Broke Student Cooking: Banango Ice Cream

As we head into Tucson’s hot summer months, this homemade Banango Ice Cream should help you keep cool. And, it’s kind of healthy too.

Easy and inexpensive, this banana-meets-mango ice cream recipe – which happens to be vegan – will surely satisfy all the die-hard steak and potato lovers. Since it takes a few hours for the ice cream to freeze, start the recipe the night before.

Banango Ice Cream

Cooking Utensils:

• Spatula
• Knife
• Whisk or stirring spoon
• Cutting board
• Saucepan or pot
• Zip-top, freezer-safe plastic storage bags (2+)
• 2 food storage containers with lids
• Food processor or blender (processor preferable)

 Ingredients:

• Ripe banana(s)
• 1 tablespoon arrowroot per banana (optional)
• 2+ mangoes
• 1 tablespoon agave nectar per mango (or honey if you’re not going vegan)
• 3.5 ounce coconut milk per mango

Mise en Place (Set Up) Directions:

1. Peel and chop the bananas on the cutting board. It doesn’t matter how large the pieces are but they should be approximately the same size.
2. Place chopped bananas in a plastic storage bag and close securely.
3. Freeze the banana pieces for at least two hours or longer.
4. While bananas are freezing, chop up mangoes approximately the same size as the bananas.

Cooking Instructions:

1. Place mango, coconut milk, and honey or nectar into food processor and blend until smooth.
2. Place mango mixture in storage container and cover. Refrigerate for 3+ hours, but preferably overnight.
3. Clean food processor.
4. Remove frozen fruit. Place either bananas or mango mixture (or both) in food processor. If you decide to do one at a time, rinse the food processor before using again. This will yield two ice creams with very distinct flavors. If you choose to blend them both at the same time, the flavors will be combined. Both methods are tasty!
5. Add 1 Tb arrowroot to processor when blending the bananas. Blend until smooth. Occasionally use spatula to scrape the sides so the mixture stays close to the blade. This will take several minutes – the mixture will start to look gummy and strange, but keep blending!
6. Transfer both mixtures to clean storage containers and cover. Reuse the container that held the mango mix to freeze just the mango ice cream if you would like to keep the flavors more distinct.
7. Freeze until cold, but still able to dig into with a spoon.
8. Serve banana and mango ice creams together, and chill out!

The total price for this treat is $5.87 and determined by how much of each ingredient was used from each package.

Overall, $17.02 was spent purchasing ingredients. The coconut milk, agave nectar, arrowroot and remainder of the pound of bananas can be used for multiple meals. And, of course, for more ice cream.