Easy Strawberry Ice Cream: Two Ways

Enjoy this easy strawberry ice cream on a hot summer’s day. It’s a no-churn version, so it’s super fast to make and there’s no need for an ice cream maker. Take your pick from two versions. One is made with balsamic vinegar to bring out the strawberry flavour and cut through the richness. The other contains rose syrup which gives a slightly sweeter result with a floral accent. Both are smooth, creamy and delicious.

This post may contain affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. See my cookie and privacy statement for further details.

Dive Right In

• What’s The Difference Between Churn and No-Churn Ice Cream?
• Easy Strawberry Ice Cream
• No Churn Strawberry Ice Cream: Step-by-Step
• Strawberry Balsamic Ice Cream
• Strawberry Rose Ice Cream
• Other No-Churn Ice Cream Recipes You Might Like
• Keep In Touch
• Pin It
• The Recipe

What’s The Difference Between Churn and No-Churn Ice Cream?

There’s quite a big difference between churn and no-churn ice cream. The gold standard is traditional churned ice cream. However, it requires a number of ingredients and it’s a bit of a faff to make, especially if you don’t have an ice cream maker.

No-churn ice cream is still delicious and has a good texture. But its key selling points are that it’s really easy to make at home and you don’t need an ice cream maker. You do need a freezer though.

Churned Ice Cream

Traditional ice cream is made with a milk custard base which has a high water content. If you don’t churn it, it forms large ice crystals which in turn makes unpleasant to eat and not at all creamy.

Churning also adds air, which increases volume.

If you don’t have an ice cream maker, you can blend the ice cream instead. You’ll need to take it out of the freezer at intervals, blend and place back in the freezer. I told you it was a faff.

No-Churn Ice Cream

No-churn ice cream, on the other hand, is made with whipped cream. This gives a lovely light texture. The other key ingredient is condensed milk. This adds sweetness and along with the cream creates a beautifully smooth mouthfeel. Make it, stick it in the freezer. Job done.

You can make no-churn ice cream with just those two ingredients, but I highly recommend adding a third, even if it’s just vanilla. This makes a huge difference to the depth and complexity of flavour.

Easy Strawberry Ice Cream

This easy strawberry ice cream, is not only super quick to make, but it’s delicious too. I use pretty much the same basic recipe for all my no-churn ice creams and it works perfectly every time. It produces a light, but smooth and creamy texture with no off putting ice crystal clusters to be found.

I add less condensed milk to my no-churn ice cream recipes than many you’ll find and it produces an ice-cream that isn’t overly sweet and definitely not cloying.

Sometimes I ripple the ice cream and sometimes I don’t. Mostly I add fruit, with or without an addition or two. But sometimes I go with chocolate. It’s hard to beat a good chocolate ice cream.

It’s useful to have electric beaters or a stand mixer to whip the cream. You can do it by hand, but it’s quite hard work.

You don’t have to add either the balsamic or the rose syrup to this easy strawberry ice cream. But the balsamic vinegar really does enhance the strawberry flavour and I recommend you give it a try, at least once.

No Churn Strawberry Ice Cream: Step-by-Step

Follow my five easy steps and you’ll have your own sumptuous strawberry ice cream in no time. The recipe makes enough to fill a one litre (four cup) tub with an extra half litre (two cup) to spare.

1. Blend strawberries

Pick the ripest and juiciest strawberries you can get for this recipe. You’re going to blend them, so it doesn’t matter if some fo them are a bit squishy.

Make sure you’ve taken the hulls of the fruit, then pop them into a blender or food processor and blitz them to as fine a purée as you can manage. I use my Froothie Evolve power blender*, which does a great job.

If you don’t have a blender or food processor, you can push the strawberries through a sieve, but it’s a bit messy and will take longer. A stick blender will also work.

2. Whip cream

If you don’t have electric beaters or a stand mixer, whisking the cream is the most difficult bit. There’s quite a lot of it, so if you do it by hand, it takes a lot of elbow grease and quite a bit of time.

You need to whip it to the soft peak stage. This means the cream has tripled in volume, is light and airy and is thick enough to just about hold its shape.

I find electric beaters* work best as it’s easier to see when the cream is done and you can stop whisking immediately. It’s better to err on the side of caution than over whisk or you might end up with an unpleasant buttery texture.

3. Add condensed milk

If you have any choice, it’s sweetened condensed milk you need for this recipe. I’ve never seen condensed milk that doesn’t contain added sugar, but I’m sure it’s out there somewhere. This is the only sweetener in the ice cream and you only need half a tin. So it is important that it’s sweetened.

Pour it into the cream and then briefly whisk again until everything is just combined. Again, you’re looking for soft peaks.

4. Fold in strawberries

Pour the strawberry purée into the cream. Make sure to scrape out as much of it as you can.

Use a metal spoon or spatula to fold the strawberries into the cream. It’s not a good idea to whisk again at this stage or you’ll lose that lovely light and airy structure. I always get a bit of a kick out of this bit. I like to see the various patterns form as I stir.

Keep going until it’s well mixed and no streaks remain.

Unless, of course, you’d like to have a ripple effect. It works well for a lot of fruit ice creams. However, I reckon this one works best when everything’s incorporated together.

5. Freeze

Spoon into suitably sized freezer proof lidded containers and freeze for at least six hours. The ice cream will keep well for three months, but starts to lose its creamy texture after that. Remove from the freezer fifteen minutes before serving.

Top Tip

Keep any plastic ice cream containers that you buy and reuse for your own homemade ice cream.

Strawberry Balsamic Ice Cream

Pair strawberries with balsamic vinegar and you have a classic Italian dessert. Not surprisingly it works equally well as an ice cream flavour. The balsamic is subtle, but it cuts through the richness of the cream and somehow enhances the strawberry flavour. It veers more towards adult tastes as it’s not overly sweet.

All you need to do is add a little balsamic vinegar to the strawberries when you blitz them into a purée. If you have a particularly good quality balsamic, so much the better.

Strawberry Rose Ice Cream

Strawberry rose ice cream is slightly sweeter with delicious, but not overpowering floral notes of rose. Kids might enjoy this one more.

I use homemade rose syrup for this. It’s ever so easy to make and if you have any unsprayed, highly scented roses in your garden, I urge you to give it a go. It combines really well with summer fruit, but you can also drink it as a cordial.

Just add the rose syrup to the strawberries when you purée them.

Roasted Strawberry Ice Cream

Roasting strawberries really brings out there flavour. For another excellent strawberry ice cream recipe, head over to my roasted strawberry and white chocolate ice cream.

Other No-Churn Recipes You Might Like

• Apricot ice cream with saffron, honey & pistachio brittle
• Bailey’s chocolate ice cream with chocolate sauce
• Mint chocolate chip ice cream
• Peach melba ice cream
• Plum, amaretti & white chocolate ripple ice cream
• Redcurrant ripple ice cream with white chocolate

Keep in Touch

Thanks for visiting Tin and Thyme. If you make this easy strawberry ice cream, with or without the balsamic or rose syrup, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below. And do please rate the recipe. Have you any top tips? Do share photos on social media too and use the hashtag #tinandthyme, so I can spot them.

For more delicious and nutritious recipes follow me on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Flipboard or Pinterest. And don’t forget to SUBSCRIBE to my weekly newsletter. Or why not join the conversation in our Healthy Vegetarian Whole Food Recipes Facebook Group?

If you’d like more strawberry recipes, follow the link and you’ll find I have quite a lot of them. All delicious and nutritious, of course.

Choclette x

No Churn Strawberry Ice Cream. PIN IT.

This post contains affiliate links which are marked with an asterisk* or (affiliate link). If you buy through a link, it won’t cost you any more, but I might get a small commission. Thank you for your support of the brands and organisations that help to keep Tin and Thyme blithe and blogging.