Salted Tahini Chocolate Ice Cream

This salted tahini chocolate ice cream is possibly the BEST homemade ice cream I’ve made yet. It’s rich, ultra-creamy, and everything you could want in a custard-style ice cream and more!

Plus, it’s dairy-free and refined sugar-free, but you can easily swap in regular dairy ingredients or cane sugar depending on preference. It’s such a flexible base!

The base is a double vanilla bean chocolate custard ice cream w/ tahini rippled through for both flavor and richness, plus sticky medjool date pieces and dark chocolate chunks! There’s a myriad of flavors in this, but they marry together so well! Plus, when the date pieces freeze into the ice cream, they have a chewy, caramel-like texture that pairs so well with the creamy ice cream.

Salted Tahini Chocolate Ice Cream Ingredients

• Egg yolks: The egg yolks in this recipe serve to not only stabilize the ice cream but also give it a super rich and creamy mouthfeel that you just can’t replicate with anything else. Standard large eggs yield ~18g of yolk; however, if you’re using smaller eggs or eggs from the farmer’s market, the yield will vary. So if you really want to get granular, I highly recommend weighing your yolks.
• Heavy cream and milk OR homemade nut milk: This recipe works with both dairy and non-dairy milk/cream. I’ve left two non-dairy options below. If you’re using regular dairy, you’ll need heavy cream and milk.
• Honey: I firmly believe that honey, cardamom, and pistachio is a flavor pairing made in heaven. Feel free to swap the honey out for granulated sugar.  
• Unsweetened Dutch process cocoa powder: Unlike regular cocoa, dutch process cocoa is alkalized to give it a smooth, less acidic flavor, and a deeper, richer, chocolate color.
• Tahini: Use any smooth and drippy tahini.
• Dark chocolate: Any unsweetened, 70% cocoa dark chocolate works; however, I’m partial to the Navitas Organics unsweetened cacao wafers. The bitter chocolate balances perfectly with the sweet custard.
• Medjool dates
• Espresso powder: Love this one from King Arthur.
• Ground vanilla or vanilla bean paste: Love the ground vanilla from Beyond Good.
• Vanilla extract: This base is a double vanilla custard, which uses both ground vanilla and vanilla extract. I like to add the vanilla extract at the tail end of the custard making process, once it’s been chilled; heat tends to inhibit vanilla extract flavor.
• Kosher salt: Specifically, Diamond Crystal kosher salt. If you’re using Morton kosher salt, reduce the salt by half. Morton is much saltier and denser than Diamond Crystal kosher salt.

Dairy-Free Alternatives

Leaving two dairy-free swaps for this ice cream base — the homemade nut milk alternative is my favorite. 

• Make the homemade nut milk by blending 4 cups (910 g) of water with 1 1/2  cups (215 g) of raw, unsalted cashews and 1 cup (140 g) of raw, unsalted almonds on high for 1 minute and 30 seconds or until super creamy and smooth. It’ll yield 760g of milk, which is how much you’ll need to make this recipe. Strain in a nut milk bag and store in a glass jar. It’ll keep well for 5-6 days, so feel free to make this ahead of time.
• Alternatively, swap the heavy cream and milk for equal parts of a store-bought dairy-free heavy cream and milk. Califia heavy cream is my go-to non-dairy heavy cream. For milk, any creamy cashew milk or coconut milk works — such as Elmhurst’s cashew milk, Califia’s coconut milk, or even my homemade house blend milk. 

Method 

Day One

Custard Base

Whisk the egg yolks in a small bowl and set aside.

Mix the cream and milk together in a pitcher and set aside. Add the honey, sifted cocoa powder, espresso powder, ground vanilla or vanilla paste, and salt to a large pot. Add about 1/4 of the cream and milk (or homemade nut milk) and whisk to combine, then whisk in the remaining milk and cream (or homemade nut milk). I like adding the milk gradually to avoid the cocoa powder clumping. Heat over medium heat until hot to the touch or 120°F.

Scoop about 1/2 cup of the milk mixture out, and, whisking constantly, stream it into the bowl of egg yolks. Repeat this twice more to temper the eggs. Then, whisking the milk mixture constantly, stream in the tempered eggs. Switch to a rubber spatula/large wooden spoon, and stir constantly (I typically stir the mixture every 10 seconds) until it thickens and coats the back of a spoon — temperature should be ~178°F. 

Remove the custard from the heat and whisk in 60 g of tahini.

Strain the mixture through a fine mesh sieve into a large bowl or pitcher to catch any gritty peanut bits. Then place the custard base in an ice bath, stirring constantly until cool. Once cool, whisk in the vanilla extract. Cover the base with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

Day Two

Churn & Freeze

Melt the cacao wafers and set aside to cool slightly — I like to transfer the melted chocolate to a small measuring pitcher to easily stream it into the ice cream.

Churn the ice cream as normal, but once it starts to crystallize (about 15 minutes in), start streaming in the chocolate. Keep the chocolate stream thin. Once the chocolate is streamed in, let the ice cream continue to churn for a few more minutes or until done, to break up the chocolate bits further. Typically, I let the ice cream churn an additional 5-8 minutes – add the chopped dates right before you’re done churning the ice cream. Pop the ice cream into your container, cover with a square of parchment paper (this helps prevent crystallization on the top) and let it chill in the fridge for at least 4 hours, ideally overnight.

Notes

• Heat tends to kill the flavor of vanilla extract, which is why I like adding it to the ice cream base after it’s chilled overnight.
• Medjool dates are super sticky and almost impossible to slice into tiny pieces at room temp, so I like to freeze the dates before chopping them up. Alternatively, you could tear the dates with your hands if they’re still too sticky to chop.
• One thing about the stracciatella is that you need an ice cream maker where the base bowl spins or the blades aren’t exposed. Otherwise, the chocolate will stick to the moving blades, and it’ll be a mess. For example, this doesn’t work with the KitchenAid ice cream bowl. This isn’t a hard rule, though. I do have an alternative solution that works just as well: Melt the chocolate, and using an offset spatula, spread it in a thin layer on a large parchment-lined sheet pan (I use a quarter sheet pan). Freeze, transfer the chocolate to a plastic bag, break the chocolate into tiny shards, and fold into the churned ice cream.

So excited for you to make this ice cream – it’s a family favorite! Don’t forget to leave a starred rating and review, love hearing from you!

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