Pistachio Ice Cream
Super creamy, forwardly pistachio flavored ice cream made with pistachios ground into a paste, mixed into a custard ice cream base.
When I worked as a gelatiere at a cafe while in college, our pistachio gelato was my favorite to eat. I have been making pistachio ice cream at home (or trying to anyway) since then without much success. It was always a little too heavy in texture or too light on the pistachio flavor. This pistachio ice cream recipe comes after many years of fiddling with how best to incorporate a strong pistachio flavor into a lighter ice cream base.
The result is something special: a very pistachio flavored ice cream that’s creamy and just sweet enough.
Recipe Origins
I treated this recipe the way I would if I were making a peanut butter ice cream: make a custard base with eggs, milk, sugar and heavy cream and once cooked, stir in the nut butter. In our pistachio case, we’re going to make the ‘butter’ ourselves by toasting the nuts and then processing them until we have a homemade nut butter. This will get mixed into the base after cooking.
Then, the ice cream chills and develops flavor; the next day we churn it. It’s wonderful straight out of the machine, like a pistachio soft serve! And after an overnight freeze it’s like your favorite brand of ice cream made a properly pistachio ice cream flavor.
Recipe Ingredients
Pistachios: buy them without the shell, they’re called ‘nutmeats’ or shell them yourself. If you’re buying them without the shell, opt for the ‘raw’. If you use roasted pistachios, only get the ones that still have their shells and shell them yourself (they’ll roast for less time).
Milk: whole milk.
Heavy Cream: or heavy whipping cream.
Egg yolks: from large eggs. Egg whites can be reserved for another use.
Salt: fine sea salt. If using table salt, add just a pinch to the base.
Vanilla: pure vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste.
Sugar: brown sugar, light or dark.
How to make Pistachio Ice Cream
Toast the nuts: spread them on a baking sheet and preheat the oven to 350 F.
Once preheated, bake the nuts for about 9 minutes, shaking the pan halfway for even toasting.
Process into a paste: transfer the nuts to a food processor or strong blender, they will be very hot so don’t touch them.
Once they are all in you can start processing, the nuts will first have a ‘chopped’ look, then as you process more they will be finely chopped. Keep going until you start to see a thick paste forming. S
Scrape down the bowl or blender as needed and keep processing until the paste is almost smooth, this can take up to 15 minutes. Set the pistachio butter aside to cool.
You can make the paste a day or up to 2 weeks ahead of time.
Make the ice cream custard base: in a pot set the cream, milk, sugar and egg yolks. Add the salt and whisk very well. Set the pot over medium low heat.
Cook the base until the temperature reaches 160 F, it will be slightly thickened on the bottom.
Remove from the heat and add the pistachio paste and vanilla. Whisk well.
At this point I like to strain the mixture, to get rid of the bigger ‘nut’ bits and any egg white bits that didn’t get mixed in.
Chill overnight: cover with plastic wrap and chill for about 6-8 hours. This helps develop the flavor and prepare it for the machine.
Churn according to machine instructions: if the custard has formed a thick layer on top, simply whisk it in before churning.
Special Tools Needed
Thermometer: this will tell you when the custard is done cooking.
Food processor or strong blender: this is to grind the nuts into a paste (a nut butter). The stronger your machine the quicker this process will go by. I have made pistachio paste/butter in a food processor and in a ninja blender. Both take about 10-15 minutes, mostly just waiting for the nuts to fully process and release their oils.
Ice cream churning machine: because this has a custard base, it needs to be slowly churned (frozen while being agitated).
Pistachio Ice Cream Recipe
Pistachio Ice Cream
Ingredients
- 225 g raw pistachios without the shell
- 360 g or 1 ½ cups heavy cream
- 360 g or 1 ½ cups whole milk
- ¼ tsp fine sea salt
- 100 g or ½ cup brown sugar light or dark
- 5 yolks from large eggs reserve the whites for another use
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste
- 180 g or ⅔ cup pistachio butter from above
Method
Make the pistachio paste
- Preheat the oven to 350 F. Spread shelled pistachios on a baking pan in an even layer.
- For raw pistachios, toast them for 9-10 minutes, until very hot and fragrant. For roasted pistachios, toast them for 5-7 minutes, also until fragrant and hot. For both, shake the pan halfway through the toasting time.
- Pour the nuts into a strong blender or a food processor - careful they will be hot so use a spoon or an oven mitt. Begin processing them on high, the nuts will first turn finely chopped then powdery, then it will start to turn into a thick paste. Keep processing until you have a very smooth, runny paste. Transfer to a heat proof jar and chill.
Make the ice cream base
- In a large pot, add the milk, cream, sugar, eggs and salt. Whisk well to break up the eggs.
- Set the pot over medium low heat. Cook until the custard thickens and registers 160 F on a thermometer. Pour the mixture into a heat proof bowl through a fine mesh sieve (this will remove any egg bits that cooked before being mixed into the custard).
- Add in 180g or ⅔ cup of pistachio paste and the vanilla and whisk well to combine. Let cool to room temperature then cover with plastic wrap to seal and set in the fridge to chill overnight.
- The next day, there will probably be a thickened layer of custard on top - mix it in then pour the base into the bowl of your ice cream machine. Churn according to machine instructions.
- Store the ice cream in a freezer safe container. It’ll keep for about 2 weeks.
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Very simple recipe but extremely delicious! My pistachio paste didn’t quite work out, but the end product was still great. Thank you for the recipe!
What do I do with the remaining 1/3 pistachio butter?
Excited to try this recipe out soon. Is there a reason you don’t temper the eggs?
Depending on the recipe, you don’t really need to temper the eggs for an ice cream base. If I was flavoring the base and it needed a long low cooking time (like if I wanted to infuse it with fresh mint for example) then I would temper. For this we just need the sugar to melt and the egg yolks to cook to a safe temperature; both which happen concurrently and rather quickly.
This is the BEST pistachio ice cream I’ve had!! Came out amazing and everyone loved it! Based on some comments I added 150g dark brown sugar and added the whole amount of pistachio paste to the custard. Straining was a key step because all the fibrous bits that muddle the flavor are removed leaving only pure pistachio. Thanks so much for the recipe Sam!!
This turned out so wonderfully! I did increase the sugar by 2 tbsp. Could probably even go up 1/4 cup. The texture and the flavour were perfect. Creamy, easy to scoop, lots of freshly roasted pistachio flavour. Thank you!
I found the ice cream froze very hard. Even after 10 min rest outside of the freezer. It also tasted more like nut butter than ice cream. I did enjoy this ice cream more when I had a scoop of pistachio along with a scoop of vanilla. Thanks for the recipe.
Hi Michael, the ice cream is made from a nut butter – nuts processed into paste – so it should be expected to taste as such.
Do you roast the pistachios with the skins on and keep the skins? Or do you blanche, remove the skins and then roast?
For this recipe I did not peel off the skins.
This worked spot on for me. Perfect flavour and texture. Works well in a Ninja Creami setup, and fills two tubs exactly. Thank you.
Hi, i would like to try making your pistachio ice cream recipe but don’t have an ice cream maker. I have made custard based ice creams before with success using the ‘No churn’ freexer method ie beating it with an electric whisk every hour or so to break up any ice crystals that form for 4-5 hours. So could i not use this method to make your pistachio ice cream too?
Amazing Recipe! I have been craving pistachio ice cream and this hit the spot. This recipe works well in a ninja creami as well, for those who don’t have an ice cream machine.
so happy to hear it nina!
Compared to other pistachio recipes this is very bland and not sweet enough.
Sorry to hear it Victoria, I did keep the sugar low here but you’re welcome to add more if you make it again. Although it sounds like you already have a recipe you like.
sam i noticed some other recipes on the internet for pistachio ice cream say to leave the pistachios raw, purportedly for the brighter green. in your many attempts at creating this recipe did you also try not roasting them? if so, what was the result? thanks!
I think flavor is more important than color, and that quick roast freshens them up and them gives a more flavorful ice cream.
Update on the earl grey flavour – it came out superbly! I used 5 earl grey tea bags which i steeped in the milk, and the flavour is perfect, was worried the final product would be too bitter but it is perfectly balanced. I saw your response about the fat content that would be missing – curious to know how would varying fat content affect the end product? I will be trying this again but with your reccomendation of adding earl grey to a vanilla ice cream recipe
Sorry i should have clarified – i dont want to mix the earl grey and pistachio flavours – I was going to simply use the same ratio of eggs, milk, cream, sugar and vanilla and in place of the pistachio butter, I would use earl grey tea bags (steep in milk, cool, add the rest of the ingredients, bring back up to 160F, chill overnight and churn the following day)
Thank you for responding so quick!
Ah I see, so you’ll be missing quite a bit of fat if you leave it out which will make the ice cream less creamy and smooth. This recipe was built around the nut butter. If you want to make an earl gray ice cream, I’d find a vanilla ice cream recipe and just steep the tea bags into the milk that is used.
Can i use the same custard base recipe to make an earl gray ice cream? The pistachio flavour was outstanding and now I want to try new flavours
I have a question – would this custard recipe be a good base for other flavours too? I want to use the same base for an early grey ice cream because the pistachio flavour came out so well!
I would steep the tea bags in the milk prior to adding the other ingredients
So happy you liked it! Do you mean with the pistachio base? I do think it would work to steep the milk, although you might find the early gray slightly overpowering the pistachio flavor.
It says I’ll have more pistachio paste than I need for this recipe — How much of it should I use in the recipe then?
Hi Emily! You’ll use about 225g to make the paste and then use 180g of the paste to add to the ice cream base. Because some will get lost in the scraping and moving from one place to another I tend to make just a bit more. Leftovers are tasty on toast =)