Smooth and perfectly textured vegan pumpkin ice cream, loaded with pumpkin and pumpkin spice flavor and topped with pecan nuts.
This vegan pumpkin ice cream is ultra creamy and perfectly textured. It’s smooth, rich, and has just the right amount of pumpkin (and pumpkin spice) flavor!
It’s made with pumpkin purée and pumpkin pie spice to really load up the flavor and sweetened with brown sugar and maple syrup for the perfect blend of flavors.
Topped with pecan nuts, it makes an ideal dessert. And if you love pumpkin desserts you’ll also love our vegan pumpkin cake and vegan pumpkin cheesecake.
How To Make Vegan Pumpkin Ice Cream
The trick to making really good vegan ice cream is to use full fat ingredients (coconut cream and coconut milk) and to heat these ingredients along with sugar and syrup (great for texture) so that you homogenize the fats.
This way you get a really smooth texture, and once you’ve heated it to a simmer, you remove from the heat and blend for at least 30 seconds.
This removes any hint of graininess from your final product! Blending is also the time to add in your flavorings (in this case, pumpkin purée, pumpkin pie spice, vanilla and sea salt).
Then you chill your mixture overnight, churn it in the ice cream maker and then freeze it until you have ice cream!
So as you can probably tell from what I said above, it’s not the quickest thing to make. But it’s pretty simple and straightforward.
The hands on time you spend making it, is quite minimal. The bulk of time is spent while the mix is chilling and then while the ice cream is freezing.
And the result is very much worth it!
Storing Instructions
It will of course keep fabulously well in the freezer, though the flavor and texture is the best of the best when it’s freshest (within the first week).
Also, I don’t know how you will resist this sitting in your freezer so it’s probably a moot point!
More Delicious Vegan Ice Cream Flavors
- Vegan Cheesecake Ice Cream
- Vegan Peanut Butter Ice Cream
- Matcha Green Tea Ice Cream
- Vegan Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream
- Vegan Chocolate Ice Cream
- Vegan Salted Caramel Ice Cream
Did you make this recipe? Be sure to leave a comment and rating below!
Vegan Pumpkin Ice Cream
Ingredients
- 14 ounces Canned Coconut Cream (400ml) Unsweetened
- 14 ounces Canned Coconut Milk (400ml) Full Fat, Unsweetened
- ½ cup Light Brown Sugar (100g)
- ¼ cup Maple Syrup (60ml) or Golden Syrup
- ¾ cup Pumpkin Purée (168g)
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
- 2 teaspoons Pumpkin Pie Spice
- ¼ teaspoon Sea Salt
For Serving (Optional):
- Pecan Nuts
Instructions
- The night before you plan to make ice cream, put the bowl of your ice cream maker into the freezer to freeze properly.
- Add the coconut cream, coconut milk, brown sugar and syrup to a pot on the stove and heat until simmering, stirring all the time.
- Remove from the heat and add in the pumpkin pureé, vanilla, pumpkin pie spice and sea salt.
- Blend with an immersion blender for 30 seconds (or longer, but at least 30 seconds) until well combined. If you don't have an immersion blender, then let it cool for a few minutes before transferring to a blender jug and blending.
- Transfer the mix into a container, cover and place into the fridge overnight to chill completely.
- The next day, transfer the mix to the ice cream machine and churn according to manufacturer instructions until it reaches soft serve consistency (mine took 25 minutes to churn, but it can take up to 45 minutes depending on your machine).
- Transfer the ice cream to a loaf pan and smooth down. Cover with foil and place into the freezer to set (at least 6 hours or longer).
- When you're ready to serve the ice cream, heat the ice cream scoop by dipping it in hot water and then scooping the ice cream.
- Top with pecans and enjoy!
Notes
- Keep your ice cream stored in the freezer and enjoy within 1 week for the best taste and texture results.
- Prep time does not include time spent chilling or freezing.
- Nutritional information excludes pecan nuts.
How can you make this without an ice cream maker?
Following this question because I’d like to know the answer too. Thank you!
The purpose of the churning in the ice cream maker is to incorporate air so it ends up nice and light in texture. To try and replicate this without an ice cream maker you can try freezing the mixture, then taking it out and letting it thaw a bit and then whipping it up with an electric mixer and then freezing again. This might need to happen a couple of times before you get the right texture. We do have a no churn ice cream recipe as well that you could adapt to different flavors.
I made this recipe for Thanksgiving 2017 as a surprise for my 2 and 7 year old nieces, as they had never seen homemade ice cream made. I brought over my ice cream maker with the mix already made and had them help me put the mix inside, and the ice and salt on the outside of the maker.
I didn’t tell anyone the ice cream was vegan until after they ate it and gave me feedback on how they liked it, as none of them are vegan. They all raved about how much they liked the pumpkin ice cream and couldn’t believe it was vegan.
I will definitely be making this again when I feel like having something with pumpkin. I am giving feedback now instead of then because I forgot and didn’t remember until I came back here to get the recipe for the coconut ice cream that I’m making for a bbq this Saturday.
Thank you for the great recipe! We had fun making it!
Thanks so much Terese for this great comment and rating! It’s always the best when non-vegans enjoy the food and don’t even know it’s vegan! Thanks so much for sharing! 🙂
All these ice cream recipes are delicious and totally amazing!
Yay! Thank you! 🙂
Oh WOW! This looks pretty awesome! Festive! Pure delight!