Pineapple guava ice cream made in a blender (no sugar added!)

Pineapple guavas, aka feijoa, are one of the best fruits you’ll ever taste. Here’s how to quickly and easily turn them into one of the best no-sugar-added ice creams you’ll ever taste, using a blender. No ice cream maker required!

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Mom for the win: the origins of this pineapple guava ice cream recipe

We grow pineapple guavas in Greenville, SC (Zone 7b), and have been getting bowls full of fresh fruit since early October. This is a good problem to have because pineapple guavas are an incredibly delicious tropical-flavored fruit that tastes like a combination of pineapple, passion fruit, and mango.

(Related: See our complete guide for growing pineapple guavas in cooler climate regions.)

My mom lives on the coast in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina (Zone 9a), in a neighborhood where people grow pineapple guavas both as hedges and as fruit trees in their yards. One of her friends gifted her a large bowl of pineapple guava fruit, so she decided to try to make a quick blender sorbet out of them using three ingredients: pineapple guava fruit, lemon juice, and bananas. 

Like us, mom is an avid gardener, forager, and food lover, so we’re always sharing notes and ideas. Knowing that we also had a bunch of pineapple guava fruit at our disposal, she texted us to let us know of her latest culinary experiment. 

It’s fall in South Carolina, which means it’s cooled down to around 80°F. Plus, we happen to have two toddlers (our own plus a friend’s who we’re taking care of) to feed at the moment, so we didn’t wait for mom’s experiment to complete before also embarking on our own attempt to make pineapple guava blender sorbet. 

Recipe iteration: add dairy (or dairy substitute)

Mom’s initial recipe contained the following ingredients: 

• inner pulp of pineapple guava fruit (don’t use skins) + lemon juice, blended
• slightly over-ripe banana (just starting to get brown specks), cut into 1″ chunks

Freeze those ingredients, then place them into a blender until they’re smooth and creamy… 

As often happens, the first recipe iteration needed work. When we put our frozen ingredients into our multi-bladed Ninja, the consistency was more like an icy slush than a smooth sorbet or ice cream. 

What to do? Thankfully, we have some organic half-and-half in the fridge. We poured some into the blender, turned it on, scraped the sides and bottoms, added a bit more, then blended again. Poof! Perfect pineapple guava ice cream, in both texture and flavor! 

Two toddlers plus three adults all considered the resulting pineapple guava ice cream to be delicious, with no recommendations for improvements. Our toddler even asked for “mo-ah” (more). 

Note: If you’re dairy-free or vegan, you can use coconut milk or a dairy-free cream substitute of your choice rather than half-and-half or cream.    

How to make your own pineapple guava ice cream in a blender

Below, we’ll show you how you can easily make your own pineapple guava ice cream in a blender. For the record, we do have an ice cream maker, but there’s no reason to use it for this recipe — and the texture is just as smooth and creamy as anything we’ve made in our ice cream maker! 

Supplies you’ll need:

• a good, multi-bladed blender (we love our Ninja) 
• ice cube tray OR freezer bags (we use silicone stasher bags because we prefer not to eat acidic foods out of plastic bags)

Ingredients (for four medium-sized servings):

• 1 cup of pineapple guava pulp (not skin), pureed
• 1 slightly over-ripe banana, cut into 1″ chunks (just starting to get brown specks) 
• 1 tsp lemon juice, ideally fresh
• 1/3 cup of organic half-and-half or heavy cream (or more if needed) 

No, you don’t need any added sugar for this recipe!

Step by step:

Step 1. Make pineapple guava pulp puree. 

First you’ll remove the pulp from your pineapple guava fruit. Don’t use the skins! 

Ideally, you have larger fruit to work with or this step could take a good bit of time! We used fruit from our ‘Mammoth’ pineapple guava plant.

Put the pineapple guava pulp in your blender with lemon juice, then puree until smooth. 

Step 2. Cut very ripe banana

Cut a slightly over-ripe banana into 1″ chunks.

You want your banana at the stage of ripeness where the skin is just starting to get some brown specks.

If you use a less ripe banana, your ice cream won’t be as smooth or sweet. Too ripe and it might add some off flavors. 

Step 3. Freeze ingredients 

At some point, our silicone ice cube tray become a toddler toy so we haven’t seen it for months. Thus we simply put all the ingredients into a silicone stasher bag, then into our freezer. This created extra work because I had to cut/break the frozen chunk apart before blending it. 

Ideally, you could instead pour your pineapple guava puree into an ice cube tray so you have easy-to-use chunks to work with. Your banana chunks can go into a stasher bag or standard freezer bag.  

Leave your ingredients in the freezer for at least two hours before using. 

Step 4. Blend into ice cream. 

When you’re ready to make your ice cream, remove the ingredients from your freezer and immediately blend them. Don’t let them sit out or thaw before using or you won’t get an ice cream consistency! 

After your initial blend, you’ll have an icy, slightly chunky consistency…

Now add your dairy (or dairy substitute) and blend again. Note: you’ll want to scrape the sides and bottom of your blender and re-blend to make sure all ingredients incorporated. 

You might also decide to use a bit more half-and-half than we did, but don’t overdo it or you’ll have runny ice cream!  

Voila! I scream, you scream, toddlers scream for mo-ah ice cream! 

Step 5. Serve or store 

Serve your pineapple guava ice cream immediately. Or if you’re making it for later use, store it in a stasher bag or covered in a freezer-safe dish, like a metal bread pan that you can easily get an ice cream scoop in to.  

Enjoy! Pineapple guava blender ice cream is one of the best and easiest to make ice cream recipes you’ll ever eat. And since there’s no sugar added, it’s even better! 

Recipe: Pineapple guava ice cream made in a blender (no added sugar)

We hope you enjoy every last spoonful of this feijoa/pineapple guava ice cream recipe as much as our family did!

 

KIGI,

Related articles you might enjoy:

• How to grow pineapple guavas in cooler climates
• Recipe: Fresh guava (true guavas) and Meyer lemon ice cream
• Recipe: Pawpaw & native passionfruit sorbet

… and more wildly delicious recipes from Tyrant Farms!