These vanilla ice cream variations are so delicious! Make simple upgrades to my basic vanilla ice cream recipe for interesting yet healthy ice cream recipes that don’t take much time or effort. You may even have all the ingredients right now!
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Vanilla is an ice cream flavor.
It genuinely can be a flavor all its own, and not just “plain” ice cream to make into sundaes and floats or scoop onto pie. Vanilla ice cream is great for those things! However, with good quality ingredients and plenty of real vanilla, it can be an aromatic, slightly floral flavor in its own right.
While vanilla might not deserve to be known as “plain vanilla”, as if vanilla has to be boring, there are limits to how often you might serve it on its own. When you feel like something a bit different, check out these 5 simple vanilla ice cream variations. They are so good!
Pin these flavors for later!
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Not-So-Plain Vanilla
A good vanilla ice cream recipe is to dessert what a black dress is to fashion. Classic, versatile, and valuable for itself. You can start with your favorite vanilla ice cream recipe, or use mine. I love this recipe because it can be GAPS friendly (and gut healthy even if you aren’t on the GAPS diet) if you use cultured dairy, or “regular” if you make it with fresh, uncultured milk and cream.
Are these vanilla ice cream variations GAPS-friendly?
The cinnamon and eggnog versions are GAPS compliant, provided you use the cultured forms of milk and cream, and a GAPS-friendly vanilla. Chocolate isn’t really GAPS compliant, and neither is coffee. Especially not instant coffee. I can’t really recommend those flavors while on the GAPS diet.
The best you could do would be to use unsweetened chocolate in the chocolate chip flavors. That will work, and those are otherwise GAPS friendly.
I suppose you could make the mint and orange flavors without the chocolate, too. Either chocolate or instant coffee would be a GAPS cheat, though. Which is up to you…
Here is the ice cream recipe, in case you want it:
Cultured Vanilla Ice Cream
Equipment
- hand mixer or blender
- ice cream maker
Ingredients
- 2 C milk kefir or yogurt (or milk if not on GAPS)
- 2 C cultured cream (or cream if not on GAPS)
- 1/4-1/2 C raw honey
- 1 T vanilla extract
- dash salt
- 6 egg yolks (optional)
Instructions
- Combine kefir or yogurt (or milk if not on GAPS), honey, vanilla, salt, and egg yolks if using them in a large pitcher or bowl. Whisk or beat with a hand mixer until very smooth. (You can do this in a blender or food processor if you prefer.)
- Add cultured cream (or fresh cream if not on GAPS). Mix just enough to incorporate thoroughly, but not enough to turn the cream into butter!
- Add the ice cream mixture to the bowl of your ice cream machine and process as usual.
- Scoop any ice cream you don't eat immediately into a freezer safe container, cover and freeze.
Notes
Vanilla Ice Cream Variations
For those days when you want a different, but still easy, ice cream, try one of these easy ideas:
Cinnamon
Have you ever had cinnamon ice cream? It isn’t a super-common flavor. When I was in college, there was no dining service on Sunday evenings. My friends and I often wound up at the campus café, having huge 60-cent ice cream cups. I often chose cinnamon. It may not sound jazzy, but it is surprisingly good. Maybe not for dinner, though if you make this with the kefir and egg yolks it is pretty nourishing.
Stirring cinnamon into your batch of vanilla ice cream is pretty easy. You could skip the vanilla extract, but I like to keep it. Vanilla adds a layer of subtle flavor that plays nicely with so many others, including cinnamon. This would also taste great over apple pie, etc.
How to make it:
Make the vanilla ice cream normally, adding 2-3 tsp cinnamon. That’s it!
Probably, you could concoct a chai-spiced ice cream just as easily. Cinnamon plus ginger, cardamom, a little nutmeg… It’s on my list to try!
It looks like vanilla, but it tastes like cinnamon!
Mint Chocolate Chip
This one requires a little more effort, but not too much. I like to keep the vanilla and add peppermint extract, but you can skip the vanilla if you like. Adjust the peppermint extract to your preferred intensity. Start low and increase. You can’t take it back out, after all!
I find it works well to grate a chocolate bar rather than use chocolate chips. Even mini chocolate chips freeze so hard you can’t taste the chocolate, not to mention that you might chip a tooth! Take a small amount of chocolate (an ounce or two) in the form of a bar or chocolate baking squares. Grate it on the large side of a box grater and blend the shavings into your ice cream.
An additional benefit of grating/shaving chocolate is that you aren’t limited to the chocolate chips available to you. You can easily avoid whatever you need to by choosing your chocolate carefully. There is usually a lot more variety available in chocolate bars than in chocolate chips, whether in the baking section or the candy aisle. Choose what suits you: dairy free, organic, milk chocolate, sugar substitute, low sugar, etc.
You can even choose chocolate without any sugar! Unsweetened chocolate works in this application because such tiny shreds are surrounded by sweet ice cream. Your brain will register the sweet with the bitter, especially if you aren’t used to eating much sugar. If you are uncertain, try increasing the honey in the ice cream. I usually like 90-100% chocolate for ice cream.
How to make it:
With or without vanilla extract, add 2-3 tsp peppermint extract to your ice cream before churning. (Start with one teaspoon, and work your way up. I like it strong, but maybe you don’t!). Grate an ounce or two of chocolate and stir in before the ice cream sets in the freezer. I do this while churning, but you can add the chocolate after churning and before you put it in the freezer.
But it’s not green! I don’t find it worthwhile to color the ice cream green; it doesn’t affect the flavor.
If you want your mint chocolate chip ice cream to be green, you need to add something. Food coloring, either the chemical kind or a more natural version, will make your ice cream green. Or experiment with something naturally green, like spinach, fresh mint leaves, matcha powder, or spirulina. Blend with the milk or kefir before churning, then strain out any bits left over before proceeding.
Coffee
This is as simple as it gets! Creamy, sweet, and gently coffee-flavored, this coffee will please even non-coffee-lovers. If you’re feeling like a very simple recipe, but a very decadent flavor, this is the one. How can you go wrong?!
How to make it:
Add a tablespoon of instant coffee to the base when you start churning. It won’t dissolve right away, but it will dissolve and incorporate pretty soon. You don’t need to do anything special, and you can choose decaf or regular.
Even if you aren’t an instant coffee person, this recipe makes it worth your while to stock a good quality instant coffee. Yes, some instant coffees are better than others; spring for a good one!
How to make it:
Definitely keep the vanilla in this vanilla ice cream variation! Add a tablespoon of instant coffee with all the other ingredients. That’s it!
Up your game by adding chocolate! Grate your preferred chocolate into small pieces and add to the churning ice cream at the end. Yummy! Or top with chocolate sauce. Or both…
Orange Chocolate Chip
This one is a little unusual, and so full of flavor. It doesn’t taste much like those chocolate oranges– the orange flavor is much livelier! Use the fine side of the grater for very fine orange zest (or chop super finely), and the larger side for the chocolate. Very fine orange zest will flavor the ice cream vibrantly while nearly disappearing in texture.
How to make it:
Make the vanilla ice cream with or without vanilla. Add the finely grated zest of one orange, plus an ounce or two of grated chocolate.
If you love this flavor combination, also try my orange chocolate cake!
Eggnog
The Christmas we were on the GAPS diet, we had this on Christmas Eve. Because of my son’s egg allergy, I didn’t put any eggs in it, but it was still good. The flavor is mild, and you could probably serve it with something else, like a fruit crisp or pie. However, it is plenty delicious on its own!
Presumably, you could just churn eggnog as ice cream. I haven’t tried it, though. Let me know if you have done that and how it turned out.
How to make it:
If you can, use 4-6 egg yolks for richness, color and nutrition. Stick with pastured eggs from a reliable source, since they are raw. Beat them in with the dairy at the beginning, and add 1 tsp nutmeg and 1/2 tsp cinnamon. Be sure to use a full tablespoon of vanilla!
Eggnog often contains some alcohol, and you could add that if you want. I haven’t tried it, but I would suggest about 2 tablespoons of whichever you choose– brandy, rum, whiskey, etc. The alcohol will help the ice cream not freeze quite so hard and remain scoopable. (Honey and egg yolks also help with this!)
There you go! Vanilla ice cream variations are pretty easy to achieve for totally new, different flavors!
Want even more ice cream recipes? I have some great ones:
So yummy and easy to follow!
Excellent post! I love your options, how to adapt them, and just plain how to dress up the vanilla ice cream. I do love plain vanilla ice cream too, especially on top of a bowl of berries! I’m getting my ice cream maker out shortly and will have to try some of your awesome flavors!
Thanks, Heidi! I hope you enjoy them!
For another easy way to dress up vanilla ice cream, squeeze half a lemon over a scoop. It sounds weird, but is so refreshing!