Healthier Blood Orange Ice Cream
Blood oranges are in season!! And what do you do when it’s 70 degrees Fahrenheit outside? YA MAKE ICE CREAM, that’s what. PS: I love you Texas.
This Blood Orange Ice Cream is sweet, tart, citrusy, and oh so satisfying… and you only need 5 ingredients to make it!
Thanks to Truvia® for sponsoring this post, and thank YOU for supporting the brands that keep Desserts With Benefits going! All opinions are mine and mine alone!
Unlike typical ice cream recipes, which call for heavy cream, white sugar, and eggs, I made a few ingredient swaps to make this Blood Orange Ice Cream something you can feel good about eating.
Instead of heavy cream, I used a combo of Greek yogurt and half and half. This not only lowers the overall fat and calorie content, but it adds protein too!
Instead of eggs, I used xanthan gum. And in doing so, you can skip having to cook the mixture on the stovetop!
Instead of white sugar, I used Truvia Natural Sweetener — my favorite zero-calorie, natural sweetener! It’s made from stevia leaf extract, erythritol, and natural flavors. ¾ teaspoon of Truvia has the same sweetness as 2 teaspoons of sugar, so a little bit goes a long way. Did I mention it’s great in coffee too?
And finally, of course, for the pretty pink color and delicious flavor, I used freshly squeezed blood orange juice and blood orange zest.
Compared to store-bought ice cream, this 5-ingredient Blood Orange Ice Cream is lower in calories, fat, and sugar, and higher in protein!
Every spoonful is super creamy and flavorful. It seriously doesn’t taste like a better-for-you treat.
This baby pink ice cream would be great served at a pink-themed party, during Valentine’s Day, or any day, for that matter. Because it’s that good. And there is always a time for ice cream.
Wanna know what I did? I ate this ice cream first thing in the morning. It’s totally healthy enough to be breakfast!
Why? Because I said so.
I mean, it’s got yogurt and oranges, how could this NOT be a suitable breakfast item?? Life is awesome when you wake up to ice cream in your comfy pajamas 😉
This Blood Orange Ice Cream has the perfect amount of bright and citrusy, sweet blood orange flavor.
Healthy Blood Orange Ice Cream
Ingredients
- 32 oz Plain, Nonfat Greek Yogurt
- 16 oz Half and Half
- ⅔ cup Truvia Spoonable
- 1 cup Blood Orange Juice (freshly squeezed**)
- 1 tbs Blood Orange Zest
- ½ tbs Xanthan Gum
Instructions
- Freeze your ice cream maker bowl for 24+ hours (I used my KitchenAid ice cream maker attachment).
- In a blender, add the yogurt, half and half, and Truvia. Blend until smooth.
- Add in the blood orange juice and zest and blend again.
- Lastly, add in the xanthan gum and blend until completely smooth.
- Place the frozen ice cream maker attachment onto the stand mixer and turn on the "stir" speed. Pour the ice cream "batter" into the ice cream bowl and churn (I let it run for about 25 minutes).
- Transfer the mixture into a freezer-proof container (I used two 32oz soup containers), cover, and freeze until it's the texture you prefer. Scoop into bowls and serve!
Recipe Notes
- **This was 7 blood oranges for me. Mine were fairly small, but in my experience, no matter what the size, blood oranges just aren’t very juicy, especially compared to regular oranges.
- This ice cream freezes hard... which is normal when you don't use a bunch of heavy cream and sugar. All you gotta do is let it thaw on the counter for ~30 minutes before scooping or in the fridge for ~6 hours. You can also add 2 tbs of vodka to the recipe (because alcohol doesn't freeze).
Can you believe 1 cup of this Blood Orange Ice Cream has roughly ⅓ fewer calories and 5x the protein of typical ice cream recipes? I recently found a recipe with 520 calories plus 30g of fat and 48g of sugar per serving.
I’ll let those nutrition facts sink in a little. Oh gosh, NO thank you. I’ll take a cup (or two) of my healthier Blood Orange Ice Cream instead.
That’s insane! Who needs the unhealthy version when this one is so easy to make? I’m ALL for indulgence, but not foolish indulgence. Why consume excess white sugar when there are healthier replacements to stand in and saved the day?
I hope you’re enjoying your 2019 so far! It’s been busy busy busy over here, but I can’t complain when I’ve got 70-degree weather and lots of ice cream 😉
Hope you enjoy the recipe!
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– Jess
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Indulge − no strings attached!
You were probably expecting this… I don’t have an ice cream maker 🙁 is there anything I can do with this recipe or should I just suck it up and buy one already? xD
I tried this recipe without an ice cream maker and it didn’t work 🙁 … it wasn’t creamy and the texture was kinda ruined. Ice cream makers are pretty cheap, especially compared to stand mixers. I used to use a Cuisinart, which was great but I broke it… oops! Ice cream makers are definitely one of my favorite kitchen tools 😉
-Jess
Yay! Low calorie icecream! Excited to try it out but do not have Xanthum gum. Will Guar gum be a good substitute?
I don’t have any experience with guar gum but from what I’ve read it should work just fine in place of xanthan gum 🙂
I hope you like the ice cream!
I use guar gum for homemade ice cream all the time and it works wonders for the texture and consistency.
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I love blood oranges and this ice cream looks so delicious!!
Are you kidding me?! Are you reading my mind? I bought blood oranges last week! I was lazy and made some blood orange yogurt/quark but hey, this sounds soooooo much better! And it looks bloody (oh please) good!
YAY! Hahaha I guess it was meant to be that I posted this recipe when I did 😉
Bloog orange yogurt?! That sounds sooooo goooood. I WANT SOME!
I love this. This recipe sounds awesome!
This looks delish! Have you had any success making ice creams creamy with non-dairy options? Seems only cottage cheese or yoghurt mentioned for the dessert bullet…help!
I haven’t had much luck with non-dairy ice creams. Bananas work great, but I really hate how so many ice creams use them because bananas are so strong in flavor. In the Dessert Bullet, cottage cheese is like a magic ingredient! I don’t know how or why, but it consistently gives the creamiest results I’ve ever seen 🙂
However, if you’re allergic, you can try banana… but like I said, they have a strong flavor. I mean, they’re still really good in chocolate ice cream and stuff, but I don’t think it tastes great in mint ice cream or mocha ice cream. You can probably omit the sweetener if you use banana too 🙂
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