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Ice cream is a kid-favorite dessert (and let’s face it, adults too!), but store-bought ones often contain high fructose corn syrup, artificial colors and flavors, or other ingredients that we avoid.
Enter making ice cream at home! This butter pecan ice cream recipe is a healthy and incredibly delicious alternative to store-bought ice cream. It’s also really simple to make at home.
Healthy Ice Cream? Really?
Well, yes and no. Ice cream still contains plenty of sugar and should always be considered a treat. However, since I make my own I can control which ingredients I use and avoid those that I don’t like.
The ingredients I like include real maple syrup and raw honey instead of refined sugar from sugar beets. I leave out all the stabilizers, thickeners, preservatives, and artificial colors and flavors.
Most of all, it’s really fun to be able to customize the ice cream to make exactly the combination that I’m in the mood for! Which is what I did when I wanted butter pecan ice cream.
Homemade Butter Pecan Ice Cream
Ever wonder where the butter in butter pecan ice cream comes in? I did too, but Google wasn’t a very big help. If anyone out there knows, I’d love to hear about it!
Since I didn’t find a satisfactory answer from a quick search I decided to interpret the name literally and use butter. I browned the butter in a saucepan to give it a nice toasty flavor.
Then, I stirred in maple syrup, honey, and whole milk and heated it just until it was warm. Once it was warm I whisked in the egg yolks. It’s important to make sure that the milk mixture is just lukewarm to start with or you’ll scramble your egg yolks. If you do accidentally scramble them at some point, just strain the finished product before refrigerating it.
After that, I heated and stirred the mixture until it was nice and thick, then stirred in the heavy cream and vanilla.
Important Note: The final step before freezing is to make sure the ice cream base is well chilled. If you try to churn a warm ice cream mixture it will take far longer to freeze or may not even freeze at all.
Do I Need an Ice Cream Maker?
Need? No. I know ice cream makers aren’t the cheapest appliances so I understand the hesitancy. And if you’ve never made ice cream before and you’re not sure whether you’re going to do it more than once, you may want to try an alternative method first.
There’s always the classic tin can method. It’s a super fun science project for kids. And this article describes four other options. Just know that if you choose one of these methods, your ice cream will freeze more firmly than ice cream churned in a machine.
However, I love my ice cream maker and the soft, creamy ice cream it produces. I get enough use out of it that I consider it a completely worthwhile investment. Also, because homemade ice cream is so much cheaper to make than store-bought (not to mention healthier), I’m really saving money in the long run, right?
I’ll let you judge for yourself whether homemade ice cream is delicious enough to warrant buying an ice cream maker. I sure think it is though, so without further ado, here’s the recipe so you can try it for yourself:

Butter Pecan Ice Cream Recipe
Equipment
Ingredients
- 4 egg yolks
- 4 TBSP butter (or coconut oil)
- ¼ cup maple syrup
- ¼ cup honey
- ¼ tsp salt
- 2 cups whole milk (2 cups canned coconut milk)
- 2 cups heavy cream (or an additional 2 cups canned coconut milk)
- 2 TBSP vanilla extract
- ½ to 1 cup pecans (chopped)
Instructions
- In a skillet, toast the pecans for a few minutes or until aromatic.
- Set aside to cool.
- Separate the egg yolks from the whites.
- Set the whites aside for another use and place the yolks in a medium-size bowl and whisk.
- Set aside.
- In a medium-size saucepan, heat the butter over medium heat until it’s foamy and the butter solids have browned. If using coconut oil, just heat it in the pan to melt it.
- Whisk in the maple syrup, honey, salt, and 2 cups of whole milk or coconut milk.
- When slightly warmed, quickly whisk in the egg yolks.
- Heat until warmed and thickened, stirring constantly.
- Remove from the heat and strain if you’ve accidentally scrambled the eggs.
- Whisk in the remaining heavy cream or coconut milk and the vanilla extract.
- Refrigerate until chilled or overnight.
- Pour the ice cream mix and the toasted pecans into an ice cream maker or choose a method of freezing that does not require an ice cream maker.
- Turn on the ice cream maker and follow user instructions.
- Serve and enjoy immediately or freeze for later.
Notes
Nutrition
Next on our list to make: Mint chip, raspberry chip, mocha, and others…. what is your favorite?
Made my first batch in new ice cream maker. Followed instructions but mixture never froze. What did I do wrong?
Blessings,
Janis
I’ve made this recipe twice now, following it to a T, and it has not frozen either.??
I am looking forward to tying this recipe. I’ve been hunting everywhere for a decent vanilla that didnt require outragoues ingredients… oddly enough its been daunting. after i make this recipe as is I plan on trying it w/o the pecans and mor honey instead of maple or something to try and get a vanilla
Just made this with raw milk and grassfed butter and all honey, and the butter conglomerated into huge chunks. Blended in blender til smooth first but still clumped up. Anybody ever figure out how to smooth out the butter?
This was amazing! I toasted my pecans for the recipe. I will make this again and again!
O..M…G! I thought I didn’t like ice cream. Boy was I wrong!! This is absolutely delicious! I used all maple syrup, no honey. I wish I could rate this recipe 10 out of 5!
I made this with raw milk, grass-fed butter, and pastured egg yolks, and my butter didn’t mix in very well. The ice cream had a texture though it was still delicious. Any idea how to get the butter to mix in better? I waited until the butter was room temperature before mixing it.
Did you blend it really well in a blender?
I actually used raw milk, butter, and egg yolks as well and it didn’t mix well at all 🙁 the taste was amazing but the texture was totally off. I put everything in my Vitamix and blended until smooth then poured it into the Ice Cream Maker. Do you have any suggestions I could try to improve texture?
Excellent, flavorful recipe. I’m used to Haagen Dazs butter pecan and this is just as good. I mixed the ingredients in my nutribullet and heated the cream then folded it in to give it a smoother texture.
I’m waiting for a black walnut recipe?
Wonder if I could use whole milk kefir as the milk component….can’t see why not? Bit of a tangier flavor probably…
We just made this and it is sooo good. Every recipe I have tried from your site has turned out very well.
THANK YOU!!!!!
(I am looking forward to the Mint Chip recipe 🙂
just wondering if you soak the pecans and what method you use
We do the 24 hour soak, rinse, dehydrate…