Strawberry Cheesecake Ice Cream

I’ve been working on this Strawberry Cheesecake Ice Cream recipe for a while! Actually, that’s a lie, I’ve been working on an entirely different no-churn ice cream recipe, but I pivoted and created this during strawberry season. Fun fact: I don’t care for strawberry ice cream or many strawberry-flavored things. The only strawberry ice cream I will eat is Ben and Jerry’s Strawberry Cheesecake ice cream and I felt it was only right to make that my first ice cream recipe here on deepfriedhoney.

This recipe is incredibly simple and easy, and so delicious! It does require a bit of forethought tho. You’ll need to prepare a batch of my Simple Roasted Strawberries – that recipe debuted earlier this week, in case you missed it – and drain them of excess syrup and chop them into small pieces. But that’s incredibly easy too – the recipe only calls for two ingredients and five steps.

Strawberry Cheesecake Ice Cream Ingredients

Feel free to jump to the full recipe, but here are useful notes about the ingredients you will need to make this Strawberry Cheesecake Ice Cream recipe:

• Graham crackers, salted butter, light brown sugar: I crush them mostly into crumbs, but I like to leave some larger chunks just so the flavor doesn’t get completely lost amongst everything else. Butter and sugar are to help it congeal and stay a bit crunchier, and give it the full ‘crust of a cheesecake’ texture and flavor.
• Condensed milk, heavy whipping cream: Condensed milk and heavy whipping cream are pretty basic ingredients for all no-churn ice cream recipes. Understandably so, why would you bother making an egg custard base instead of just cracking a can of milk open for a no-churn recipe? Make sure the condensed milk is sweetened. It’s hard to find unsweetened condensed milk, but if it’s not clearly marked on the can just check the ingredient list: it should say milk and sugar. Make sure the whipping cream is at least 35% fat or the Strawberry Cheesecake Ice Cream won’t set properly.
• Cream cheese, vanilla bean paste: It’s not cheesecake-flavored vanilla bean ice cream without vanilla and cream cheese! The strawberries being roasted intensifies their flavor, and we want to make sure it doesn’t overpower the vanilla or the cream cheese so we use hefty amounts of both. You can substitute vanilla extract if you have no paste, but I definitely suggest picking up some paste if you can. Make sure the cream cheese is full fat. This isn’t the place for trying to save calories.
• Simple Roasted Strawberries: I think these are a major key to why this ice cream tastes so good, and roasting them rather than doing everything on the stovetop like you generally would for strawberry ice cream, is way easier. I don’t recommend fresh strawberries, as they’ll add moisture to the ice cream and affect the texture.

How to Make Strawberry Cheesecake Ice Cream

Full instructions are included in the recipe below, but here is a basic overview of what you’ll need to do, along with some important tidbits to help you make the most of this Strawberry Cheesecake Ice Cream recipe:

• Prepare for Ice Cream! Grab a freezer-safe dish that can hold at least 2 quarts and place it in the freezer to chill while you make the ice cream. Whisk together the graham cracker crumbs, brown sugar, and melted butter in a small bowl. Make sure the butter is well distributed, then set this bowl aside. In the bowl of a stand mixer, or in a mixing bowl using a hand mixer, whip the heavy whipping cream until stiff peaks form. Push that over somewhere, and grab another bowl. In this one, beat the cream cheese until light and fluffy, then add the condensed milk and vanilla bean paste. Continue beating until everything is combined, fluffy and there are no lumps.
• Build the Strawberry Cheesecake Ice Cream. Using a spatula, fold one-third of the whipped cream into the cream cheese mixture. Repeat until you’ve folded in all of the whipped cream and no more streaks remain.  Pull out the ice cream pan. Add half of the ice cream mixture. Spread it out into an even layer, and then dollop the top with roasted berries until you’ve used about two-thirds of them. Next, sprinkle half of the graham cracker mixture over the surface, between the roasted strawberries. Spread the remaining ice cream over the top in another even layer, and top it with berries and graham crackers just as before, saving about a tablespoon of each for decorating the top, if desired. Use the sharp end of a chef’s knife to gently swirl the berries and graham crackers into the ice cream, then smooth it back into an even layer, pressing down gently to make sure there’s not a lot of air trapped in there.  Top with the reserved berries and graham crackers.
• Chill the Ice Cream. Cover tightly with plastic wrap, pressing the plastic down directly against the surface of the ice cream and smoothing it out (this will prevent ice from forming on the surface. Cover the plastic wrap tightly with aluminum foil, then freeze. Freeze for at least 8 hours. When ready to serve, pull the ice cream from the freezer, remove the plastic and foil, and allow it to rest on the counter for a few minutes. Store your ice cream scoop in a cup of hot water and use that to scoop out the cream – preferably into one of my Strawberry Crunch Cones. Dassit! 

Obligatory Pinterest Graphics –

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