Last updated on October 20, 2023
We are Italians and we share our authentic recipe for homemade Pistachio ice cream: Italian gelato with milk, whipping cream, white sugar and pistachios. With or without eggs, quick and very easy to make
In Italy we say that you recognize a good ice cream shop by the quality of its pistachio ice cream. You can tell, from the pistachio ice cream flavor, whether the ice cream parlor has put love into making ice cream, or whether it is merely there to sell cold desserts.
Also because the pistachio ice cream from the ice cream parlor sometimes has a brownish color and tastes more like hazelnut than pistachio.
Instead, the pistachio ice cream you make at home with fresh ingredients is green and really tastes like pistachios.
On this page we make pistachio gelato: we share our recipe and show the preparation steps.
👉 On All Italian we publish several more recipes to make Italian ice cream at home: without eggs (which we call 🔊 fiordilatte in Italy), with eggs (🔊 gelato alla crema, chocolate ice cream.
And of course, you'll find the most special recipes in our ice cream recipe book.
The Italian words of this page:
| 🔊 Gelato | Ice cream |
| 🔊 Pistacchio | Pistachio |
| 🔊 Gelato al pistacchio | pistachio ice cream |
You can make pistachio ice cream at home in (at least) two ways:
In our recipe we make pistachio ice cream without eggs. It is the quickest version, and even though there are no eggs, the ice cream is very tasty and creamy.
With eggs, the preparation is longer: you have to mix the mixture on the stove until it almost boils, then wait a couple of hours to let it cool in the refrigerator. This recipe is based on the gelato alla crema ice cream flavour with eggs.
We prefer the first version: it's easier and quicker to prepare, and it's also lighter and healthier.
Our Italian pistachio ice cream is based on the Italian gelato basic recipe with milk.
Since we do not use eggs, the preparation is very fast: it takes less than an hour.
The ingredients of pistachio ice cream are whole milk, whipping cream, sugar and chopped pistachios.
| Ingredient image | Ingredient name | Cups | Grams | Ounces |
|
Whole milk | 1.3 cup | 320 g | 11.28 oz |
|
Whipping cream | 0.4 cup | 100 g | 3.53 oz |
|
Sugar | 0.4 cup | 80 g | 2.82 oz |
|
Shelled pistachios | 1 cup | 120 g | 4.23 oz |
We recommend using shelled and unsalted pistachios. Both raw and roasted are fine to make gelato.
For a creamy and flavorful ice cream we use fresh whole milk about 3.5% fat; whipping cream 35% fat and white sugar.
Pistachio ice cream is also very good sweetened with honey. You can experiment by replacing 30 g of sugar with 30 g of honey. Ice cream gets more flavor, especially if you use quality honey.
For our recipe, we used one of the most popular models of compressor ice cream makers in our country. The preparation steps are virtually the same with almost all ice cream makers.
If you use an ice cream maker with freezer bowl, it must already be well frozen before you start making ice cream.
We also wrote detailed guide about using the ice cream maker.
For each ingredient we indicate both the volume in cups and the weight in ounces and grams.
In the US, most online ice cream recipes indicate the ingredients in cups: it's a very practical unit, in which each ingredient is already converted into volume, so you don't need a scale.
👉 To be more accurate, however, we prefer to weigh all the ingredients: both solids and liquids before pouring them into the ice cream mixture.
For this you need a kitchen scale, preferably a digital one, which usually expresses the weight in ounces (oz) and/or grams (g).
Since we do not use eggs in this recipe, we only have to mix the ingredients: no heating is required and there are no waiting times.
The first step is also one of the most important for the success of a good pistachio ice cream.
Put the pistachios in the blender: better if a quite powerful one. Try to chop the pistachios as best you can: this will give you a basic pistachio paste, good for making a creamy gelato.
If you use a compressor ice cream maker, it is time to turn it on.
It usually takes about 10-15 minutes for the ice cream maker to be cold and ready to make ice cream.
It is in fact important to always pour cold ingredients in the cold ice cream maker.
While the ice cream maker cools down, we mix the pistachio paste with the other ingredients.
Pour the basic ingredients into a bowl: pistachio paste, whipping cream, milk, sugar.
Pour in the liquids first, then add pistachio paste and sugar.
You don't have to whip the cream before adding it to the other ingredients!
Mix the ingredients with an immersion mixer on low speed until the mixture is homogeneous and smooth.
Pour the mixture into the ice cream maker and make sure that:
the ice cream maker is cold enough. Some ice cream machines display the temperature: to make gelato it must be at least -7.6 °F (-22 °C).
We pour the mixture after at least 10 minutes that the ice cream maker has been running: this way we know for sure that it is ready to make the ice cream.
Make also sure that the mixing paddle is already rotating.
👉 Your ice cream maker probably has an opening that's useful for pouring the mixture without lifting the lid completely, preventing the cold from spreading.
It is important to pour cold ice cream mixture into a cold ice cream maker: this applies to all ice cream makers, with compressor and with freezer element.
Usually the ice cream maker takes half an hour to make ice cream. You can check the gelato through the transparent lid.
The ice cream is ready when the rotating paddle stops or the ice maker timer runs out.
With a little experience, you'll understand just the right time to get the ice out of your ice cream maker.
Your Italian pistachio gelato is ready, tasty and creamy. Buon appetito! 🍨
In the restaurant in Italy, when you finish eating, the waiter will ask: 🔊 andava tutto bene? (was everything fine?)
Pistachio ice cream made with the best pistachios (pistachios from the city of Bronte are famous in Italy) has a pale green color.
The bright green color in an ice cream likely indicates the presence of coloring agents.
If you observe, all ice creams made with milk have a faded color, ranging from white to light brown.
This is because the ice cream is made with dairy products. For example, there is a big color difference between strawberry ice cream with milk and whipping cream and strawberry sorbet, that retains the bright color of the strawberries.
Why doesn't pistachio ice cream taste like pistachio? This is actually a common question. The taste depends on the quality of the pistachios used by the ice cream vendor.
Pistachio ice cream of good quality does taste like pistachio, of course. In Italy, the best ice cream parlors use pistachio nuts from Bronte, which without the addition of coloring agents gives a light brown ice cream that really tastes like pistachio.
Instead, you often eat pistachio ice cream that is very green but has a faint nutty taste.
The pistachio plant was imported to Sicily by the Arabs: today it grows on the volcano Etna, above 600 meters.
The green pistachio from Bronte is a DOP product and is known in Italy for its intense taste.
For the village of Bronte, in the province of Catania, the production of quality pistachios is an important commercial activity. That is why the Bronte pistachios are also called the green gold.
We regularly update these pages on Italian gelato with recipes we make at home with the ice cream maker.
