Mint Chocolate Chip Ninja Creami Protein Ice Cream

Mint Chocolate Chip Ninja Creami Protein Ice Cream is the cool, classic pint every Creami owner ends up making. It is just milk, vanilla protein powder, Greek yogurt, sweetener, peppermint extract and salt, blended smooth, frozen solid, spun creamy and finished with dark chocolate chips that shatter properly. Clean peppermint flavor, real chocolate crunch, and a proper high protein dessert at the same time.

Why you’ll love it

• Tastes like a real mint chocolate chip ice cream, not like a protein shake that got frozen.
• About 9 g of protein per serving from label values, about 36 g per pint.
• Five minutes of hands-on work, then the freezer and the machine do the rest.
• The peppermint stays clean and cool instead of medicinal, because the amount is measured, not guessed.
• Mini chocolate chips shatter nicely against the cold mint instead of freezing into hard lumps.

Ingredient notes

Peppermint extract: the ingredient that makes or breaks this pint. It must be peppermint extract, not mint flavouring, and it must be measured: a quarter teaspoon is plenty. Peppermint tastes stronger after freezing, which is the opposite of sweetness, so the base should taste just minty enough before it goes into the freezer.

Milk: whole milk gives the creamiest pint, and 2% is a close second. The milk adds about 10 g of protein per 1 1/4 cups from standard labels and keeps the base from freezing rock hard. Skim milk is the one version I would skip, since it made test pints icy.

Protein powder: vanilla is the only right choice here, since it builds a clean base instead of fighting the mint. One scoop adds about 20 g of protein on most brand labels, but check yours, since scoops vary.

Greek yogurt: the quiet texture ingredient. It adds tang and body, about 6 g of protein per 1/4 cup from standard labels, and it is what keeps this pint thick instead of thin and icy.

Chocolate chips: mini dark chocolate chips only. They distribute through the pint and shatter cleanly when frozen, while full-size chips freeze hard and clump. Two tablespoons through the Mix-in cycle is enough; more than that overwhelms the mint.

The freeze and spin rule that makes or breaks it

Two rules decide this pint, and both are about patience. First, freeze for a full 24 hours on a level surface, with the top smoothed flat. A pint frozen for only a few hours, or frozen at a slant, spins soft and uneven. Second, do not judge the first spin. Protein bases often look crumbly after the first cycle, and that crumbly look sends a lot of people to the conclusion that the recipe failed. It did not. One tablespoon of milk and one re-spin turns it thick, creamy and scoopable. Only after the re-spin do the chocolate chips go in, through the Mix-in cycle, so they stay chunky instead of getting pulverized.

Variations

• Chocolate drizzle: finish each bowl with a drizzle of melted dark chocolate, which sets into shards on the cold mint for extra crunch.
• Mint cookie crumble: after the re-spin, add a handful of crushed chocolate cookies through the Mix-in cycle along with the chips for a cookies and cream style mint pint.
• Peppermint bark: add an extra tablespoon of mini chips and a crushed candy cane through the Mix-in cycle for a holiday version, keeping the peppermint extract exactly as written.
• Vanilla mint swirl: after spinning, fold in two spoonfuls of the vanilla bean base with a spoon, just twice, so vanilla ripples through the mint instead of blending it away.