Vegan Hojicha Coconut Ice Cream

This Vegan Hojicha Coconut Ice Cream is silky smooth, infused with delicate coconut flavor, plus it has the roasted green tea wonders of hojicha tea running through it – it’s just delicious! The best part? You’re only 6 ingredients away from incredible vegan ice cream.

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

Inspired by the hojicha soft serve that I tasted on my travel to Japan, I knew that the amazing roasted green tea coffee-like flavor was just the best flavor for ice cream and I wanted to re-create my own at-home vegan version.

Making vegan ice cream that tastes great and has a great texture without dairy and eggs is a little bit tricky, and this recipe yields a creamy texture that is very scoopable thanks to the addition of vodka. The vodka helps control the hardness when frozen.

This recipe uses canned coconut milk and cream because they have the most consistent fat and water content of different non-dairy milk options. This creates a more consistent recipe texture that you will love.

Ingredients & Substitutions

Loose leaf hojicha tea – Loose leaf hojicha tea works best in this recipe and provides the best flavor. You can substitute with tea bags if it’s all you can find.

Sugar – I have used turbinado, granulated, and cane sugar in this recipe and they all work great.

Coconut milk – Use the kind that comes in cans. Know that there are many different non-dairy kinds of milk that you can use in non-dairy ice cream: cashew milk, coconut milk, soy milk, oat milk, etc. Each one will yield a different texture due to the different fat and water levels.

Coconut cream – Make sure the can of coconut cream is full-fat. Sometimes coconut cream is labeled 30% fat and that is not good enough for this recipe.

Vanilla extract – I encourage you to get the highest quality vanilla extract you can because it makes a big difference to the flavor of the ice cream. Some less expensive vanilla extracts are made with artificial flavoring instead of flavoring from real vanilla.

Vodka – Vodka does not freeze, and this ingredient is the key to keeping the texture of the ice cream soft enough to scoop.

How to Make this Recipe

We use an ice cream maker for this recipe so put the bowl section in the freezer ahead of time, preferably the night before.

Add the coconut milk, sugar, and vanilla extract together in a pan and heat over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture just barely simmers.

Note: It is important to stir constantly until the sugar completely dissolves so it doesn’t burn.

Remove the mixture from the heat. Next, add the hojicha leaves to the pan. Steep the tea leaves with the mixture for 30 minutes with the lid on.

Strain out the tea leaves using a strainer, nut milk bag, or cheesecloth. Don’t worry if some small bits remain – just make sure all the larger bits are removed. 

Now add in the coconut cream and vodka. Mix gently but thoroughly then transfer to the refrigerator to chill overnight.

The next day, add your chilled ice cream to your ice cream maker. Churn on the stir setting until your ice cream is the thickness of soft serve ice cream, which should take about 20-25 minutes.

Transfer the ice cream to a container that you can safely freeze, and cover the top with a lid or parchment paper.

Freeze the ice cream for at least 4 hours, and then you’re ready to scoop serve! After freezing overnight, let it thaw 10-15 minutes before scooping.

This ice cream will feel different in texture from regular ice cream, and that’s normal. This is due to the fat content in whole milk or cream creating the characteristic creamy texture of normal ice cream. When you replace milk or cream with non-dairy liquids in ice cream, the tends to have a higher water-to-fat ratio which means that the ice cream freezes into a much harder block.

You’ll notice that when you buy store-bought non-dairy ice cream, the instructions often say to leave the ice cream out for at least 10 minutes to thaw before trying to scoop it.

Related Recipes

Ice cream is just the beginning when it comes to dairy-free treats! Explore more dairy-free recipes to satisfy your sweet cravings.

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This post was originally published in October of 2018 but was republished with new photos, step-by-step instructions, FAQs, a video, and tips in September of 2022.