Healthy Carb Ube Ice Cream

An earthy but uniquely sweet flavor reigns in this gorgeously violet-hued, healthy carb ube ice cream recipe.

Have you heard of ube (pronounced ooh-bay)? It is a purple sweet potato (or yam) commonly used in the Philippines. It is packed with vitamin A, vitamin C, and potassium. It also duals as an excellent antioxidant, serving as an anti-inflammatory agent. Plus it’s good for brain health and protects against such things as heart disease and cancer. Talk about a super food!

So, good news. Today’s recipe is a healthy, good for you ice cream! It is full of healthy carbs, making it awesome for your brain and thyroid. And it is gorgeous to look at and tastes great too!

If you’re unfamiliar with the flavor of an ube, it has an earthy, slightly coconutty flavor. It requires the sweetener alongside it otherwise it’s a little bland, but combined with the sweetener its flavor is enhanced and really pops.

Look at that purple deliciousness! By the way, I decorated my ice cream with some edible gold leaf just to make it look purdy and fancy for the pictures. You obviously don’t need to do this (I just did because I’m also a professional cake decorator and had some on hand), and while it (the gold leaf) claims to be edible, I still remove it just to be on the safe side.

Special Ingredients for Ube Ice Cream

This recipe does indeed call for a very special ingredient: ube powder. It is necessary because it is the nutrition, healthy carb, and primary flavor source for this recipe. When purchasing ube powder, make sure it’s ONLY ingredient is ube (it may say something like dehydrated purple yam). It shouldn’t have any sweeteners or fillers added to it. It should strictly be just the yam and nothing else.

Another special ingredient is the ube extract. I recommend using the McCormick brand simply because that is the one that I used. It has purple food coloring which boosts the pretty color and the extract itself boosts the ube flavor without adding an overload of carbs.

A Few Notes About This Ube Ice Cream

Spoiler alert: this ube ice cream recipe has cottage cheese. Why? Because that adds the bulk and the creaminess without adding fat, making it stay in the healthy carb realm for Trim Healthy Mama.

So, what if you don’t like or even hate cottage cheese? Well, don’t worry. You literally CANNOT taste the cottage cheese in this recipe. It adds that ice cream creaminess without the fat of heavy cream and doesn’t really contribute much to flavor. The actual flavor (the ube) takes over.

Another thing to note about the cottage cheese. I recommend 1% in the recipe. That’s because it is the lowest fat cottage cheese. But if you prefer the purity of Daisy’s 2% cottage cheese, you are more than welcome to use it instead. It still doesn’t noticeably change the flavor, but you might need to not eat as much at once (maybe 3/4 of a single serving) if using this slightly higher fat cottage cheese.

No Maker? No Problem

If you already have an ice cream maker, definitely use it. When I make ice cream, I use either my KitchenAid ice cream bowl and attachment (my favorite, most used, and easiest method) or I use my Nostaligia Electrics ice cream maker (fun for making a big batch, but it uses salt so not as easy as the KitchenAid ice cream maker). However, if you have no ice cream maker at all, I have a tutorial on how to make ice cream without a maker.