Another day, another Ninja Creami ice cream recipe. I have been absolutely loving my machine since I bought it a month ago. I have made vanilla ice cream, strawberry ice cream, even a mango and kombucha sorbet! Today I’m sharing an easy recipe for Ninja Creami mint chocolate chip ice cream.

Ninja Creami mint chocolate chip ice cream

This ice cream uses a simple mix of white sugar, milk, cream and peppermint extract. It takes all of 5 minutes to mix up and you can customise the creaminess according to your preferences.

After freezing and processing, melted and cooled dark chocolate is added to the mixture before re-spinning. This results in delicious chunks of chocolate that are evenly dispersed throughout your ice cream.

The ice cream can easily be lactose free with lactose free dairy products (more on this below). It’s a delicious and refreshing dessert that everyone will love.

Cream and milk content for Ninja Creami ice cream

As I make more and more ice cream, I have been noticing quirks and tips for making a cream based ice cream in the Ninja machine.

Ninja Creami ice cream is incredibly cold ice cream. Necessarily so, as we are blending frozen ingredients. This is the opposite of a traditional ice cream maker, which processes room temperature ingredients into a frozen dessert.

What this means in practise is that a high fat ice cream, when eaten freshly processed, will likely leave a film on the roof of your mouth. In fact, even a super cold low fat ice cream has the potential for this.

Knowing this can help you design an ice cream based on your preferences. If you like to eat very cold ice cream, use less cream. If you prefer softened ice cream, use more cream.

I developed this recipe using the ice cream calculator by Dream Scoops. I find it incredibly, insanely helpful in determining the milk fat percentage of an ice cream. The maximum milk fat percentage for an ice cream should be around 20%. Any more than this and you risk creating an overly fatty ice cream. This will taste grainy, split and leave a film all over your mouth. It is also easily over churned – think of what happens when you over-beat whipped cream.

With that said, an all milk ice cream is prone to being overly icy in texture. Without the fat, there’s nothing for the milk to emulsify with and you are left with icy ice cream.

Choosing your milk to cream ratio

So, how much milk and cream creates an ideal ratio? This ice cream uses 100g sugar and can use 200g full fat thickened cream and 200g full fat milk. You can’t add more cream than this, but you can tilt the ratios the other way.

For example, 150g thickened cream and 250g milk. You can also use 100g thickened cream and 300g milk. I wouldn’t go too far further than this, but you are welcome to experiment and see what works best for you.

Obviously, the more cream is added the creamier your ice cream will be (to an extent). The more milk is added, the lighter your ice cream will be. Very light ice cream tends to be icy, so you might need to add a gum like xanthan gum to compensate for the texture.

What works best for mint chocolate chip ice cream? I am quite biased to a creamier ice cream, but the batch I made with 100g cream and 300g milk also worked well. I think the cream carries the mint flavour better but that is a personal preference.

A tip on texture

My experience with super creamy Ninja Creami ice creams is that you need to allow them to soften to avoid getting a film on the roof of your mouth. I have noticed that with most cream based Ninja Creami ice creams.

While sorbet and protein ice creams seem to have the right texture immediately, cream based ice creams need to warm up just a bit to be at their ideal eating consistency.

Can I change how much sugar is added?

This recipe uses 100g caster sugar (also known as superfine sugar). Like cream and milk, there is an ideal percentage of sugar in ice cream. Too much sugar creates an ice cream that will not set, and too little (aside from tasting unpleasant) creates rock hard ice cream.

By the Dream Scoops ice cream standards, my recipe uses a little too much sugar. I am not sure if using a Ninja Creami changes the calculations when compared to a regular ice cream maker, but either way.

As per the calculator, 75g of sugar would be an appropriate amount of sugar for 200g full fat thickened cream and 200g full fat milk. I haven’t tested this ratio as I like the ice cream as it stands.

All this to say: you can experiment with adding less sugar but I wouldn’t experiment with adding more unless you want a very soft and very sweet ice cream.

Tips for your Ninja Creami mint chocolate chip ice cream

• How much peppermint or spearmint extract you add depends on the brand you use. I recommend using a supermarket version cut with vegetable oil here as opposed to pure drops. If you use those, add it to taste as opposed to the amount in the recipe.
• Green food colouring is very optional. Initially I didn’t see the need, but it is a bit of fun. I recommend adding the drops before freezing.
• Melted and cooled chocolate is an easy way to fully disperse the chocolate in your ice cream. Make sure to dig a hole to the bottom of the ice cream to ensure the chocolate is evenly distributed. I use the re-spin option as I find the mix in option to be hit and miss.
• Keep in mind that you are adding a warmer ingredient by added melted chocolate. Make sure your ice cream is not too soft prior to adding it. If it is, you might need to put it back in the freezer to firm up after mixing in the chocolate.
• I always leave the lid off to freeze the mixture and then put the lid on any leftovers afterwards. This helps to stop your ice cream from forming a hump in the middle that can damage your machine.

More Ninja Creami recipes

• Ninja Creami vanilla ice cream
• Ninja Creami mango kombucha sorbet
• Ninja Creami strawberry ice cream
• Ninja Creami raspberry sorbet
• High protein Ninja Creami (53g protein)
• High protein Ninja Creami recipe e-book (with 12 high protein recipes including a high protein mint chocolate chip ice cream)