Strawberry Basil Mint Ice Cream

What's more refreshing than strawberry ice cream? Basil? Mint? How about all in one dessert? This is sooooo good, and not all that bad for you, either.

I got the idea from this post, and modified it a bit (used skim milk, and I used both basil and mint because my basil plant couldn't provide enough). Here's my version!


2 egg yolks
2 cups skim milk
1 lb strawberries
3/4 cup sugar+1 tbsp for macerating the strawberries
1 tsp lemon juice
1 handful basil
1 handful mint

Warm the milk to just before it boils. Whisk the egg yolks. Add the sugar. Slowly add the hot milk while whisking. Transfer the milk/egg/sugar mixture to the stove. Heat until the custard coats the back of a spoon--just before the mixture boils. Transfer to a bowl. Cover the mixture with saran wrap so the saran wrap touches the custard. Move the whole mixture to the fridge for a few hours or overnight.

Ingredients laid out

Whisk the eggs and sugar 

Add in hot milk

Remove the green parts of the strawberries and chop up. Sprinkle with 1 tbsp sugar and 1 tsp lemon juice. I added the mint and basil here, but you will see later that there's a reason the original recipe calls for adding it at the end. I would recommend adding the mint and basil whole at this step so you can fish it back out and blend it separately, but it will still lend flavor to the strawberries. Move to the fridge for a few hours or overnight.

Cut strawberries

Macerate strawberries with sugar and lemon juice

My mint and basil just before I added it to the strawberries

I added the mint and basil to the macerating strawberries
so the flavors could blend

Set ~1/4 cup strawberries aside. Blend the remaining strawberry mixture. Filter though a mesh strainer to remove the seeds. If you blend the mint and basil in at this step, it'll get stuck in the strainer, and you'll lose a lot of it. So blend the mint and basil separately, and don't strain it.

I should have kept the mint and basil separate, but I just
made a little extra work for myself 

Blended strawberries

Set aside strawberries

Straining the strawberry puree

Mix everything together. Freeze in an ice cream maker. Transfer to the freezer for at least two hours. It's delicious. creamy, scoopable, and refreshing!

Mixed everything together

Into the ice cream maker

Turning into ice cream!

My ice cream maker wasn't quite cold enough, so
the ice cream didn't fully freeze--to compensate, I
stirred it every ~30 mins for the first few hours
in the freezer so it wouldn't freeze solid

Look at those beautiful scoops!

I entered it in to nutritiondata.self.com, and it looks pretty healthy. Only 12/130 calories are from fat. Each serving does have 26g of sugar and cholesterol from the egg yolks, which I guess is bad, but it's dessert. It says, "The good: This food is low in Saturated Fat and Sodium. It is also a very good source of Vitamin C. The bad: This food is high in Cholesterol, and a large portion of the calories in this food come from sugars."