To make sorbet in your ice cream maker, churn ice, sugar, and flavorings like chocolate or pureed fruit in the machine. Serve directly or freeze for a firmer result.

To make a slushie, combine fresh fruit or flavorings, sugar, and hot water, and freeze the mix. Then, add water or juice and run the machine on the slushie setting.

If there's no such setting, use a low speed, adding more liquid to thin the mixture out if needed. Use the frozen drink setting and re-spin it if it freezes to the basin’s sides.

Many ice cream makers have a removable, double-walled, insulated tumbler that you can use as a cooler to keep your store-bought ice creams and popsicles frozen.

You can either freeze the basin to keep the insides cool or simply remove the basin and put your popsicles, ice cream bars, or ice cream sandwiches inside along with ice.

To make cold dips for appetizers, add savory ingredients, like buffalo sauce and blue cheese, to your ice cream mixture, and churn using the regular ice cream setting.

If your ice cream maker has a special mix-in setting that slows the paddle when larger pieces are included, use it at the very end after the rest of the mixture is frozen.

Your ice cream maker can efficiently make frozen cocktails. It can handle both dairy and water or juice-based drinks, be it frozen margaritas or boozy milkshakes.

A machine with a frozen drink setting is ideal, but you can also add more liquid or re-spin the ice cream maker if you want to tweak the consistency of your frozen cocktail.