3-Ingredient Ice Cream (without a machine) - Mighty Mrs | Super Easy Recipes (2024)

Make delicious homemade ice cream without an ice cream maker! Try this easy 3-ingredient recipe. No churn. No special machine. Just a hand mixer.

★ Why You’ll Love this Recipe ★

This homemade ice cream is rich, creamy, and has the perfect texture. All made without a churn.

This recipe does not get any easier. You need just 3 ingredients to make vanilla ice cream. For other flavors, just add in a few extra ingredients. Get a list of ideas below.

Who knew. It's entirely possible to make delicious homemade ice cream without an ice cream maker! The only machine you need is a hand mixer. No eggs. No churn. EASY!

★ Ingredients You'll Need ★

There are truly just THREE! This recipe follows a simple formula and all you need to do is mix in extra ingredients to make infinite flavors!

The formula for this easy homemade ice cream is pretty basic. It looks like this:

Heavy Cream + Sweetened Condensed Milk + Vanilla Extract

1. Heavy cream. You can't use milk or even half and half because you need the whipping properties of heavy cream. By whipping heavy cream you'll add air to your ice cream giving it that perfect ice cream texture you know and love.

2. Sweetened Condensed Milk. This adds all the sweetness you'll need, no additional sugar needed. No worries about grainy sugar. Or using overly sweet powdered sugar. This handy bakery staple does all the jobs in one easy step.

3. Vanilla Extract. This creates your base flavor. If you love vanilla ice cream, you can stop here. It's a deliciously easy, 3-ingredient ice cream recipe!

★ Build More Flavors ★

If you're caving something beyond vanilla, no problem. All you need to do is add in some extra ingredients. You can make any ice cream flavor you can dream up.

The recipe below details making a yummy yet basic homemade vanilla ice cream. You can simple add to this to create lots of other flavors. You'll still include the vanilla extract as it provides a nice base flavor to build upon.

Vanilla extract goes well with almost any flavor so you can opt to leave that in plus add additional ingredients to create new flavors, or leave it out completely if you don't want that added vanilla flavor. Your choice. This does not affect the recipe other than taste.

Flavor Ideas + Add-ins

Here are some flavor ideas you can try! You truly can't go wrong adding in whatever flavors you want if you go with what sounds good to you.

Mint Chocolate Chip

Add 1 teaspoon mint extract + ½ cup mini chocolate chips + couple of drops of green food color (optional)

Birthday Cake

Add 1 tablespoon cake batter extract in place of 1 tablespoon of vanilla + ½ cup rainbow sprinkles

Strawberry Ice Cream

Add ¼ cup strawberry syrup

Chocolate Ice Cream

Add ¼ cup chocolate syrup

Raspberry Cheesecake

Add ½ cup no-bake cheesecake filling then swirl in (don't fully mix in) ½ cup seedless raspberry jam

Caramel Swirl

Lightly swirl (don't fully mix in) in ½ cup caramel syrup right before freezing

Butter Pecan

Add ¼ cup molasses + 2 tablespoon browned butter* + ½ cup chopped pecans

*Brown butter in a pan on the stove over medium heat just until you get an aroma of nuttiness and you see little brown bits form within the butter. Immediately remove from heat, transfer carefully to a dish and let cool before adding to ice cream mixture. (pop in the freezer to speed up cooling)

Cookies and Cream

Add 1 cup Oreo cookie crumbles

Cookie Dough

Add 1 cup edible cookie dough chunks - Get my edible cookie dough recipe here or use store bought cookie dough as long as its labeled "edible"

Peanut Butter Cup

Add 1 cup Reese's peanut butter cup chunks

Banana Foster

Mix in 1 mashed banana + 1 teaspoon cinnamon + 2 tablespoon rum extract then swirl in ½ cup caramel syrup

Create Your Own Flavor!

There are so many other possibilities!

Just remember to start with the base vanilla flavor and stir in whatever sounds good to you. It's actually that simple.

If you try some extras that you love, please leave a comment and let us know what you added in!

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This easy homemade ice cream recipe (made without a machine) was featured on South Your Mouth!