For those following a ketogenic vegan lifestyle, finding suitable desserts can be a challenge. Fortunately, the market for keto-friendly, vegan ice cream is expanding, offering delicious options that align with these dietary needs. This article explores some of the top keto vegan ice cream brands, highlighting their unique flavors, ingredients, and overall appeal.
Top Picks for Keto Vegan Ice Cream
Several brands stand out in the realm of keto vegan ice cream, each offering a unique take on this frozen treat. Here's a closer look at some of the best options available:
Van Leeuwen
Van Leeuwen is known for its rich and dense ice cream, and their peanut butter flavor is a standout. This flavor features a blend of peanut butter, coconut cream, cashew milk, coconut oil, and cocoa butter, mixed with brownie and honeycomb bits, plus a peanut butter swirl. The result is a hearty, almost wholesome vibe.
Peanut Butter Brownie Honeycomb: This flavor is perfect for peanut butter lovers, with each bite laced with mix-ins and a sweet-salty peanut butter flavor. Although the honeycomb pieces may be sparse and the brownie bits dry, the overall experience is enjoyable. It's also gluten-free.
- Base: Coconut cream, cashew milk, coconut oil, cocoa butter
- Allergens: Peanuts, cashews, coconut
McConnell's
McConnell's offers a refreshing and tangy option with its passion fruit flavor, featuring a bright flavor and a jammy lemon swirl.
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Passion Fruit: This flavor is refreshing, balanced, and sherbet-like, making it perfect for a hot day. It is oat-milk-based and claims to be nut- and gluten-free (though it contains highly refined coconut oil, which, according to a McConnell’s representative, is free of the eight major allergens).
- Base: Oat milk
Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams
Jeni's is another brand that excels in the vegan ice cream market, with several standout flavors:
Lemon Bar: This flavor is reminiscent of lemon bars, with a tart and refreshing lemon curd, fragrant coconut cream, and crumbly shortbread. The citrus quiets the coconut flavor, creating a harmonious blend.
- Base: Coconut cream
- Allergens: Coconut, wheat
Texas Sheet Cake: A decadent chocolate-coconut base with chunks of chocolate cake and a fudge swirl, this flavor is a top pick for vegan chocolate ice cream. The cake pieces are spongy and not overly sweet, and the chocolate sauce adds a gooey abundance.
- Base: Coconut cream
- Allergens: Coconut, wheat
Cold Brew: This swirled mix of vegan coconut-cream ice cream and cold-brew sorbet offers a silky texture and a robust cold brew flavor. It's a harmonious pint that seems "accidentally vegan."
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- Base: Coconut cream
- Allergens: Coconut
Ben & Jerry's
Ben & Jerry's has expanded its non-dairy offerings with several flavors, including:
Strawberry Cheezecake: This flavor features a light pink color and a restrained, fresh strawberry flavor. It tastes sweet and tart, with the brightness of fresh strawberries. The graham cracker swirl adds a salty, warm flavor and a textural mix of crunch and doughiness.
- Base: Oat milk
- Allergens: Soy, wheat
The Brooklyn Creamery
The Brooklyn Creamery offers guilt-free ice creams with up to 50% lower calories and 60% lower fat than traditional ice creams. Their products contain no added sugar, artificial flavors, or preservatives.
- The Brooklyn Creamery was founded in 2016 in Brooklyn, New York, with a mission to create enjoyable food experiences for everyone, regardless of their health journeys or preferences.
- They offer a variety of vegan ice creams that are both delicious and low in calories. The chocolate-flavored cup, for example, has only 89 calories and no sugar. They also offer mint-flavored ice cream sandwiches and popsicles.
Other Notable Vegan Ice Cream Options
While the brands mentioned above are top contenders, several other options are worth considering:
- Planet Oat Vanilla: A neutral option that is sweet and creamy, making it a serviceable choice to scoop onto a piece of pie.
- So Delicious Vanilla Wondermilk: This flavor has a canned-frosting flavor and might fare well in a milkshake.
- McConnell’s Dairy-Free Vanilla Bean: This flavor has a light, smooth texture and a clean finish with more vanilla-bean punch. It is also allergen-free.
- Breyers Non-Dairy Vanilla: A sweet and fluffy option that is one of the cheapest per ounce.
- Van Leeuwen Brownie Sundae Raspberry Swirl: This flavor has a pale, creamy base, red raspberry swirl, and dark-chocolate brownie bites. It is a nice, understated pint.
- Ben & Jerry’s Non-Dairy Cherry Garcia: This flavor packs big cherry pieces and plentiful dark chocolate bits, but the vanilla oat-milk base has a slightly off aftertaste and a cardboardy blandness.
- Jeni’s Banana Cream Pudding Non-Dairy Frozen Dessert: This flavor has a balanced flavor when you get a scoop with banana ice cream, coconut cream, and gluten-free vanilla wafers.
- So Delicious Salted Caramel Cluster Cashewmilk: This flavor has a rich, ice-creamy texture, and our tasters loved the flaky chocolate curls and fresh cashew bits, but it has a strong butterscotch-candy flavor.
- So Delicious Peanut Butter Brownie Cashewmilk: This flavor has a velvety, spoonable texture, strong peanut butter flavor, and better-than-the-rest brownie pieces.
- 365 by Whole Foods Market Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Swirl: This flavor is full of chocolate chip flakes and a thick, melt in your mouth peanut butter swirl.
- Nadamoo Organic Mint Chip: This flavor is an adequate mint-chip option, but the ice cream has an uncanny texture.
- Graeter’s Perfect Indulgence line: This line is made with coconut and sunflower oils, plus animal-free whey protein, and all of the flavors had dense, creamy textures.
Flavors to Avoid
Some vegan ice cream flavors may not live up to expectations. Here are a few to be cautious of:
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- Jeni’s Caramel Pecan Sticky Buns Non-Dairy Frozen Dessert: This flavor lacks a lot going on, with the primary flavors being sugar and coconut, and the caramel and pecans being sparse.
- Van Leeuwen Sicilian Pistachio: This flavor doesn’t deliver on its pistachio promise, with only a mild, vaguely nutty taste, overpowered by coconut flavor.
- 365 by Whole Foods Market’s Berry Chantilly Cake: This flavor tastes like birthday cake, with strong almond extract and vanilla flavors and a cloying sweetness.
- Ben & Jerry’s Non-Dairy Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough: The cardboardy flavor of the vanilla base spoils this pint.
- Van Leeuwen Vegan Oat Chocolate Cookie Dough Honeycomb: This flavor has the mouthfeel of a slightly curdled chocolate mousse with gooey chunks of cookie dough, combining in an overwhelmingly sugary pint with a challenging texture.
- So Delicious Chocolate Cookies ’n’ Cream Cashewmilk: This flavor has a frosting-like consistency and a mediocre chocolate taste.
- So Delicious Chocolate Salted Caramel Oatmilk: This flavor has a middling chocolate problem, plus an icy consistency and an overwhelming, synthetic-tasting caramel flavor.
- Avocado-based Cado’s Deep Dark Chocolate: This flavor has a grainy, icy consistency and tastes like squeeze-bottle chocolate syrup.
- Ben & Jerry’s Non-Dairy “Milk” & Cookies: This flavor has an icy texture and a vegetal, musty flavor.
- Target Favorite Day Non-Dairy Strawberry & Fudge: The chocolate fudge shards are overly salty, and the strawberry flavor tastes artificial.
- Ben & Jerry’s Non-Dairy Phish Food: The new oat-based formulation of the chocolate base is not as good as the previous version.
The Importance of Strong Flavors
One thing that stands out when tasting vegan vanilla ice creams is that vegan ice cream needs assertive flavors to distract from the unfamiliar tastes and textures of alternative milks, oils, and thickeners.