Ice cream for breakfast? Ninja Creami makes a healthy frozen breakfast treat easy

Ice cream for breakfast? Well, sure, why not, especially when it's a wholesome and nutritious high-protein ice cream you make in your Ninja Creami. It might even be healthier than the breakfast you had this morning.

There are several different models of the Ninja Creami, including the Swirl, which I used. You can read my Ninja Creami Swirl review here. Any model will do for making delicious and healthy breakfast 'ice cream', the Swirl can just make it into soft serve if you like. You must freeze your ingredients in the provided container for 24 hours, so be sure to plan a day ahead.

Protein shakes

I've made a number of different protein-forward Creami recipes, but it might take some experimentation to find the ones you like the best. The simplest option is just to freeze a protein shake (or your milk of choice plus protein powder.) If those taste too plain or icy, you can doctor them with extras like vanilla extract, cacao powder, xanthan gum, pudding mix, collagen powder, cottage cheese, or fruit. You can process them on the CreamiFit setting if your Creami has that; if not, the Light Ice Cream setting will work. Personally, I’m not a big fan of protein powders and shakes. But if you do like them, you’ll like them even better as ice cream.

Just yogurt

Another very simple high protein option is to simply freeze a tub or two of your favorite flavored yogurt. That won't need any doctoring to produce a perfectly textured frozen yogurt treat. I used the Frozen Yogurt setting and sometimes also put it through the Swirl mechanism for a true frozen yogurt shop experience. Of course you can skip that step if you have a regular or Deluxe Ninja Creami and not the Swirl model. Either way, you'll probably want to experiment with mix-ins and toppings. Granola, fruit, and/or a drizzle of nut butter make nice breakfast frozen yogurt toppings. I’ve frozen a number of yogurts; my favorites have been apple pie, tiramisu, and creme brulee.

High protein base

Honestly, I have not yet found the perfect 'healthy vanilla Creami base', but I tried this concoction of vanilla greek yogurt, skim milk, and cottage cheese. Sure, it was healthy, and the texture was great, but it didn’t taste like much. The mangoes on top helped! There are so many recipes online, I’ll have to keep searching.

Simple frozen fruit sorbets

I often eat chia pudding for breakfast, a simple concoction of chia seeds, almond milk, and Greek yogurt. I recently made my usual chia pudding, but instead of topping it with fruit, I topped it with seeds, granola, and a few scoops of simple Ninja Creami sorbet. The one-ingredient sorbet was simply a can of peaches in juice, dumped into a Ninja Creami container. I processed it on the Sorbet cycle. This is delicious and works with any kind of fruit. Pears, mangoes, and pineapple are particular favorites. Of course, you can just make simple fruit sorbet for a light, refreshing breakfast.

Açai bowls

I made my own açai bowl with store-bought frozen açai cubes. I blended them with some fruit, milk, and sweetener and used the Lite Ice Cream setting. I topped mine with fruit, granola, hemp seeds, and almond butter, but you could also add coconut flakes, honey, yogurt, other seeds, nuts, or anything you like. This was tasty.

Yogurt, milk, and fruit

A simple cherry vanilla Creami, basically just equal parts milk of choice, vanilla yogurt, and cherries came out quite nicely. You could do this with any kind of fruit you like.

Just the tip of the icecreamberg

I keep thinking of more recipe ideas I want to try, there are so many breakfast-appropriate Ninja Creami recipes out there. And if you want to make a real full-on whole-milk-cream-egg-sugar ice cream and eat that for breakfast? No judgement here. Life is short — eat dessert first!