This post may contain affiliate links. Click here for my affiliate disclosure. If you purchase items through my affiliate links, I receive a small commission but your price doesn't change.
This recipe was updated 2/24/16.
Check out my Fresh Peach Soft Serve using this soft serve base!
Need a basic ice cream recipe for that moment when you need a creamy, refreshing dessert for a Fuel Pull or Energizing meal? You’ve come to the right place! This soft serve (I won’t call it ice cream because it’s low fat and therefore technically not ice cream) uses a neat secret ingredient: egg whites. Yeah! I’m not kidding! You’d never know what gives this soft serve it’s unique fluffy, creamy texture, but it is in fact egg whites. Use the pasteurized carton kind and you don’t have to worry about any adverse health effects.
The egg whites really volumize this ice cream as they freeze: 1 quart of soft serve liquid mixture becomes 1 1/2 quarts of soft serve!
Â
You can find this recipe in my cookbook, Necessary Food.
- 2 cups unsweetened almond milk
- 4 egg whites (3/4 cup carton egg whites)
- ¾ cup low-fat cottage cheese
- 1 T vegetable glycerin (I haven't tried making this ice cream without vegetable glycerin but you're welcome to try if you don't have it. I can't vouch for the results. The glycerin improves the texture of this low fat soft serve.)
- 1½ tsp. vanilla extract
- 5-6 doonks THM Pure Stevia Extract Powder (a doonk is 1/32 tsp.), or more to taste
- ⅛ tsp. salt
- 1 tsp. glucomannan
- Blend all ingredients together until completely smooth and frothy (about a minute). Churn in an automatic countertop ice cream maker according to manufacturer's directions. After churning, transfer to a container immediately and stir as little as possible (or else the egg whites will lose their volume). Freeze to firm up even more, if desired.
- I recommend adding 1 T of vegetable glycerin to this ice cream to keep it from sticking to the sides of the ice cream maker and to keep it softer and not let it get hard so fast in the freezer. If you freeze the ice cream for an extended length of time in the freezer, it will still freeze hard, but if you let it sit out to soften up a little, the glycerin keeps it scoopable instead of icy. Transfer the ice cream from the freezer to the refrigerator 3 hours before serving for optimum texture, or let it sit out on the counter for 30-40 minutes.
- Yields 4-5 servings
Feel free to add fruit to this for a refreshing E dessert.
Suggested products:
- I recommend sweetening this ice cream with THM Pure Stevia Extract Powder, which can be purchased from the Trim Healthy Mama online store.
- Vegetable Glycerin
- I use a Cuisinart 1 1/2 qt. Automatic Ice Cream Maker for all my ice cream maker recipes. I’ve been happy with it so far.
- Glucomannan
I made this as ice cream and enjoyed it but today made it as a shake and didn’t process. It was amazing! Tasted like carnation instant breakfast! Thank you!
What a neat idea! Thanks for sharing!
I love this recipe! I am trying to go dairy free now. Is there anything low fat I could use in place of the cottage cheese? Or just try and do without and see how well it freezes in my ice cream maker? TIA!!
I’m sorry – I don’t know of any DF substitutions for cottage cheese that work across the board, so I’m afraid it would just be an experiment and the texture probably won’t be quite the same. Perhaps it would be better to start with a recipe that’s already dairy free >> https://www.briana-thomas.com/indexes/fuel-type-allergy-info-theme/dairy-free-ice-cream
Do you think this could be made into pumpkin soft serve?
You’re welcome to try! I have a Pumpkin Spice Cheesecake ice cream recipe here if you prefer: https://www.briana-thomas.com/pumpkin-spice-cheesecake-ice-cream/
If I wanted to keep it FP, would you suggest doing 1 cup canned pumpkin in place of 1 of the 2 cups almond milk?
I would actually probably add a cup of pumpkin in addition to the ingredients in the recipe, then add more sweetener and salt and any spices you like to round out the flavors.
Can I just say, I made a half-batch this for breakfast, and Oh My Gosh. That was so good! I love the high-protein/low-fat/real nutrition-from-real-food content! I’m only sad because I don’t have more, and my ice cream maker has to re-freeze. Actually, it’s a good thing, because if I had more, I would eat the whole thing and feel sick afterwards. I will be experimenting with my own flavors now! And I will be introducing this to my fiancé very soon (high praise indeed). Bless you, girl!
My gosh, this was so good! The only hard thing was I let it freeze after churning too long, so it was more like ice milk (prior to freezing, parts of it were soupy, but that always happens to me).
Well, that’s not entirely true. That was the SECOND hard thing; the first was waiting for it to freeze after churning before devouring a half batch!
QUESTION: can you recommend a way to make a CHOCOLATE soft serve??? I loved the texture and low-fat/high protein content of this ice cream, and to experiment with other flavors would be divine! Thank you!!!
Hi Whitney! I’m so glad you enjoyed it! I would just try adding a little cocoa powder and maybe some extra sweetener to this recipe for a chocolate version. 🙂
Do you by chance have a chocolate version of this?
No I don’t, but I would just add a few tablespoons of cocoa powder and maybe some extra sweetener. 🙂
Tried the chocolate version & it was great, added 4 tbsp cocoa powder & a bit more sweetener. HOWEVER, did the exact same thing with peanut powder & OMG!!!! Soooo delightful, peanut butter soft serve! Sort of tastes like Reese’s Pieces…going to add a dusting of chocolate pieces next time!!
Great ideas, Nikki! I’m so glad you liked it!
This is INCREDIBLE!!! I borrowed my sisters ice cream machine (happened to be the exact model you cited!) & had this recipe saved to make! It’s sooo good I’ll definitely be buying the machine!! My kids both loved it as much as I did!
I’m so glad to hear that, Nikki!
Ok, I’ve made this twice now & it fluffed up great both times in the Cuisinart. The second time I think I forgot to add the glycerine because it was icy after freezing but it still tasted great initially. Last night I tried making it but after more than 40 minutes it hadn’t fluffed??? What could that mean? I did realize immediately on pouring into the container that I’d forgotten the sweetener so quickly blended back up in my Ninja then back into the machine. Was the bowl not cold enough?
I’m guessing the egg whites got overmixed and lost their fluffing abilities. I’m sorry it didn’t work out for you!
Thanks so much for your prompt response!!! Upon further consideration, I think part of the problem was I had also forgot to add the gluccie, so added that in while the mixture was churning…obviously, not a great idea. It formed the infamous globs. I strained those out and saved the mixture, doubling the ingredients in the same Ninja mixer and I’m remixing half of it now. It seems to be going great!!! Almost done!!
I don’t have thm stevia extract. Do you know how much truvia I would need?
This conversion chart should help: http://www.trimhealthymama.com/main-home/sweetener-conversion-chart/
Just made this, because I was craving ice cream and didn’t want to break the “healthy fat” bank. 😉 I was ABSOLUTELY AMAZED at how much the ice cream expanded!! My goodness, it more than doubled in my ice cream maker! I think I over-churned it a bit. However, it tastes pretty good. 🙂 I think it will be even better with some fresh raspberries or skinny chocolate drizzle (s). 🙂 Not telling my family about the egg whites, though. ;D
Can you tell me what type of glycerine you get a where you get it from?
This is what I get from Amazon. 🙂 (affiliate link) https://www.briana-thomas.com/recommends/vegetable-glycerin-2/
Thank you for all your recipes. (I started your ‘homemade bread’ today. I have made other THM sourdough bread, but it didn’t rise very well. I’m hoping your recipe will be the one to use all the time!) Do you happen to have a low-fat cottage cheese recipe? I live in Guatemala and the only kind of cottage cheese I can fined is 4% fat (and it’s rather expensive). I’d love to make E recipes with lower fat cheese, but the recipe I used to make my own cottage cheese didn’t work. (I make my own Greek yogurt, kefir, almond milk, almond flour, etc. etc.)
No problem! I hope the bread works out for you – we love it! I’m sorry, but I’ve never made cottage cheese before. I’d love to try at some point! I guess my best idea would be to just keep experimenting with online recipes (specifically those with good reviews) until you find something that works. You could try asking on the main THM Facebook group to see if anyone on there makes her own cottage cheese.