Full Fat Cottage Cheese Should Be The Star Of Homemade Ice Cream

Cottage cheese isn't exactly the trendiest of ingredients. If it had a day, it was most likely back in the '70s when it was said to be the favorite food of then-President Nixon (who allegedly ate it with ketchup). Cottage cheese is relatively low in calories, true, which is why it's long been a staple of diet platters, but these days we're more inclined to use it as a secret ingredient in recipes where it can add a tiny bit of tang to dishes as diverse as scrambled eggs, mashed potatoes, pancakes, and yes, even ice cream.

Developer Christina Musgrave came up with this easy no-churn cottage cheese ice cream recipe that can be whipped up (literally) in mere minutes (also literally). She is emphatic, however, that you can't use just any kind of cottage cheese to make it. None of the low or fat-free kinds here –- instead, says Musgrave, "Full-fat cottage cheese will give a creamy texture that resembles ice cream." She points out, too, that this ingredient gives the dessert "much more protein" than is found in real ice cream. Musgrave says not a word on the subject of curds, however, and since the cottage cheese is blended with other ingredients into a smooth and ice cream-like concoction, it seems as if either the small or large curd varieties would work equally well.

Basically, all you need to do to make this ice cream (or ice cream-adjacent frozen dessert, if you want to be picky about nomenclature) is dump the cottage cheese into a food processor along with just two other things: peanut butter and honey. Once the mixture is smooth and homogeneous, you'll stir in some chocolate chips. If peanut butter-honey-chocolate chip ice cream does not particularly appeal as a flavor, though, there are certain changes you can make.

While the peanut butter may be serving a textural purpose here, Musgrave allows that "you could use a different nut butter if you prefer." Seed butter, of course, could also work if you have a nut allergy. If honey isn't your favorite sweetener, you could try swapping it out for some maple or fruit-flavored syrup, or else make a simple syrup of sugar and water for sweetening sans flavor. As for the chocolate chips, you can replace them with milk or white chocolate or some other type of chips or with fruit, nuts, or coconut. You can also mix and match your add-ins, but Musgrave advises: "Reduce the chocolate chip amount if you add additional things to keep the texture correct." As long as you stick to ¼ cup of whatever it is you wish to add, though, your cottage cheese concoction should come out just fine.