Vegan strawberry ice cream - this delicious roasted strawberry ice cream is easy to make, smooth, creamy and so refreshing! It is packed with strawberries in both the ice cream and the strawberry swirl and can be made with either fresh or frozen ones.
It also contains NO coconut! The secret ingredient to it's wonderful creamy texture is oats!
This vegan strawberry ice cream is based on my delicious vegan vanilla ice cream recipe, which uses a base of cooked oats and cashews rather than coconut.
This gives it a more neutral flavour, meaning that whatever you decide to flavour your ice cream with doesn't have to compete with the coconut to shine.
It is also a great base recipe which can easily be adapted to create all sorts of different flavours.
This strawberry version is rich, creamy and bursting with fresh strawberry flavour. I added a strawberry swirl as well just to really pack in the fruity flavour.
Because strawberries have a very high water content they need to be cooked in order to remove some of the liquid and intensify the flavour so that you end up with ice cream that isn't icy and actually tastes of strawberry. I choose to roast them but you could also chop them up and cook them down in a pan instead.
What Do I Need To Make Vegan Stawberry Ice Cream?:
Strawberries: you can use either fresh or frozen ones. Because strawberries contain a lot of water, you need to cook them first to reduce the amount of liquid; this concentrates the flavour and stops the ice cream from becoming too icy.
Cashews: Unroasted cashews provide creaminess to this vegan strawberry ice cream. They need to be soaked so they are soft enough to blend up to a smooth cream. You can either soak them in boiling water for about an hour, or in cold water overnight.
Porridge oats: regular rolled porridge oats or quick cooking ones are fine. You are going to simmer them with some plant milk until they are soft before blending them.
Plant milk: unsweetened soy milk is the best option here as it has a neutral flavour and creamy texture. (I like Alpro Unsweetened Soya milk the best).
You can use any kind of plant milk you like but bear in mind that the flavour of the milk will affect the flavour of the ice cream.
Caster sugar: I use white caster sugar (granulated is fine too) as it has a neutral flavour, I want the strawberry to be the star here!
Don't reduce the amount of sugar by much or the ice cream won't be as creamy and it won't taste as good.
Golden syrup: Adding a syrup to ice cream can help to stop it from becoming too hard in the freezer. While I prefer to use golden syrup, corn syrup, agave or maple syrup would be ok as well.
Lemon juice: Adding some lemon juice helps to bring out the tang of the strawberry.
Balsamic vinegar: This is optional but it helps to intensify the strawberry flavour.
Vanilla: Vanilla extract enhances the strawberry flavour.
Vodka: This is entirely optional but adding a little alcohol to homemade ice cream can help to stop it from freezing too solid.
How To Make Vegan Strawberry Ice Cream:
Step 1: Roast the strawberries with the golden syrup and balsamic vinegar until syrupy.
Step 2: Soak the cashews in boiling water to soften.
Step 3: Place the oats in a saucepan with the milk and bring to a gentle simmer, cook for about 5 minutes until the oats are soft.
Step 4: Place the roasted strawberries, oat mixture and drained cashews in a blender along with the milk, sugar, vanilla, lemon juice, salt and vodka and blend until smooth.
Step 5: Pour the mixture through a fine mesh sieve. Then cover and refrigerate until cold.
Step 6: To make the strawberry swirl, cook the chopped strawberries, golden syrup and lemon juice in a pan until softened and reduced slightly.
Step 7: Churn the chilled ice cream base in an ice cream maker until frozen.
What If I Don’t Own An Ice Cream Maker?:
If you don’t have an ice cream maker you can still make this ice cream, it just takes a bit more work and the texture may be a bit more icy.
Once the base is chilled, pour it into a large freezerproof container and pop it in the freezer. Every 30 minutes or so, remove it from the freezer and give it a quick whisk with an electric mixer to break up any ice crystals then return it to the freezer.
Repeat this until it reaches soft-serve consistency then allow to freeze for a couple of hours before serving.
Top Tips:
As with all of my recipes I really do recommend using the metric measurements with a digital scale rather than the cup conversions. Cups are a wildly inaccurate measuring system and you will get far better, more consistent results using a scale, not to mention that it is also easier and less messy than cups!
This ice cream is quite solid straight out of the freezer so make sure that you take it out at least 15 minutes before serving to allow it to soften up a little.
Ideally you need a power blender (such as Froothie/Vitamix) for the smoothest ice cream. You can still make it with a regular blender, but it might not be quite as smooth and creamy.
I recommend making the ice cream base the day before you churn it so that it has time to properly chill first. It needs to be cold when it goes into the ice cream maker.
If you want the ice cream to have more of a pink colour, whisk in a couple of drops of red or pink food colouring before churning it.
I have a 2 litre ice cream maker (this one by Cuisinart).
I recommend placing the container that you are going to put the ice cream in in the freezer to chill while the ice cream is churning. This will help stop the ice cream from getting too melty while you transfer it to the container.
Don't skimp on the sugar! Sugar is important in ice cream not only for the flavour but also for the creamy texture. Things also taste less sweet when they are cold, so bear in mind that you want the unfrozen base to taste a bit sweeter than you want the finished ice cream to taste.
Variations:
Instead of the strawberry swirl, this ice cream would be great with the chocolate fudge swirl from this coffee ice cream recipe.
You could also use strawberry jam rather than making your own strawberry swirl.
As for mix-ins, chocolate chunks or roughly crushed Oreo cookies would work really well! Add them to the ice cream maker in the last minute of churning.
More Vegan Ice Cream Recipes:
- Vegan vanilla ice cream
- Vegan malted chocolate ice cream
- Vegan mint choc chip ice cream
- Vegan coffee ice cream with chocolate swirl
- Vegan pistachio ice cream
- Vegan raspberry ice cream
- Vegan peanut butter and cookies ice cream
- Vegan biscoff ice cream
- Vegan chunky monkey ice cream
- Vegan lemon ice cream
- Chocolate peanut butter ice cream
- Vegan rice ice cream
If you tried this recipe let me know how it went! Rate it, leave a comment or tag @domestic_gothess on Instagram and hashtag it #domesticgothess
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Vegan Strawberry Ice Cream
Ingredients
Roasted Strawberries:
- 450 g (1 lb) fresh or frozen strawberries (hulled weight)
- 45 g (2 Tablespoons) golden syrup
- 2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar
Ice Cream Base:
- 100 g (⅔ cup) unroasted cashews
- 15 g (2 ½ Tablespoons) porridge (rolled) oats
- 430 ml (1 ¾ cups + 1 Tablespoon) unsweetened non-dairy milk (soy is best)
- 85 g (7 Tablespoons) caster or granulated sugar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 ½ Tablespoons lemon juice
- pinch salt
- 2 Tablespoons vodka (optional)
Strawberry Swirl:
- 200 g (7 oz) fresh strawberries roughly chopped
- 40 g (2 Tablespoons) golden syrup
- 1 Tablespoon lemon juice
Instructions
- Make sure that the bowl of your ice cream maker has been in the freezer for long enough, mine takes 11 hours to fully freeze.
- Preheat the oven to 180°C/160℃ fan/350°F/gas mark 4. Chop the strawberries into halves (or quarters if they are large). If they are whole frozen ones you can roast them for 5-10 minutes first until they defrost, then snip them up with kitchen scissors.
- Spread the strawberries out in a single layer in a roasting tin and drizzle over the golden syrup and balsamic vinegar, roast in the oven for about 30 minutes if fresh and 40 if frozen, until the strawberries are well cooked, slightly darkened in colour and the juices have become syrupy.
- Meanwhile, place the cashews in a heatproof bowl, cover them with plenty of boiling water and leave to soak for 30-60 minutes.
- Place the porridge oats in a saucepan with half of the soy milk and bring to a gentle simmer, cook for about 5 minutes, stirring often to prevent the bottom from catching, until the oats are soft.
- Place the roasted strawberries and their juices into a blender. Drain the cashews and add to the blender along with the oat mixture, the rest of the milk, the vanilla extract, lemon juice, a pinch of salt and the vodka if using.
- Blend until very smooth, scraping down the sides as necessary. Pour the mixture through a fine mesh sieve into a large jug or bowl, cover and refrigerate until completely cold; I leave mine in there overnight but it will take at least four hours.
- To make the strawberry swirl, place the strawberries, golden syrup and lemon juice in a pan and bring up to a simmer. Cook for about 5 minutes until reduced slightly then remove from the heat, allow to cool and refrigerate until cold.
- Once the ice cream mixture is thoroughly chilled, give it a good whisk then pour it into your ice cream maker and churn until it reaches soft serve consistency.
- Spoon some of the compote into a freezer proof container, spoon half of the ice cream on top then spoon over more of the compote, the rest of the ice cream, then more compote. Use a knife to gently swirl it together slightly.
- Freeze for about 4 hours until firm. Once fully frozen the ice cream will be quite solid straight out the freezer, let it warm up at room temperature for fifteen minutes before scooping.
Notes
Christie Campbell (@AKitchenHoor)
Holy Cow! This looks amazing. I can't wait to get my ice cream maker out and try a batch of this deliciousness! Thank you for linking up with #FoodieFridays!
lucyparissi
This looks amazing. I am waiting for new kitchen to be finished so I can dust my ice cream maker again. Beautiful photos as always! #CookBlogShare
hannahhossack
Thank you 🙂
Suchitra
Love this icecream!
Lea
Hi Hannah - I would love to try and make some of your dairy ice cream flavours using your cashew-oat base in place of the dairy-egg custard. I can’t quite figure out if the two kinds of base make roughly the same amount or not (and therefore if I would need to adjust the quantity of the flavouring ingredients). I guess I will just use some trial and error and see how it goes. No doubt it will still be delicious regardless!