This is the creamiest, richest cookie dough ice cream around — and the best part is that you can make this at home without any special equipment!

There’s nothing quite as impressive as pulling out your own homemade ice cream for dessert! This recipe lets you make creamy ice cream without an ice cream machine or any other special kitchen gadgets. With its creamy vanilla base and the perfect amount of cooke dough bites, this no churn ice cream recipe is the best way to make homemade ice cream: easy, fun, and oh so delicious!

One other note about this recipe: Often, in homemade cookie dough ice cream recipes, the dough freezes into hard little tooth-breaking chunks. I spent a good deal of time making sure that this no churn chocolate chip cooke dough ice cream recipe did not fall into that trap. The cookie dough bites in this version freeze nice and soft, making them easy to scoop with a regular ice cream scoop, and easy to eat without a trip to the dentist!

Why you want this recipe

• creamy vanilla ice cream with soft cookie dough chunks
• no ice cream machine needed!
• 3 ingredient base
• easy enough for beginners!

​Ingredients

This recipe is made from a super simple 3 ingredient base. Then we add edible cookie dough specially made to keep it from freezing hard!

• Whipping Cream:Heavy whipping cream forms the base of the vanilla ice cream. You will also need it in the cookie dough. Do not substitute this ingredient!
• Sweetened Condensed Milk: You will need 14.5 oz of sweetened condensed milk. You can use either the full-fat version, or the light one for this recipe!
• Vanilla Extract: This gives the base it’s flavor and is also used in the cookie dough. This can be subbed with vanilla bean paste.
• Butter/Margarine: I know that purists will not like what I have to say, but you can use either butter or margarine in this recipe and still get a delicious flavor!
• Shortening: Adding this helps keep the dough soft when it freezes. You can sub this with an equal amount of butter or margarine.
• Brown Sugar: I love the combination of brown and white sugar in the cookie dough, but you can sub with white sugar if you don’t have brown. 
• White Sugar: You can sub this with brown sugar if you need too!
• Baked Flour: Raw flour is actually as dangerous as raw eggs. Since the cookie dough in this recipe will not be baked, make sure that you are baking your flour before use!
• Chocolate Chips: You can use any kind of chocolate chips: white chocolate, milk chocolate, semi-sweet, or dark! You can also use mini chocolate chips if you’d like.

Step 1 | Make the Ice Cream Base

For extremely complete instructions with tips and step-by-step pictures, you can check out my no churn vanilla ice cream post. I’ll give you the quick ‘n dirty here: 

Start by whipping the heavy cream in a large bowl  using an electric mixer  on medium speed until you get stiff peaks. In medium bowl, mix your sweetened condensed milk and vanilla extract. Then, use 1 cup of whipped cream to lighten the milk mixture. Finally, fold the milk mixture into the remaining whipped cream until smooth. Pour your ice cream base into a loaf pan, cover it with plastic wrap, and put it in the freezer for 2 hours!

Step 2 | Make the Cookie Dough

At some point during the 2 hours your ice cream base is freezing, you can make the dough. 

Start by creaming the sugars, butter/margarine, heavy cream, and shortening. 

Add the flour and mix until the dough comes together. If it’s too dry, add more whipping cream until you get the desired consistency. 

Add the chocolate chips and mix, and you have freezer-ready cookie dough!

Step 3 | Add Dough and Final Freeze

When your ice cream mixture has frozen for 2 hours, it’s opportunity to add mix-ins — in this case, your cookie dough! The ice cream should not be frozen hard; this first freeze is to get the ice cream thickened enough that the mix-ins won’t all sink to the bottom. Stirring it mid-freeze also keeps ice crystals from forming, so it’s kinda two birds with one stone.

Stir the vanilla ice cream base around to break it up, then sprinkle cookie dough bits into the pan. Stir the small pieces in, then smooth the ice cream out and sprinkle the top with the rest of your dough. 

Once you’ve loaded your ice cream up with all the cookie dough your heart desires, cover it with the plastic wrap and return it to the fridge to freeze hard. That should take at least another 2 hours. 

Step 4 | Enjoy!

When you’re ready to eat, pull your ice cream out and let it sit for about 5 minutes to soften up. Then scoop your ice cream and serve!

Why Does the Dough Stay Soft?

One word: fat! In a few more words, the higher the fat content, the softer something remains when frozen. Regular homemade chocolate chip cookie dough uses eggs to provide liquid and fat. Omitting the eggs is part of why so many edible cookie dough mix-ins freeze hard. 

That presented this conundrum: we needed to find liquid somewhere with a high fat content and less chance of salmonella poisoning than raw eggs. Heavy cream is the perfect answer — it provides a high fat content that, along with the butter/margarine, is enough to keep this cookie dough pliable and soft, even after freezing!

Variations

​You can use the same techniques you learn from this recipe to make a ton of different variations. Here are a few I’ve tried myself: 

• Chocolate Cookie Dough Ice Cream: Use a no churn chocolate ice cream base to make the richest, chocolatey-est version around!
• Snickerdoodle Cookie Dough Ice Cream: You can follow the instructions to make this easy edible snickerdoodle cookie dough, but replace the water/whole milk with heavy cream to keep it soft when frozen. 
• Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Ice Cream: Use this recipe for peanut butter cookie dough just as written, and add it to either a vanilla or chocolate base!