Dreamy dairy-free Sunbutter Soft Serve made in the blender in minutes. This nut-free homemade frozen treat will be your new summer favorite. Vegan, paleo, easy!
THIS POST IS SPONSORED BY SUNBUTTER.
Oh have I got something dreamy and happy-making for you today, friends!
This is Sunbutter Soft Serve.
This is my new summertime OBSESSION.
I met a friend for lunch recently at a local vegan cafe, and (not surprisingly) the dessert was my most favorite part of the meal. This cafe does dairy-free soft serve made with a coconut + cashew base, and the day I was there the flavor happened to be Sunbutter. I’ve had Sunbutter before a time or two, but this was the moment I fell in love with the delicious seedy stuff.
Now obviously one swirly cupful of this creaminess was not going to be enough for a lifetime, so I had to recreate it. I don’t have a soft serve machine myself, but I do have a freezer and a blender and a deep determination when it comes to ice cream related recipe challenges. It turned out to be much easier than I was expecting. And, I’d argue, better than it’s inspiration.
Reasons why this is obsession-level good:
- CREAMY. So very creamy.
- Salty and sweet.
- Easy to make – only 5 ingredients!
- No bananas. No churning.
- Nut free and dairy-free.
- Tastes like caramel.
- But also topped with actual caramel.
- Swirl-able! As any soft serve should be.
This is not nice cream. This is not ice cream. This is soft serve – the perfect happy medium of the frozen treat world.
Obviously the star here is the Sunbutter (Most Happy Name for a Spread award?) That’s the ingredient that makes it so creamy. And keeps it so creamy even after freezing. And keeps it so swirly in the cup without melting into a blob 0.5 seconds after serving. So it’s pretty important.
I’m working with Sunbutter’s no-sugar added variety over here, made with just sunflower seeds and salt. Any variety will work, but if you are using one of the sweetened ones skip or reduce the amount of maple syrup. You could use other nut/seed butters, but consider it your yummy loss. Because this stuff tastes like straight up buttery vanilla CARAMEL.
The magic of Sunbutter does not end with the swirl. Nope, we’ve got a 3 ingredient no-cook Sunbutter caramel sauce for on top. DOES THE DREAMINESS JUST NOT END?
Until the blender is licked clean – no, no it does not. Because if you don’t spatula out every last melty bit of this stuff from those blender corners, I will come over and do it for you. When it comes to soft serve, I mean no-drop-left-behind business.
Good enough to fly topping-free. Or with just the drizzle. Or a perfect base for any sprinkle-y topping stuff you may have in mind.
Get ready to fall in frozen dessert love ♡
Sunbutter Soft Serve
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Total Time: 10 minutes
- Yield: 4 servings 1x
- Category: ice cream
- Method: blender
- Cuisine: american
Description
Dreamy dairy-free Sunbutter Soft Serve made in the blender in minutes! This nut-free frozen treat will be your new summer favorite. Vegan, paleo, easy!
Ingredients
- 15oz can full fat coconut milk*
- 1 cup (250g) No Sugar Added Sunbutter**
- 1/4 cup (90g) maple syrup (or sweetener of choice)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 tsp salt
- Non-dairy milk to blend (I used about 1/4 cup)
Sunbutter Caramel Sauce
- 1/4 cup (65g) No Sugar Added Sunbutter
- 1/4 cup (90g) maple syrup
- 2–4 tbsp coconut oil
- Pinch of salt
Instructions
- Shake the can of coconut milk so the liquid and solid parts are evenly mixed.
- Pour into an ice cube tray or mini muffin pan and freeze overnight.
- The next day, combine all the ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth, adding milk and using the tamper as necessary.
- Serve immediately or transfer to a piping bag and swirl into cups/cones.
- For the caramel sauce, whisk together the Sunbutter and maple syrup. Add coconut oil 1 tablespoon at a time until you have a drizzle-able consistency. It helps if all ingredients are at room temperature.
- Drizzle the caramel sauce on top of the soft serve. Add toppings if desired. Enjoy!
- Keep leftovers in the freezer. Remove from the freezer 10 minutes before eating, or break apart and re-blend for an even creamier consistency.
Notes
*You can use lighter milks but it will be less rich and creamy and more icy. You could even use a half and half mix of the two. **If using a sunflower seed butter with added sugar, reduce or omit the maple syrup.
Nutrition
- Calories: 450
- Sugar: 19g
- Fat: 36g
- Saturated Fat: 10g
- Carbohydrates: 32g
- Fiber: 3g
- Protein: 12g
Keywords: dairy free, vegan, no churn, blender, dessert, nut free
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Thank you Sunbutter for sponsoring this post!
hi Natalie, OMG big time what a genius you are!! I will be making your recipe this week, my concern is that in my country I don’t think we have the brand Sunbutter.. I hope that the sunflower seed spread that i will buy will work..
Other brands should be fine! Just look for one that only contains sunflower seeds and salt ideally 🙂 Or even other nut/seed butters would be okay. I hope you love it!
Hi Natalie, I made this with cashew nut butter and halved everything as I wasn’t sure.. and a good thing that I did cause as soon as I started blending, everything melted. Where I am it’s very hot but the coconut milk was frozen for about 24 hours. What could I have done wrong? I used my Blendtec
Hmm so it could truly just be an issue with the temperature of where you are. I keep my apartment pretty warm (about 80 degrees F) but you gotta work fast and then put it back in the freezer after blending as soon as possible to get it to re-freeze. The heat from the blender motor will cause it to melt too, so the quicker you can blend the better. It sounds like you did everything fine though, maybe try omitting the nondairy milk as well and only adding if absolutely necessary Hope that helps!
I rectified the problem like this: I froze the whole mixture, then today I cut pieces the size of an ice cube and blended in my food processor. Worked like a charm: in a few seconds I achieved the desired creamy dreamy consistency. I made a quick sauce of 3 Medjoul dates blended with some water. Pheww! I hope this will help other readers who experienced the same melting issue. I wanna do this again, and I have some coconut cream cans chilling in the fridge, do you think that I could scoop out the hard part, blend with cashew butter plus sweetener and achieve a good result? Thanks!
I am so happy that worked! I do that with lower fat no-churn ice creams sometimes, always works well 🙂 And yes, I think that would work. Using just the cream will make it a bit higher in fat, but very creamy!
This. Looks. Incredible. I have a big love for Sunbutter, but have never thought to make SOFT SERVE with it! Dreamy and genius *heart eyes*
I thought I loved sunbutter before, but never more than I do now that I know it makes the most DREAMY ice cream🤗 I am pretty sure you will love this one!
I live in Australia and cant find this product hete
You can substitute other types of nut or seed butter 🙂
This looks amazing!! My father-in-law has been on the autoimmune protocol, and we are just now reintroducing seeds and nuts with great success. If you have a blender at home, it’s actually quite easy to make seed/nut butter. I do it frequently with shredded coconut since I can’t stomach the cost of a $10 jar! Yikes! So if you have access to sunflower seeds and a good-quality oil (I usually use coconut oil), you can definitely make sunbutter at home. It’s probably less expensive that way 😉
Yes homemade nut butters are SO easy and yummy! I’m always slightly afraid of overheating the blender, but it’s worth the stress for freshly made nut butter goodness ha😋 And savings! Sunbutter isn’t too pricey, but coconut butter is crazy expensive–I don’t get it because coconut is cheap😜 Thanks for sharing Heather, and I’m happy AIP seems to be going well for him too!
About how much non dairy milk did you use? Definitely making this recipe soon! 😍
About 1/4 cup or so. Hope you enjoy!
O wow.. This looks amazing. Do you think I could use coconut butter?
Coconut butter tends to seize up and get really chunky when it’s cold, so I don’t recommend it😬
I’ve recently discovered how much I love sunbutter in the past few months! I am ridiculously excited to try this…love how it’s banana-free AND no churn too! 🙂
ME TOO. Like sorry almond butter, but you got competition now😂 Ahhhh I can’t wait for you to taste it, and yes so easy and 🍌🍌 free! Thanks girl💞
This looks SO CREAMY and diving, omg!! I love, love that video of it the swirling in action. I am the same as you, always getting inspired to recreate recipes from restaurants and how cool is it that you went to a cafe that served Sunbutter Soft Serve, what?!! Sounds like a dream. I don’t care for sunbutter on it’s own by itself, but mixed into recipes like brownies and cookies where the bitterness is hidden and the creamy aspect just shines through, it is divine!! And you took the whole food porn up a notch here, I’m just wishing that was swirling into my mouth right now. I happen to have a jar of sunbutter and of course I have a truck load of coconut milk here, so I may just have to give it a shot! Such a great and simple recipe Natalie!
I know right, St Pete has some pretty awesome little vegan spots😊 Next time I’d go back just for the soft serve though! I used to not like it straight, but lately I’ve been loving it. Turn food into ice cream > instantly love that food 10x more haha. But seriously if you could order coconut milk by the truckload delivered to your door–SIGN ME UP😂
I just made it, it’s delicious 🙂 I didn’t know about sunbutter before, now I love it… Only thing that came out different was the caramel, I added the tbsps of coconut oil one by one until it was four tbsps, the consistency wasn’t running at all, it was thick and it got harder on top of the soft serve. Any recommendations?
★★★★★
Hi Jackie! I am so happy you liked the soft serve🤗 Sunbutter is amazing stuff, I’ve been putting it on everything lately. So the caramel. The runny-ness of the sunbutter can vary, and the overall temp of your mixture can affect the consistency too. You can add more coconut oil, maple syrup, or even a little bit of water until you get a drizzle-able consistency. Hope that helps!
This is the BEST!! Very creamy and totally awesome.I would give it 8 stars if I could.
★★★★★
Ah Dorrie!!! I am so happy you loved it, one of my faves too🤗🤗 Thanks for the awesome feedback, and I hope it gets made many more times!
Can this be made with dairy milk??
Sure! That will work too 🙂
I love sunbutter so I have to try this! I make my own sunbutter.
Oh you will LOVE this stuff then😋😋 I still need to try making my own sunbutter, it’s my fave nut butter at the moment❤️ Enjoy!
Silly vegans. This does not taste like caramel ice cream. It tastes like nut butter ice cream. While it had a nice creaminess and soft serve consistency, it was much too rich and heavy. I could only eat a couple spoonfuls. That’s never happened with caramel ice cream 🙂
★
This looks fantastic!! Going to try this as soon as the coconut milk freezes!!😂
This is probably my FAVORITE frozen recipe on the blog, you will love it! And just saw your email, will reply soon 🙂
The ingredient amounts are completely off. 1 cup of sunbutter is WAY too much!! Disgustingly so. I didn’t even add all of it and the soft serve still came out grossly rich. We couldn’t eat it. The coconut cream separates when you freeze it also. What a waste. Will have to add more coconut cream and begin again. Wow, another free Pinterest recipe disappointment. I’m done!
★
This is one of my personal faves, sorry it didn’t work out for you😕
I was a teeny bit apprehensive about trying this for several reasons:
1. Would I somehow bumble things up and end up with something super bitter and lumpy?
2. I *really* wanted to get the piping and texture just like yours. Somehow a kitchen fail is even more depressing if the original inspiration is really pretty…
3. My blender really is puny and essentially wheezes and chokes itself with anything firmer than elderly bananas. I foresaw terrible things happening upon the introduction of blender to frozen coconut milk.
HOWEVER!!!
1. It was easy and above all DELICIOUS!!!! Wow! Thank you so much for the recommendation! This was soooooooo yummy and so creamy and moreish. And that caramel drizzle! 😍 Really hit the spot. The soft serve was absolutely delicious after a freeze-thaw as well as fresh, which is rare in a home-made ice cream!
2. It was plenty pretty even in my clumsy paws, AND the drizzle was a great distraction from any sloppy piping!
3. RIP blender, but what a way to go.
THANK YOU NATALIE! This is an inspired creation.
★★★★★
Lolol😂😂 This is actually the best comment–I love your honesty, #2 and #3 especially made me laugh. BUT I am soooooooo happy you tried it despite all the potential risks and even more excited that you loved it too🤗 Ah I just adore this stuff, it’s so unlike any other ice cream recipe in flavor and surprisingly easy, right?! And yes the texture amazes me for just a blender ice cream! Ha well if we’re being honest hiding my imperfect piping may or may not be why the caramel sauce happened in the first place🤷🏻♀️ So happy you tried it, always love hearing how it goes, Aleks❤️
Hi there!
This recipe looks incredible!!! So creamy I really want to make it… I have a question though. What is the calorie count based on? I added all the ingredients to cronometer and it came out to 3390 calories for the whole recipe.
What amount is a serving? A seventh of the recipe?
Thanks!
Hm that’s odd. I used an app called Nutrifox and calculated a serving as 1/4 of the recipe.
I think you should update it as those nutrition facts are definitely incorrect.
If you look just at the label of sunbutter 2 tablespoons have 210 calories which means 1680 calories per cup. Maple syrup is 208 calories per quarter cup.
This is just two of the ingredients without the coconut milk which is about another 900 and the caramel syrup which adds even more… so just with those two ingredients if you add them up it is 1888 calories divided by 4 is 472 which is already more than you lost for the whole recipe… so that calorie count you have there is incorrect.
Would you mind updating it?
I wanted it too more ready to eat after blending. The calorie count in the recipe has to be incorrect. just 1/4 of the sunbather in the recipe is 420. That’s not including the coconut milk or the maple syrup.
★★★★
Ok so I tried this tonight. I got Trader Joes unsweetened sun butter and I mad the sauce first with a 1/4 cup of nut butter and maple syrup and found the nut butter over powering. When I made the ice cream part, I used less of the nut butter. The mixture blended up nicely, but was melted more than I had planned. So I put in all in the freezer and will try it tomorrow. I was expecting it to taste more like caramel than sunflower seeds. I think I might have to use the brand you have, this one is very strong and was really green in color. All in all, I did like it. However, I really want to love it.
★★★★
Hmm okay which Trader Joe’s one, sweetened or unsweetened? I haven’t actually tried theirs, I always use the SunButter brand, but I can’t imagine why the taste would be that different😕 The fact that it’s very green means it could be though. Homemade sunflower seed butter is quite green, but the store-bought just has the slightest tint in my experience. It could also just be personal preference, sunflower seed butter is definitely a unique taste which personally I love but you might not. You could try it with almond or peanut butter if you prefer next time. But also freezing dulls flavor slightly so perhaps you will like it better colder!
I haven’t made it yet but I wanted to know if leftovers freeze well. I want to make it but idk if I should quarter the recipe bc it doesn’t freeze well or make the whole thing and freeze the rest for later
This one does actually freeze pretty well, but you can never beat freshly blended😋 Making a 1/4 batch may be too little to blend though, so be careful!