This Simple Ingredient Makes Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream Taste Like It's From A Creamery

While it's often used as a byword for boring, vanilla is anything but. Perhaps its most iconic role is in vanilla ice cream – the best-selling flavor in the U.S. — beloved for its classic, comforting taste. Beyond the subtle richness of milk, cream, and sugar, vanilla itself is the key flavor that gives this treat its personality. To learn how to best incorporate its earthy, creamy, floral complexity into ice cream, Chowhound spoke with Kendall Melton, Director of Culinary Operations at Lick Honest Ice Creams, a Texas-based ice cream shop known for unique flavors and local ingredients.

Vanilla comes in many forms that range from extract, to paste, and pods. Melton says that which one you use depends on your desired flavor intensity. "For me, vanilla extract is punchy, she's recognizable as vanilla on the palate, and she's the quickest way to deliver the most identifiable flavor notes to your guest. If I want something rounder on the palate, and a bit more luxurious and floral, I go with vanilla bean paste," Melton said. She noted that paste packs a flavor wallop, so you only need a very small amount. "If I'm looking for a breath of vanilla, a note that I don't want to linger, I roll with vanilla bean pods," she added. If you go the pod route, Melton embraces saving the pods like Gordon Ramsay to make vanilla sugar or even making her own glitter vanilla syrup for drinks.

Kendall Melton is a fan of using vanilla pods, but mentioned they are not always a practical choice for making large quantities of ice cream. If you're making smaller batches at home, pods work just fine, although she does emphasize that different forms of vanilla are best incorporated into the ice cream's base at different points in the process. Vanilla pods are infused with heat and then strained out before churning, while paste and extract are added later to preserve the integrity of their flavors. Melton also enjoys using a combination of pods and paste. "The combination of the two — when used in fractional amounts — can deliver such a stunning hug of vanilla that it can be simultaneously nostalgic and toasty and refreshing and sparky," she said.

Melton's biggest homemade ice cream no-no is using imitation vanilla. She favors fair-trade products and recommended brands like Nielsen-Massey, Singing Dog, or Frontier Co-op. Melton's final tip for home creamers is to use high-quality dairy products. "Aim for organic, pasture-raised dairy sources. Just like we are what we eat, so are our cow friends, and you can tell," she said. From there, home creamers can get to work using either an ice cream machine or one of the countless hacks for homemade ice cream delight, ranging from bags to coffee cans, hand mixers, or even ice cube trays. If all of this talk of vanilla ice cream has you jonesing for a pint, try one of these top-rated vanilla ice creams.