No summer can be fully enjoyed without ice-cream! Also, although there’re plenty of healthy, low-calorie (or full-fun 🙂 ) ice-cream choices that you can buy at a grocery store, making your own ice-cream, licking the spoon in the process and trying the newly made sweet creation is just SO MUCH FUN! Especially that ice cream is also wholesome, all-natural, healthy and easy extra low-calorie such as this Banana Meringue Ice Cream!
THE ICE CREAM MAKING CHALLENGES…
Have you ever made your own ice-cream? I always wanted to make a healthy ice-cream at home!
But making my own healthy ice-cream presented a few obvious challenges:
- Everyone in my family likes different flavored ice-creams. My oldest son, Aric, only likes the chocolate. His brother Alec likes strawberry. Or he’ll also eat caramel. But he hates the chocolate! I’d eat both, but… But… not only I like my ice-cream to be healthy. I eat it late at night and I love it when it’s also as guilt-free (low-calorie) as possible! This brings us too…
- Challenge #2: you can never make just a pint of ice-cream in an ice-cream machine. An ice-cream machine’s bowl is big. It takes a lot of room in a freezer. (Which means that you can’t buy two bowls to make two flavors at the same time). And one batch leaves you with at least two pints of ONE ice-cream flavor! TOUGH!
- I had an ice-cream machine before. I tried making a healthy-er ice-cream in it (I made it with greek yogurt instead of cream and added a bit less sugar). The ice-cream did NOT turn out good! The yogurt basically just froze up into a big lump! It couldn’t be eaten as an ice-cream. I ended up thawing it out and using it to make cake! 🙂
So presented with all these challenges, what can a poor ice-cream craving person do?
Find a secret ingredient to make it all work, of course!
THE LOW-CALORIE BANANA MERINGUE ICE CREAM!
…I actually got inspired to make it by browsing Internet and bumping into the ever so popular “Nice-Cream” (Banana Ice-Cream)!
But even though Nice Cream sounded super-healthy and definitely all-natural to me… I’d honestly rather just eat a banana! 🍌
High-carb, fruity and sugary, the Nice Cream was missing something!
The protein part! But how do you add the protein to a banana and make it still taste good?
Greek yogurt? Nah – it’ll be too bland and too icy… again!
Protein powder? Hm… no, I’d rather find something more natural instead (especially that I’ll be giving it to the kids)
Meringue? YES! Meringue! The pure-protein, all-natural whipped egg whites that’ll make my ice-cream, fluffy and airy, high-protein and all-natural, yet yummy and very-extra-low-calorie!
…And here’s how this Low-Calorie Banana Meringue Ice Cream was born!
- So easy to make!
- Enjoy it any time (Even late at night! Even as a decadently nutritious breakfast!)
- You don’t need to make a lot! (just whip up as much as you need)
- You don’t need an ice-cream maker!
- And if you’re OK with the all-natural sweetness that bananas give to it – you don’t even need to add any sugar or sweetener to it!
NOTE:
Yet, if you just can’t go without making your ice-cream really super-sweet, just a few tablespoon of sugar (or the calorie-free, all-natural erythritol) will make it decadently sweet and extra delicious!
So what do you say? Let’s make it? 🍨
Low-Calorie Banana Meringue Ice Cream
The Low-Calorie Banana Meringue Ice Cream is an all-natural, high-protein (no protein powders!) easy, quick to make, healthy and super-yummy summer treat!
Ingredients
- 2 egg whites
- 2 bananas** mashed
- 1 tsp gelatin* one packet
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 3 tbsp sugar or erythritol optional
Instructions
Put the mashed bananas in a pot. Set it over medium heat and bring to boil. Let them simmer, while stirring constantly for about 5 minutes. Add the gelatin and stir until it's dissolved.
Set the bananas aside to cool down.
In the meantime whip the egg whites and the sugar until fluffy (5-7 minutes).
Add th vanilla extract to the meringue. Slowly pour the banana mixture into the meringue and whip a few minutes longer, until very airy and fluffy.
Scoop the mixture into a container and put it in the freezer for a few hours or overnight.
Scoop out like a regular ice cream and enjoy!
Recipe Notes
*I like using gelatin in this recipe because it helps the ice-cream stay voluminous as it freezes. You don't have to use it if you don't want to. The ice-cream may just end up being not as fluffy as the one with the gelatin.
**about 1 cup mashed bananas
Of course you’ve made healthier ice cream! I’m so impressed, it looks creamy and delicious and I can’t wait to try your recipe!
Thank you dear Debra! If you make it – please don’t hesitate to ask if you have any questions, and you’re always welcome to share how it came out! 🙂
Banana Meringue Ice Cream Recipe
This is about the recipe instructions. It is okay to laugh.
I began reading the first sentence of the instructions, “Bring the mashed bananas in a poit set…” that stopped me dead in my tracks…I asked myself, “what is a ‘poit set’?” Often recipes have French terms so I thought, “is this some fancy French cooking vessel??” ( Laughing yet?) So I did a search on “poit set” and couldn’t even find it in the dictionary! I went back to the sentence and paused after “poit”, then read to the end, “Bring the mashed bananas in a poit /set over medium heat to boil.” EURIKA! It is that ‘pot’ is mispelled and the sentence poorly written.
It is understood that one cooks in a pot . The sentence should read, “Bring mashed bananas to a boil over medium heat.”
Next issue: in the ingredients you list “1 tsp vanilla extract.” The instructions do not mention when to add the extract. I added it to the bananas because I wasn’t sure if it would affect the egg whites.
Lastly, It is hard to judge a small, medium or large banana if you don’t have all three sizes in front of you. If recipe stated the banana measured by cup, it would simplify things, unless the ratio of banana to meringue is unimportant.
Gee, Mary! Thank you SO MUCH for pointing these errors out! It was so kind of you to bring this up! Yes! Of course it was the word “pot” that was misspelled! And thank you for letting me know about the confusing instructions! I am fixing it all up right now! Have a great day!