Homemade Non-Dairy Ice Cream Without an Ice Cream Maker

Our son has been dairy free for a little over a month now. Since his allergy was diagnosed, we've learned a lot about dairy substitutes, and since I make most meals from scratch at home, the transition has been much easier than it could be for our little former Dairy King. Before we learned that he was allergic to dairy, his favorite foods were cheese, milk, yogurt and ice cream. Cow's milk was easy to replace with almond milk. We found almond and coconut yogurt at Earth Fare. We've cut way down on cheese, but use Daiya shreds for pizza and a few other of this favorite meals. We did buy a 1/2 pint of non-dairy ice cream, but yowsa, is it pricey. Since ice cream is a "sometimes" food and not an every day food for D, I starting looking for an ice cream recipe we could make at home. The trick was to find a recipe that didn't require an ice cream maker because the Kitchen Aid fairy hasn't delivered the ice cream maker attachment quite yet.

Thanks to Pinterest, I found several versions of this very easy, very simple "ice-cream-in-a-bag" recipe. 

You'll need:

• 1 cup almond milk (or coconut milk)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract (or almond extract)
• 2 T. sugar
• 1/2 cup rock salt (the kind you'd use to de-ice your sidewalk. The recipe called for ice cream salt, but we couldn't find any in the three stores we checked. Kosher salt might also work, but my research suggested rock salt due to the larger granules).
• enough ice to fill a gallon size Ziploc bag half full.
• 1 gallon size Ziploc bag
• 1 quart size Ziploc bag.

Optional:

• chopped strawberries for strawberry ice cream
• carob chips, peppermint extract and crushed mint for mint chocolate (carob) chip ice cream

Step 1: Put the rock salt in the gallon size bag. So easy, a pre-schooler can do it. 

Step 2: Add ice until the bag is more than 1/2 full.

Step 3: Add the milk to the smaller bag. This is a little trickier, especially if you forget to grab a funnel.

Step 4: Add the vanilla. (As a side note: I made my own vanilla almost a month ago and it's almost ready. Can't wait to try this again with my vanilla.

Step 5: Add the sugar.

Step 6: Put the small bag inside the large bag. Make sure that both are sealed tightly!

Step 7: Here's the fun part...and how you can justify eating the ice cream. Shake the bags vigorously until the liquid turns solid. It took us about eight minutes. This is a great game for a three-year-old. If you don't have help, you may want to wear mittens or wrap the bag in a dish towel.

Step 8: Remove the ice cream from the large bag.

Step 9: Add your toppings to make your own flavor. Or enjoy the vanilla. It's pretty good on it's own, too.

D wanted fresh strawberry.

Niels and I enjoyed our Breyer's Mint Chocolate Chip knock off.

 Step 10: Enjoy!

The nice thing about this recipe was the built-in portion control. I think D would have eaten all three of our shares if we had let him. It melts quickly, so enjoy right away.