Easy Homemade Ice Cream

This Easy Homemade Ice Cream recipe teaches you how to make no churn vanilla ice cream. You only need 3 ingredients and one pan for this super easy dessert!

If you've always wanted to make your own ice cream without a machine or churn, this 3 ingredient ice cream recipe is for you! Once you make homemade vanilla ice cream, you can get creative with different flavors, and the possibilities are endless!

My family loves having ice cream for dessert, and we love making our own no-churn ice cream in the summer. Actually, my daughter makes it almost year round -- It's that easy!

What is No Churn Ice Cream

No churn ice cream is simply ice cream made without an ice cream machine or a churn. You'll need 2 mixing bowls, a loaf pan or bowl, a hand mixer, spatula and, of course, a freezer!

You only need 3 ingredients for the basic recipe:

• Heavy whipping cream, or heavy cream
• Sweetened condensed milk -- NOT evaporated milk
• Vanilla extract

How to Make Ice Cream without a Machine

First, pour the sweetened condensed milk into a medium mixing bowl. Make sure you use sweetened condensed milk and not evaporated milk!

Then, add the vanilla extract, and stir. You could use vanilla beans if you want, but we're keeping it common and super simple today.

Next, pour the heavy cream into a large mixing bowl. Use an electric mixer to beat it on high speed until stiff peaks form begin to form. Be careful not to over mix, or you'll end up with butter!

You can use a stand mixer for this recipe. Either mixer works fine.

Now, gradually fold the whipped cream into the milk mixture. Stir gently with a spatula until everything is well combined.

Pour the mixture into a loaf pan or shallow bowl. Then, pop it into the freezer!

That's all there is to making homemade ice cream without a machine! Totally easy, peasy!

The ice cream takes about 6 hours to freeze. Then, you can make ice cream cones or sundaes for dessert!

Other Homemade Ice Cream Flavors

Now that you've mastered making vanilla ice cream, you'll want to try more flavors. If you love cookies and cream, you'll love easy homemade Oreo Ice Cream!

And if you're a peanut butter lover, try No Churn Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice cream. If you love chocolate, you'll want to make No Churn Chocolate S'mores Ice Cream.

You can also get creative with easy Cherry Vanilla Ice Cream, or try Pumpkin Ice Cream in the fall!

Easy Homemade Ice Cream Recipe

Recipe first published in 2020 and updated in 2021