Healthy Chunky Monkey Ice Cream

I LOVE ice cream.

But, I do not like to make ice cream. 

I have two favorite ice cream brands, Kroger Deluxe (not really a name brand, but their ice cream is inexpensive and SO good), and Ben & Jerry's. 

Ben and Jerry are genius ice cream makers. 

I only have one issue though. 

The names. Although they're very memorable and sometimes funny, they bring sort of weird images to your head. 

Chubby Hubby

Phish Food

Shweddy Balls

and Chunky Monkey

Chunky Monkey is one of my favorite flavors. Nuts,  chocolate, and banana, where can you go wrong?

Although, chunky monkey isn't healthy at all. It will make you . . . chunky. 

Couldn't there be a non-chunky monkey? A skinny monkey?

I just made one. 

If you freeze bananas, then blend them up, it kind of resembles vanilla soft serve, except it tastes like bananas. 

I used that idea for this. It's banana with a hint of peanut butter, and dark chocolate chips. Cause dark chocolate is good for you. 

This was super easy to make, and was so delicious. But, it melted really fast, as you can see in the photos. 

Make it!

Healthy Chunky Monkey Ice Cream

A skinny version of chunky monkey, a skinny monkey! Natural banana soft serve, swirled with peanut butter and with chunks of dark chocolate.

Serves:4          Prep Time:10 min.     Freeze Time: 1 hour       Total Time: 70 min. 

3 stars ***

Ingredients:

• 4 bananas, sliced and frozen
• 1-2 tablespoons peanut butter
• 1/2 cup of chocolate chips*
• honey or natural sweetener

1.  Before making ice cream, cut and freeze bananas in a sandwich bag. 
2. Once the bananas are frozen, add to a food processor. Blend for about 2 minutes, or until smooth.
3. Add peanut butter and quickly pulse. Don't blend it in too much. Stir in chocolate chips. 
4. Serve immediately. 

Notes:
*this can be easily made vegan with natural made chocolate chips
*the bananas must be ripe, or it will be a little bitter
*for a natural sweetener you can either use honey, stevia, or natural maple syrup
*you might need to stop occasionally and smush up bananas if the large chunks don't easily blend. 
*if you don't want it served soft serve style, you can freeze for 2 hours and then serve.   

I had kind of been thinking about this recipe for a while, but got the idea for the name from Createlive. She made a skinny monkey, but was more like frozen banana pudding.

This recipe is easily modified to be vegan depending on the kind of chocolate you use.

This was super easy to make, and was so cool! I still kind of think it's awesome that bananas can be just like ice cream.