This no-churn hazelnut ice cream recipe allows you to enjoy some beautiful hazelnut ice cream at home even if you don’t have an ice cream maker. Hazelnut paste is added to whipped cream and sweetened condensed milk to make the most delicious homemade hazelnut gelato.
Hazelnut gelato
Have you ever had hazelnut gelato in Italy? It’s a pretty popular flavour, and my number one favourite. I know nobody believes food bloggers when they say that this or that is their favourite recipe, but I swear that hazelnut is my favourite gelato flavour!
I have had many occasions to state in this blog my love for hazelnuts. I grew up in one of the regions that produce some of the finest hazelnuts in Italy, so I take these little nuts very seriously. It goes without saying that over the 25 years of my life I have spent in Italy I have had a fair share of excellent hazelnut gelato. Getting it abroad is a little more challenging.
No-churn ice cream
If I had a churner, I could make my own hazelnut gelato at home. Unfortunately, that is not something I own. I’ve been wanting to buy one for over a year, but I never did. Last year, the excuse was that my kitchen was too small to welcome another kitchen appliance. This year the excuse is that instead of buying an ice cream machine I bought a house. Now I have a much bigger kitchen, but way less money!
I was late in the no-churn ice cream game, but when I finally joined in last summer, making no-churn ice cream has become an obsession. I have this little problem that I buy too much whipping cream than I can use because I always think I will bake more. Then the expiry date comes always too soon and the next thing I know is I’m turning another carton of cream into no-churn ice cream.
Related: no-churn London fog ice cream.
Hazelnut ice cream recipe
So the recipe to make no-churn ice cream is one, and that consists of folding a can of sweetened condensed milk into a batch of whipped cream. This is the true and tested recipe that everybody uses. What’s cool is that you can personalize it to your liking, and that is my favourite part!
Making no-churn hazelnut ice cream implies adding some toasted hazelnuts to the magical cream and condensed milk concoction. The hazelnuts need to be processed until they turn into a paste. Trying to recreate the Italian hazelnut gelato, we aim for total smoothness. I sometimes stumble upon hazelnut ice cream abroad, and it often features chopped hazelnuts. It’s nice, but not the hazelnut ice cream I look for. I want smoothness, and a food processor gives us just that.
Serve this hazelnut ice cream with baked amaretti stuffed peaches.
So – three ingredients. Whipping cream, sweetened condensed milk and toasted hazelnuts. If you can’t find toasted hazelnuts, you can toast them yourself in a pan on medium-high heat for 3-4 minutes. Then rub them in a kitchen towel to discard the skin. If you can buy toasted like I did, it will be just a little easier and quicker. Let’s go.
Step by step instructions
- Add your toasted hazelnuts to a food processor and process them until they get very finely ground and start releasing their oil. Stop the processor from time to time to scrape the sides of the bowl. You really want to take your hazelnuts to an almost liquid state, so expect to get your blades rotating for about 10 minutes.
- Add the hazelnut paste and 100 ml of whipping cream to a bowl and mix at medium speed for about a half minute to combine. Add the rest of the cream and keep whipping until you get to soft peaks. Set the mixer aside.
- Pour in the sweetened condensed milk and fold it in gently with a spatula.
- Transfer the mixture to a freezer safe container and let set for a minimum of 5 hours or overnight.
Serving suggestions
If your no-churn hazelnut ice cream is a little hard to scoop up, let it rest 5 minutes at room temperature before serving. This ice cream flavour pairs really well with other flavours such as chocolate or coffee ice cream. If you want to add a little decoration, some unsweetened whipped cream and crushed hazelnuts are a nice touch. Or you can lightly microwave some nutella just to make it a little more runny and drizzle some chocolate hazelnut cream over it!
While all these serving suggestions are just magical ways to add flavour and texture to this homemade ice cream, I still believe that hazelnut ice cream tastes best on its own. This is just how I prefer it, so that I can just indulge on the flavours of the hazelnuts, the cream and the sugar.
See also: three-ingredient hazelnut meringue cookies.
Hazelnut dessert!
Hazelnuts are fantastic nuts, I love their flavour both in sweet and savoury dishes. I must admit that it is when paired with a sweet element that they really shine, in my opinion. Here are some more dessert recipes with hazelnuts:
- Nutella panna cotta
- Honey hazelnut soft cookies
- Homemade dark chocolate hazelnut spread
- Nutella thumbprint cookies “nutellotti”
Hope you enjoy my hazelnut sweets and do give this no-churn hazelnut ice cream a try, it’s really worth it! Here are two pins you can add to your favourite board:
No-churn hazelnut ice cream
Ingredients
- 480 ml whipping cream
- 395 g sweetened condensed milk
- 115 g hazelnuts toasted
Instructions
- Add the hazelnuts to a food processor and process them until they get very finely ground and start releasing their oil, about 10 minutes. Stop the food processor from time to time to scrape the sides of the bowl.
- Add the hazelnut paste and 100 ml of whipping cream to a bowl and mix at medium speed for about a half minute to combine. Add the rest of the cream and keep whipping until you get to soft peaks.
- Pour in the sweetened condensed milk and fold it in with a spatula.
- Transfer the mixture to a freezer safe container and let set for a minimum of 5 hours, or overnight.
Great idea! You have to adapt and ‘pivot’ (hahaha there’s that word) these days. Don’t have an ice cream machine….make no churn! This hazelnut ice cream looks like it has a very nice creamy texture…like it should!
Thank you, Bernice! You know what, that’s right. I thought I wouldn’t be able to make my favourite ice cream flavour at home without an ice cream machine, and instead I proved myself this was totally possible. Turns out a food processor is more important than a churner!
What’s not to love about this recipe? It looks so easy and I love how versatile it ends up being! I love this!
Thank you, Leslie. Isn’t it great when remaking your favourite foods at home turns out so easy?
I LOVE no-churn. It has to be the best and the worst idea. The best to get my ice cream fix and the worst is that it wreaks havoc with my diet. We do love hazelnuts – this recipe is on tomorrow’s menu.
Hi Marisa! I hope you loved as much as I do!
No churn is my favorite. This hazelnut ice-cream looks so creamy and delicious. Homemade is always the best. I would love to try this out for my little one.
Hi Kushigalu! I’m sure your little one will enjoy this homemade ice cream!
I bet this ice cream taste AMAZING! I love hazelnuts and ice cream, and when you put it together, that’s a win-win for me!
Hi Veronika! If you have never tried hazelnut ice cream, trust me you are going to fall in love!!
No churn ice cream is the best! I’m loving your flavors in this so much! Your ice cream looks amazing and perfect with a slice of warm apple pie! I can’t wait to try it!
Hi Lori! Ohh what a fantastic idea to have hazelnut gelato with warm apple pie! Definitely gonna try!
This is such a wonderfully simple recipe for homemade ice cream! It looks so good and sounds delicious with the homemade hazelnut paste!
Thank you Tammy! The addition of the hazelnut paste really adds so much flavour to this simple ice cream recipe!
I love how simple and easy this recipe is. This ice cream looks so rich and creamy as well!
Thank you Moop! It really was deliciously creamy!
If there is anything better in this world than ice cream, it would definitely be hazelnut ice cream, in my opinion. Fantastic recipe to keep handy!
Thank you, Elaine!
YUm I love hazelnuts, I’m definitely making this and drowning a few scoops in chocolate sauce
Hi Veronika! I totally approve of that! 😀
This recipe is amazing – we’re onto our second batch of this stuff already (a test batch, and now the real thing). We added rum extract to ours. Over the moon about how this turned out! Thank you, Eva, for the keys to the kingdom. Grazie di tutto cuore !!
Thank you Lina for your kind words! Grazie mille! And WOW thanks for the tip on rum extract, definitely going for this variation next time I’ll make myself a batch!
I’d love to use my blender instead of my food processor, which has a broken part and is difficult to work. It is not a heavy duty blender. If I blended the condensed milk together with the hazelnuts, could that achieve the same smooth result? It is not a heavy duty blender.
Thanks! All your recipes look delightful. 🙂
Hi Melissa and thank you! I am unsure if this would actually achieve the same smooth result. I did use my blender in the past (before I bought a food processor) to make pesto and used to blend in nuts such as cashews. My old blender was not heavy duty either and it did achieve decent results but for pesto. Pesto is coarser in texture and you’re not supposed to really get the oils out from nuts like in this recipe. So I think it may work, but you will get a chunkier result. Probably more similar to chunky peanut butter than smooth. I just hope your blender will handle this without breaking, please stop if you feel like it’s beyond its power. Not worth ending up without both a blender and a food processor XD
Oops, sorry, I keep forgetting I go by Missy in Texas. 🙂 I’m the Melissa that commented earlier! Thank you again!
Awesome! Glad to hear your food processor delivered, it was definitely the right call in order to get the best texture out of your ice cream. Hope you will be happy with it! All the best!
Thank you, Eva, for the quick reply! I think you are correct about the blender. I ended up using the food processor this afternoon and got great, smooth results. Haven’t sampled the final product as it’s still freezing, but I think it was the right call. As you specified, it takes quite a lot of processing to get to a smooth result! Thanks again for a fabulous recipe and I love your blog and can’t wait to try more things! All best from Austin, Texas. 🙂
Can you substitute the hazelnuts with hazelnut flour?
Hi Sofia, Yes absolutely, you can use the same quantity of hazelnut flour or hazelnut meal.