt Caramel – Then add caramel extract and later swirl in some Sugar Free Caramel Sauce.

Topping & Sundae Ideas

Just like any ice cream, it gets better with toppings too because they will always give an extra taste as well as texture to the ice cream. We enjoy each spoon of this plain keto vanilla ice cream and do not want any toppings but enjoy piling on the toppings sometimes. Just keep in mind that any added extras will increase the net carbs.

Here are some ideas to try:

1. Nuts: Nuts can be included in the ice cream. They are crunchy and full of flavour too. One of the very special’s is my Keto Candied Pecans which will make every bite loaded with sweet goodness.

2. Hot Fudge Sauce: The only thing better and more yummy is a sundae with a hot fudge sauce that is completely sugar free and low in carbs. You should definitely try it out and see why.

3. Hot Fudge Sauce: The only thing better and more yummy is a sundae with a hot fudge sauce that is completely sugar free and low in carbs. You should definitely try it out and see why.

4. Caramel sauce: it is another one of our go to ice cream toppings stress free sweetened caramel sauce. No joke, it is going to taste wonderful and blow your mind.

5. Sprinkles: Add fun colors to homemade keto ice cream with sugar free sprinkles as birthday treats. It is simply fantastic for birthdays also.

6. Chocolate Chips: Give the ice cream a few pieces of sugar free chocolate ‘chocolate’ chips. This is yummy and you also get to have some chocolate.

Common Questions

How do I make Dairy-free Keto Ice Cream?

Instead of heavy cream, you can replace it with full-fat coconut milk. Remember that the coconut milk should be containing all the fats, low-fat content, and carton coconut milk should be avoided if you want a keto-friendly ice cream and not icey.

Is it safe to use Raw Egg Yolks in Ice Cream?

If you are concerned about using raw egg yolks, you can purchase pasteurized eggs, or you can temper the ice cream base. I don’t do either. I guess I’m a bit of a rebel, but I’ve never gotten sick from low-carb ice creams or cookie batter with raw eggs in it.

Why do you use Glycerin in Ice Cream?

The glycerin is there because otherwise, the keto vanilla ice cream keeps turning too hard. Using it is not a must as it adds a few carbs on top of the already ice cream batter. If you don’t like it, you can replace it with vodka or leave the ice cream out for about half an hour at room temperature before you start scooping it.