This healthy frozen dessert for Mango Coconut Soft Serve is perfect for Cinco de Mayo or any day of the year. Every luscious spoonful is sweetened naturally with mango and banana and just a drizzle of agave is blended in.
If you’re trying to cut back on added sugar in your diet, this is the dessert for you!
There’s so much goodness in this soft serve “ice cream” frozen dessert—fiber, protein, and vitamin C—so let’s celebrate!
{My frozen treat is technically not ice cream, but it sure tastes like it.}
It’s hard to believe that a frozen, decadent-tasting dessert could have just 210 calories along with 7 grams of protein, 4 grams of fiber, and nearly 50% of your vitamin C requirement for the day.
And yes, that’s cottage cheese in the recipe, which delivers a creamy texture and a satisfying hit of protein.
Instead of topping my soft serve ice cream bowl with sprinkles (or Jimmies as we say here in New England), I top it with a healthy mixture of chia seeds, sliced almonds, and unsweetened shredded coconut.
- Serves: 3 to 4
- Serving size: about ½ cup
- Calories: 210
- Fat: 7g
- Saturated fat: 5g
- Carbohydrates: 31g
- Sodium: 180mg
- Fiber: 4g
- Protein: 7g
- 1½ cups frozen mango chunks
- 1 ripe banana, peeled, sliced and frozen
- ⅔ cup low-fat cottage cheese
- ¼ cup unsweetened shredded coconut
- 2 tablespoons orange juice
- ½ teaspoon orange zest
- 1 tablespoon agave nectar (or honey)
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- Toppings:
- 1 tablespoon toasted sliced almonds
- 1 tablespoon unsweetened shredded coconut, toasted
- 1 teaspoon chia seeds
- Orange slices, optional
- Remove the mango and banana from the freezer and allow to thaw slightly (about 10 minutes).
- Place the mango, banana, cottage cheese, ¼ cup shredded coconut, orange juice, orange zest, agave, vanilla extract, and cinnamon in the bowl of a food processor and process 30 seconds.
- Stop and scrape down the sides of the bowl. Continue to process until smooth and creamy, about 1 more minute. The mixture should resemble soft serve ice cream.
- Meanwhile, for the topping, place the almonds, 1 tablespoon coconut, and chia seeds in a small bowl and stir to combine.
- Scoop into 3 or 4 bowls and sprinkle evenly with the topping. Garnish with an orange slice as desired.
- Store any leftovers in the freezer in an airtight container. When ready to eat, remove from freezer, thaw about 15 minutes, stir, and serve.
What’s on your Cinco de Mayo menu?
Making this ASAP. Yum!!!!
Love The Recipes!
I can’t have banana’s! Do you have a another fruit I could use?
Hi Brenda: You could try this recipe with frozen pineapple or frozen strawberries. Let us know how it turns out!! 1 sliced banana is equal to about 1 cup, so sub with a cup of any other fruit of your choice. You can also add a bit more cottage cheese (maybe 3/4 cup total) to incorporate a bit more creaminess.
Thank you, I will try the other fruits. I will let you know how they turn out.
Could I substitute coconut cream OR milk for the cottage cheese?
Ps. Enjoy listening to your podcast. Very inspiring and ideas I plan to implement.
Karen, the cottage cheese thickens the soft serve so not sure if the coconut cream would have a similar effect. If you do try it please let us know if it works so we can share with others!
I tried this recipe with coconut cream (from Trader Joes). Because I can no longer have dairy, I thought it was great! I do like coconut, so if someone does not, they probably would not enjoy this. It had the consistency of soft serve ice cream. I did tweak the recipe. I added 3/4 coconut cream. And 1 cup strawberries instead of the banana. Thank you for sharing this recipe. I am excited to be able to have this treat during the upcoming summer months.
This has 2x the calories and nearly 2x the carbs of a 1/2 cup serving of ice cream. Perhaps this is lower in sugar, but in no way is this a “light” substitute for dessert, a term often conflated with healthy. Not to mention, the sweetener in mango, agave and banana is sugar. That’s why it tastes sweet.