Easy Pistachio Ice Cream Recipe
Pistachio Ice Cream is a traditional ice cream flavor that comes with lots of nostalgia. This French style ice cream is made with a creamy custard base, chopped nuts, and has the perfect pistachio flavor.
Ingredients
- 2 cups shelled roasted pistachios divided
- 1 ½ cups whole milk
- ¾ cup granulated sugar divided
- 4 large egg yolks
- 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¼ teaspoon almond extract
- Green food coloring optional
Instructions
- Chill the ice cream bowl for at least 24 hours or until solid. You should not hear any water sloshing around when you shake the bowl.
- In a food processor, combine 1 cup of pistachios with 1/4 cup of granulated sugar. Process until finely ground.
- Add whole milk to a large saucepan and heat over medium. Add the pistachio mixture and stir to combine.
- Bring to a simmer. Once simmering, remove from heat and cover with a lid. Allow to steep for 1 hour.
- Strain the pistachios out of the mixture, pressing down as you strain to release as much flavor as possible.
- Return the milk mixture to the saucepan and again bring it to a simmer. Once it starts to simmer, remove the pan from the heat.
- In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and remaining granulated sugar until smooth and pale yellow in color.
- Add about 1/2 cup of the hot milk to the egg and sugar mixture and whisk constantly until combined.
- Then, add the tempered egg mixture back into the saucepan with the remaining hot milk.
- Heat the saucepan on low. Stirring constantly, heat until the base has thickened enough to coat the back of a spoon. This should take a few minutes.
- Strain the mixture into a bowl to remove any pieces of egg that may have cooked.
- Add the heavy cream, vanilla extract, and almond extract and stir to combine.
- Then, add green food coloring, a little at a time, until you reach your desired green coloring.
- Cover the bowl with plastic wrap making sure to have the plastic wrap touching the surface of the ice cream base. This will help keep it from forming a skin while chilling. Refrigerate for at least 3 hours, or until cold.
- Churn the ice cream mixture in the bowl of your ice cream machine according to your manufacturer’s instructions (mine took about 20 minutes), until it is thick and the consistency of soft-serve ice cream.
- In the last two minutes, add the remaining pistachios and churn until they are evenly distributed.
- Spoon the ice cream into a shallow container or a loaf pan. Press plastic wrap or wax paper to the surface of the ice cream. Freeze for at least 4 hours, or until solid. Let sit at room temperature for about 5 minutes before serving.
Notes
- To make this into a Pistachio Almond Ice cream, substitute 1/2 cup of chopped, roasted almonds for a half cup of the pistachios in the churn phase.
- Note that the pistachios are added in two different phases, once in the cooking stage and again in the churning stage.
- You want to make sure you press as much milk out of the pistachios as possible when you are straining them. The pistachios will absorb milk during the steeping process and all of the flavor is in the pistachios. Press the pistachios with the back of a spoon or spatula to make sure you have as much liquid as possible.
- You don’t have to use green food coloring if you don’t want to. I find sometimes when I make this that pistachios have the perfect shade of green, but other times I’ll find my ice cream base looking more brown or yellow because of the outer skins of the pistachios. I like to add just enough food coloring to make the ice cream a pale green color. Be careful, too much food coloring and your ice cream will look very fake looking.
- The almond extract in this recipe is used sparingly to enhance the light nutty flavor of the pistachios. I find that all you need is a little bit in this recipe. Use too much and your ice cream will taste very artificial-like.