If you have a Ninja Creami, then here's your new go-to keto chocolate ice cream that is sure to satisfy your sweet tooth or chocolate cravings! Plus it's high in protein!
This keto chocolate ice cream tastes similar to REAL chocolate ice cream: it's rich and chocolatey, smooth and creamy, and just melts in your mouth. But, we love it for other reasons, too: it's low in carbs and calories, high in protein, sugar-free, made with just 5 ingredients, and so easy to make with the Ninja Creami.
If you're not familiar with the Ninja Creami, it's a new appliance that can make ice cream out of almost anything. It does so by taking liquid ingredients that have been frozen solid and finely shaving them into creamy substances.
We've been using the Ninja Creami for several months now and highly recommend it, especially if you're interested in making lower calorie or protein ice creams with non-standard ingredients. It's also very easy to use.
Each serving of this keto ice cream is 1.3 net carbs and a whopping 63 percent protein. With traditional ice cream makers it would be difficult to achieve that kind of low-carb and high-protein combination.
Ingredients
Just a few notes on key ingredients:
- Powdered erythritol: We use Swerve Confectioners Sweetener, but you can use any of brand of erythritol sweetener. Be sure to use confectioners — not granular — otherwise the ice cream may end up grainy.
- Unsweetened almond milk: To create the right consistency, you need to include a liquid. We use unsweetened almond milk since it's keto-friendly and low in calories. You can substitute another type of low-carb milk like unsweetened macadamia milk or coconut milk.
- Low-carb, chocolate whey protein powder: We use low-carb chocolate whey protein powder to make this a high-protein ice cream. Our favorite chocolate protein power is Quest Chocolate Milkshake.
- Unsweetened cocoa powder: Although we use chocolate protein powder in this recipe, you need to add unsweetened cocoa powder for a rich, chocolaty flavor.
- Guar Gum: Guar gum is thickening agent that helps create a creamy texture in ice creams and sorbets. You may substitute with xanthan gum, but the texture may not turn out as creamy.
How to Make
STEP 1: Combine all the ingredients in a blender or food processor and pulse until fully mixed and smooth in consistency.
STEP 2: Pour the blended mixture into a Ninja Creami pint container and place in the freezer. Let freeze for at least 24 hours.
STEP 3: After freezing, take the lid off the pint container and place in the Ninja Creami outer bowl. Install the Creami paddle into the outer bowl lid, place the lid on the outer bowl and lock into place according to the instructions in the Creami manual. Select the Lite Ice Cream mode, and it will spin for several minutes.
STEP 4: When it stops spinning, take the container out and assess the consistency of the ice cream. If it's powdery in texture as shown in picture 4 (as opposed to creamy and smooth), then you'll need to respin.
STEP 5: If you need to respin, place the outer bowl lid back on and lock it back into the Ninja creami and push respin.
STEP 6: After it's done respining, take out the outer bowl and assess the ice cream consistency. If its smooth and creamy, as shown in picture 6, serve immediately. If still powdery, continue to respin until you reach the desired consistency. Depending on your freezer's temperature you may need to respin multiple times.
Expert Tips For Using the Ninja Creami
- When freezing your mixture make sure your pint is on a level surface in the freezer and that you don't fill the pint past the fill line.
- The Creami instructions also recommend freezing for at least 24 hours to make sure its fully hardened.
- Depending on the recipe and your freezer's temperature, you may need to respin multiple times. For example, if our mixture is frozen at a low temperature, we typically need to respin multiple times. We've even had situations where we needed to respin as much 8 to 10 times. If this happens to you frequently, consider increasing the temperature of your freezer.
- If you want to include any mix-ins like sugar-free chocolate chips or candy, simply add them to the spun ice cream and press the mix-in button to incorporate. If you use the other settings, your mix-ins will be shredded too finely.
Storing the Ice Cream
Ice cream made by the Ninja Creami is best when eaten immediately. Since it's not made with standard ingredients and in the same manner as regular ice cream, it does not store as well as traditional ice cream.
If you have leftovers, we recommend letting the ice cream melt until soft (which happens fairly quickly) and then storing it back in a Creami pint since you'll likely need to re-run the Creami on it after it re-hardens. Be sure to flatten the surface of the ice cream in the pint before placing it in the freezer.
To serve, simply re-run the Creami process again or respin the ice cream (as it may be frozen) until smooth and creamy.
Why the Ninja Creami Can Make Ice Cream Out Of Almost Anything
With traditional ice cream machines, the ice cream is stored in the freezer so it has to maintain its creamy texture while in there. Keeping a liquid creamy at freezing temperatures requires a careful balance of ingredients. For example, in traditional ice cream, if you reduce the amount of sugar in the mixture it will get too hard in the freezer to be ice cream.
By contrast, with the Ninja Creami you start by freezing your mixture into a solid and then the Creami pulverizes it to create ice cream. The benefit of this approach is almost any mixture will freeze to a solid. This is especially useful in low calorie or protein ice creams with non-standard ingredients that won't stay creamy in the traditional ice cream making process. The trade off is that you have to eat it right away and it can't be stored like traditional ice cream.
Related Recipes
If you try this recipe, we would love to hear your feedback! Leave a comment, rate it, and tag @lowcarbsimplified on your photo of this recipe on Instagram or Facebook. We hope you enjoy this recipe as much as we do!
Keto Chocolate Ice Cream with the Ninja Creami (High Protein!)
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 cup Unsweetened almond milk
- 1 scoop Quest Chocolate Milkshake Protein Powder or other chocolate protein powder (1 scoop is 30g for our protein powder)
- 1 tablespoon Hershey's Special Dark Cocoa Powder
- ⅓ cup Swerve Confectioners
- ¼ teaspoon Guar Gum
Instructions
- Blend ingredients: Combine all the ingredients in a blender or food processor and pulse until fully mixed and smooth in consistency.
- Freeze: Pour the blended mixture into a Ninja Creami pint container and place in the freezer. Let sit for at least 24 hours.
- Turn to ice cream in the Ninja Creami: After freezing, take the lid off the pint and place in the Ninja Creami outer bowl. Install the Creami paddle into the pint lid, put on the outer bowl and lock into place. Select the Lite Ice Cream mode, and it will spin for several minutes.
- Respin if necessary: When it stops spinning, take the container out and assess the consistency of the ice cream. If it's a powdery in texture (as opposed to creamy and smooth), then you'll need to respin. To respin, place the pint container back in the Ninja creami and push respin. After it's done, take out and assess the ice cream consistency. If smooth and creamy, serve immediately. If still powdery, continue to respin until you reach the desired consistency.
Notes
- When freezing your mixture make sure your pint is on a level surface in the freezer and that you don't fill the pint past the fill line.
- The Creami instructions also recommend freezing for at least 24 hours to make sure its fully hardened.
- Depending on the recipe and your freezer's temperature, you may need to respin multiple times. For example, when our mixture is frozen at a low temperature, we typically need to respin multiple times. We've even had situations where we needed to respin as much 8 to 10 times. If this happens to you frequently, consider increasing the temperature of your freezer.
- If you want to include any mix-ins like sugar-free chocolate chips or candy, simply add them to the spun ice cream and press the mix-in button to incorporate. If you use the other settings, your mix-ins will be shredded too finely.
- Ice cream made by the Ninja Creami is best when eaten immediately. Since it's not made with standard ingredients and in the same manner as regular ice cream, it does not store as well as traditional ice cream. If you have leftovers, we recommend letting the ice cream melt until soft (which happens fairly quickly), then store in a Creami pint since you'll likely need to re-run the Creami on it. Be sure to flatten the surface of the ice cream in the pint before placing it in the freezer. To serve, simply re-run the Creami again or respin the ice cream (as it may be frozen) until smooth and creamy.
I'm not sure if I'm reading this recipe correctly, as I don't see anyone else having the same question. I'm reading that there is one cup of Almond milk, and the Ninja Creami is 2 cups! So I made it by your instructions, and after blending I added more almond milk to make two cups! So please explain. Thank you
Even with 1 cup of almond milk, with the rest of the ingredients and blending in a blender it comes out slightly under the fill line. If you want, you can add more almond milk at the end to bring it up to the fill line as you describe.
Thank you for your speedy reply! THat's exactly what I did. I topped it off with the almond milk!
I forgot to say how much I love this keto chocolate ice cream. I used 1/4 cup of real sugar, and no other changes!
Good to know it works with regular sugar as well! Will add to recipe notes. Thanks!
I'm getting ready for my next batch of Creami ice learning from you two! I do not buy flavored whey protein but Isopure unflavored for baking. Would you have an estimate for how much to increase the cocoa powder by to offset? Would it need a touch of vanilla to tame the chocolate that might have been handled by the flavored whey protein? A touch more sweetener? Also, powdered erythritol and confectioner's are not usually exactly the same thing as those labeled confectioner's are able to add a little starch - which of course is less desirable to keto folks. Powdered can also be used to refer to a more finely ground granular. Labeling in the U.S. is so tricky! I'm guessing you mean as powdery and/or finely ground as can be found without added starches. Thanks for any help you can provide!
Glad to hear you're having with these recipes and your Ninja Creami!!
Regarding how much cocoa powder to use when using unflavored whey protein: we'd recommended adding an extra tablespoon in addition to what's listed in the recipe. This is what we do in the Rocky Road Ice Cream base recipe which doesn't have the benefit of flavored protein powder. Another way to look at it if is you compare the Vanilla and Chocolate Quest protein powders you'll notice there's 0.5 more grams of fat in the Chocolate version. This is the same amount of fat in a single tablespoon of Hershey's cocoa powder. So if you're using unflavored protein powder 1 extra tablespoon of cocoal powder seems like it should match what's in the chocolate flavored version.
Regarding adding a touch of extra vanilla when using unflavored whey protein: We did not do this in our Rocky Road Ice Cream base, so you're probably safe skipping it.
Regarding adding more sweetener when using unflavored whey protein: You probably need to add additional sweetener because the flavored protein powder we used did have a sweetener. Not sure how much since we can't derive it from the nutrition facts panel like we could with the cocoa powder.
Regarding powdered erythritol ("Confectioners Swerve") mentioned in the recipe: You are right confectioners sugar customarily means added starch, and correct we meant powdery and/or finely ground as can be found without added starches. In our case, Swerve does make a version of erythritol that is finely ground without added starches that is labeled as Swerve Confectioners.
Thanks! With your adaptations using when unflavored whey protein power, I now have pint of chocolate mixture in the freezer. I did a third tablespoon of cocoa because my cocoa is Hershey's wimpier one - not dark cocoa. I used Swerve confectioner's, even with the oligosaccharides I still have trouble with - but not quite to the same extent as I do with allulose. In my cupboard, I have my decanted powdered (i.e. finely granulated) erythritol for which I did not retain the label for, a pouch of Lakanto powdered (erythritol/monkfruit), a pouch of Truvia confectioner's that does have corn starch added to the erythritol/stevia and my open pouch of Swerve confectioner's that doesn't - just crazy how different they are. Will there be a high protein vanilla recipe? Thanks again!
Great! Let us know how it turns out.
Surprised that Truvia has cornstarch but based on the nutrition label it seems to be a small amount.
Regarding a vanilla recipe, we're working on it. We've tried vanilla high protein using something similar to the chocolate high protein recipe (i.e. replace the chocolate protein powder with vanilla powder, and leave out the cocoa powder) but we didn't feel it was up to par. It turns to be harder to do a good high protein vanilla recipe because vanilla is a more delicate flavor that's less forgiving to the artificial flavors in the protein powder than a stronger flavor like chocolate.
It turned out great! Thanks for your pointers. I just wrote to customer service at Truvia to see what the carbs are at 6 tablespoons since we cannot multiply out what they rounded down to zero. Companies seem to get back to me about half the time when I have questions like that. Just way ironic that a product that gets hawked for being made with stevia is made, by weight, from less stevia than any other ingredient. If it is 0.49 g per the 3 teaspoons serving size (which is admittedly generous) they are allowed to label 0 g, then at 6 or 7 tablespoons, it would be about 3 to 3.5 g that doesn't net since I would be consuming the whole pint. I'll let you know if I find out for sure. Thanks for explaining the technical difficulties with vanilla protein ice cream. I'm trying the pumpkin next catch you on that page!
I was just experimenting with my homemade evaporated coconut milk beverage and varying levels of unflavored whey protein trying for a vanilla and ... UGH! Boy, as you indicated, does vanilla not hold up against the funky whey protein taste - even with additional vanilla bean paste. It didn't even with half fat (manually removed) canned coconut milk. I'll be trying again for vanilla with some other base that tastes cleaner since I'm hankering for cake batter and cream-cicle flavors. But I stumbled on a flavor that does hold up to the funk trying to salvage my batches after viewing your use of maple in the butter pecan recipe! Banana Foster - added banana extract and 1/2 tsp unsulphured molasses served with homemade keto butterscotch sauce. The flavor from the extract was improved from its usual one note taste with the funk. Very funky, stretchy soft and creamy with 1 1/4 cup evap alt milk and 1 1/2 scoop whey protein. Hope you try and further develop!
Yeah it's surprising how tricky it is to get the vanilla ice cream flavor right. However, it turns out to be known to be delicate flavor to work with, for example from Sensory Evaluation of Dairy Products:
(BTW We have not tried double strength vanilla yet.)
We actually have cake batter on the todo list and have a bag of PE Science flavored cake batter protein powder sitting in the pantry but haven't got around to it yet. Our first approach was going to be modeled on the Mint Chip but with the mint removed and the protein powder swapped out. Let us know how it goes if you try it.
Thanks for the banana foster idea! It's super interesting. We'll add that to our list to try.
Hi, again! Well I finished playing with canned coconut milk and moved on to see what I could learn from another base. Alas, it is high fat as well but it can easily taste like French toast or cake batter without specialty powders and extracts! The egg fast ice creams (ketogenicwoman) carry vanilla well but are, well, eggy since they are done with 4 whole eggs (raw-if you don't mind the risk; cooked-as-custard; wet scrambled; or hard-boiled) and 4 tablespoons butter. Somehow whenever I tried the hard-boiled at least one of eggs will be overdone to lend that sulphur hint and I cannot do scrambled without some browning, so I don't recommend those techniques. Though my efforts at doing a decent custard by double boiler are haphazard at best, I find the taste and texture the best. I just added confectioner's Swerve, 1/2 c alt. milk, vanilla extract (lots) and 1/4 tsp guar gum. No surprise it tastes just like French toast when drizzled with a sauce mixed from SF/keto maple syrup, melted butter and cinnamon - it's everything but the bread! Similarly, it fully swings into cake batter flavor territory when a very little almond extract and a scant 1/2 tsp of baking powder is added. Approaching 700 calories but ordinary ingredients one always has on hand at the same time extra work with riskier outcome but whole (maybe organic too!) foods. I'm thinking the expensive extract is not such a bad deal if I can find one that tastes like yellow cake batter - not white birthday cake with sprinkles. Let me know which cake batter version your powder tastes to you!
RE: hard boiled eggs overdone, have you tried a dash egg cooker? We covered it in our review and it helps with making hard boiled eggs that aren't overdone if you get the water level right https://lowcarbsimplified.com/best-keto-kitchen-must-haves-gadgets/
Re: french toast, cake ice cream. So the recipe you did was,
- 4 eggs
- 4 tbs butter
- ? grams confectioner swerve
- 1/2 cup alternative milk
- ? (lots) vanilla extract
- 1/4 tsp guar gum
The above tastes like french toast? And the adding almond extract and 1/2 tsp of baking powder gets into cake batter territory. Interesting but would be heavy on the calories as you noted. Wonder if there's a lower calorie way. Going to pull out the PE Science cake batter sitting on the shelf and give it a try soon. We might have a lorann cake batter flavor syrup as well lying around...
Thanks for the tip regarding the appliance but it really boils down (pun intended) to the fact that the eggs themselves are haphazardly sized as I do larges from cold water to boil, cover, 12 min to ice bath. The largest ones will have a tiny centered spot of less cooked yolk, the middle sized ones will be perfect with fully cooked yolk and no green tinge at yolk to albumen contact, while the smallest may have the dreaded sulphur green tinge. I suppose I could buy several dozen at a time and weigh them all to cook the narrowest weight ranges together but ... crazy! As to the previously referenced unknown amounts The amount of confectioner's Swerve was 6 tablespoons, the vanilla was 3 teaspoons extract or emulsions. It's completely French Toast to me when adding the syrup/butter/cinnamon topping since it's all the ingredients I use when making French toast even if I'm using egg white protein bread now as a ketovore. Homemade yellow cake batter is made from large amounts of whole eggs, butter and vanilla so it's a natural here. I think I used my 1/16 tsp to add the almond extract to get that batter tang along with the baking powder. I am taking notes as I go but I haven't been as good as you two must be to develop your content. Since I use unflavored protein powders, I was checking for the individual flavors involved as extracts and found no egg-flavored extract excepting eggnog or custard which might work with butter and vanilla which one might already have on hand. But why use up three extracts when there are a couple yellow cake batter extracts out there so I'm going to order some tonight though I like having options when trying to use up what I already have in my fridge and cupboard. I'll circle back around to this post whenever I get it and make a batch that's protein and low calories!
This is a good point. Hadn't seriously thought about it besides comparing protein powders or going straight to the extracts (though maybe butter extract + eggnog might work as you suggest). Did find a salted egg yolk syrup in some searching… https://www.webstaurantstore.com/torani-750ml-puremade-salted-egg-yolk-flavoring-syrup/880692854.html
Agreed. Extracts and flavorings are under appreciated. A tip for how we’ve used extracts is to use them AFTER freezing (i.e. in the mix-in or re-spin stage) instead of before. This lets you decide what flavor ice cream you want in the few minutes it takes to process the pint, instead of having to wait 24 hours. You just need to keep a stock of plain bases on hand.
BTW Did try PE Science cake batter flavor protein powder in a creami recipe (basically replace it for vanilla in our mint recipe and drop the extract). Definitely tasted cake like but had similar artificial taste as vanilla and not good enough yet to make a post about it. Back to the drawing board...
HI yet again! After finding out that I do not care for the salt and vitamins in any Keto Chow mix, I moved on to experimenting with milk protein isolate along with acacia Senegal fiber (the first two ingredients in Keto Chow). I found that I prefer the taste, texture, and melting properties of guar gum to that of acacia fiber, so unless you are interested in fiber and prebiotics then you don't have to look into that. It is the milk protein isolate you need to look into. As it is 80% casein and only 20% whey protein, it only has a fraction of the whey flavor to get in the way of the "delicate" extracts. In fact, it doesn't have much flavor at all so it takes a lot of flavoring to get to a strong vanilla - like 3 teaspoons extract and two teaspoons paste. It has so little flavor as a base, it makes strong flavors like chocolate and mint taste flat and one-noted. I did not succeed in making a decent cake batter protein ice cream with it yet, my super concentrated extract got chemical tasting (at 3/32 tsp no less) before it became very cake batter tasting. I'll try another extract down the line. I just thought I'd offer another base to explore. I've gone through so much vanilla extract I've looked into making my own extract and its no more work to make a double strength. Its just 2 ingredients and 8 weeks of passive steeping (2 full beans submerged 8 ounces of vodka). You can even use pods that have been scraped to make the extract, you just need about 5 of them per 8 ounces of alcohol. For double strength just double the pods while keeping the alcohol the same. Each bean pod is a little over a buck online when bought in a package of 10 or so (Madagascar A). So under $20 but with a 2 month wait - there's 40 ounces of extract. I can see why you all chose to piggyback on the Quest products, it took care of the protein, some gellant, some of flavoring and some of the sweetening. Unfortunately Quest just changed their products (esp. milkshakes) by using soy lecithin and upping the silicon dioxide - see their web site for the label changes that they are being nicely transparent about. Hope you try milk protein isolate, if only for delicate flavors!
RE: acacia senegal fiber. That's good to know. We've generally focused on exploring gums typically used in ice creams so ones on the list to try are locust bean gum (LBG) and Carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) (https://books.lib.uoguelph.ca/icecreamtechnologyebook/chapter/stabilizers/). However we are low carb *simplified* so we try to focus on easier to obtain and use ingredients. LBG, for example, is not in any grocery store we've been in, and requires heating in order to hydrate which adds more steps and complexity to the recipe.
RE: milk protein isolate. This is intriguing. Was aware skim milk powder is a common ingredient in ice cream (https://books.lib.uoguelph.ca/icecreamtechnologyebook/part/homemade-ice-cream/) yet we've avoided it because of it's higher carb count and lower protein percentage but had not considered milk protein isolate which has the same 80/20 casein/whey percentage as skim milk powder but without the added carbs from lactose. Considering our experience with pure casein not surprised it muted even stronger flavors, so 80/20 might be too much casein but this sounds like possible path to a better protein vanilla we'll have to explore at some point. Wondering if the right solution is somewhere between 80/20 (skim milk powder) and 50/50 (quest powder) and just use whey isolate and pure casein to find the right percentage. You've definitely given us food for thought and am going to have to give this a try.
RE: Vanilla. Not sure we have patience to wait that long but good to know given how quickly we've been going through vanilla.
RE: Quest. Yes, you're exactly right. One our tenants is to leverage ingredients that can be multi-functional so you can cut down the steps and ingredients in the recipe. For example, in our mexican chicken skillet recipe the salsa essentially gives you sauce, tomatoes, jalapenos, garlic and other spices with minimal carbs in a single easy to buy ingredient.
I dont have protein powder so can I. substitute whipping cream for the almond milk ?
It's possible but suspect the recipe will need at least two changes for that to work.
The first change would be to replace the Swerve with Allulose as a sweetener. In our experience using heavy cream with erythritol (Swerve) can result in a grainy texture. This is why our Vanilla Ice Cream recipe uses Allulose.
The second change would be to add more cocoa powder. This is because the original recipe uses chocolate protein powder which helps contribute to the chocolate flavor. Without it, you'll likely need additional cocoa powder to get the decadent chocolate taste of the original recipe.
If you do try it, let us know how it goes!
Recipe looks great. I'm wondering if, in place of the scoop of choc protein powder which I don't have, I use 1 serving of the Vitla Protein chocolate collagen peptides.
I expect it should work and be pretty close. We haven't tried it out yet (it's on the to-do list) but I've heard of others using collagen powder with success in the creami. If you do try it, let us know. We're going to try in the next few days too.
Can you use egg white protein powder? For this recipe
It will taste different, but it will still produce an ice cream. We did try making with unflavored egg white powder and had to change the amount of cocoa powder and erythritol (increased each since we used a chocolate flavored protein powder), and it still tasted a little strange. But the results might depend on your brand of egg white powder. If you do try it, let us know what you think.
Oh my goodness! Just got my Ninja creami and your chocolate and coffee ice creams were the first I've tried. Like everyone else, I really can't believe these ingredients can transform into something as amazing as this ice cream. As a type 1 diabetic, I've been avoiding ice cream for the past 14 years. Now it's back! Thank you so much, and keep those creami recipes coming.
So happy to hear you're enjoying ice creams now! We love the Ninja Creami for this reason!
Absolutely amazing! Like the others, I did not expect this outcome, after trying multiple variations of my own with mediocre results. I didn’t have Swerve confectioners, so I subbed coconut sugar (half the amount), and used Quest chocolate protein powder. So, so good! Thank you so much for sharing this recipe!!
Great to hear! Thanks for your feedback!
This was beyond delicious...so rich and creamy, I was NOT expecting the outcome I got when I made this ice cream! Your recipes are out of the world. Keep the ice cream recipes coming!!!
Your comment made our day and is really sweet. Glad you like it! We got vanilla chocolate chip and matcha almost ready. Strawberry milkshake being posted today and that's pretty yummy too.
I’ll be honest, I didn’t think this would be anywhere near as amazing as it is! This is the very first recipe we tried with our new Ninja Creami, and we had pretty basic expectations. After re-spinning twice, it looked just like the photo you posted. Got our spoons, dug in, and both my husband and I looked at each other with wide eyes and big smiles! The flavor is perfect, like super rich chocolate gelato, with such a smooth texture! My husband said, “This is absolutely decadent! I can’t believe this is protein power and no sugar!”
So happy to hear you both liked it! Made our day to hear this! Agree, you honestly wouldn't think these ingredients could produce something so tasty. Love the Ninja Creami for this reason.