A Homemade Kitchen: Easy Vanilla Ice Cream

A Homemade Kitchen series includes recipes that feature homemade versions of your favorite store-bought meals, snacks, treats, condiments and more. Homemade is better for your budget, body, and taste buds.

 Have you ever tasted homemade ice cream? If not, you're truly missing out. The simple, unadulterated flavors of homemade ice cream are almost sinful. Not as sinful as store-bought ice cream though, which offers wonderful ingredients such as mono and diglycerides, high fructose corn syrup, artificial flavors and colors, and a bunch of others I don't even know how to pronounce.  This homemade ice cream, however, only has 4 ingredients. And best of all, you get to choose what they are and where they came from. If you wanted to get real naturale on me, you could even substitute something like maple syrup for the granulated sugar. My favorite part of this recipe is how dirt cheap it is to make, no eggs or vanilla beans, but all the flavor.

P.S. -  I'm not trying to claim this ice cream recipe is healthy. I'm just saying it's not full of creepy ingredients and it tastes a heck of a lot better than any ice cream from the freezer aisle. As with any treat, moderation is key!

P.P.S. - You will need an ice cream machine to make this recipe. If you don't have one, buy one! Or borrow one. I use mine at least once a month.


Easy Vanilla Ice Cream
Makes 10 1/2-cup servings

• 1 cup whole milk, chilled
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 2 cups heavy cream, chilled
• 1 tablespoon high-quality pure vanilla extract

In a medium bowl using a hand mixer on low speed, whisk the milk and sugar until the sugar is dissolved, 1-2 minutes. Stir in heavy cream and vanilla. Pour mixture into ice cream machine and let thicken, following manufacturer's directions. Freeze for 2 hours until firm before serving.