I Made Trader Joe’s Cottage Cheese Ice Cream Recipe—My Kids Yelled “Hooray!”

With warmer days ahead, the soups and stews in my freezer are being replaced with extra fresh-picked strawberries and ice cream… lots and lots of ice cream. It’s an easy dessert to keep on hand to appease antsy kids (especially with sprinkles) and to quick-fix a sweet craving.

Though the ice cream aisle is packed with delicious options, it’s easy to create your own without an ice cream maker or a lot of fuss. Banana nice cream, no-churn vanilla ice cream, and the cottage cheese ice cream that took social media by storm last summer—you’re doing little more than pummeling ingredients in a blender or food processor and tossing them in the freezer.

When Trader Joe’s summer newsletter landed in my inbox with an ice cream recipe called Cottage Cheesy Lemon Freezy, I asked my kids if it sounded good. They yelled (because they only have one volume), “Yes! I love lemon!” and “Ewww… why is it cheesy?”

I tried the recipe and it isn’t cheesy per se. It uses whipped cottage cheese as the base. Then, ribbons of lemon curd and crumbled lemon cookies are folded in. When I pulled it out of the freezer for the kids to try, they yelled (help, my ears), “Hooray!” and we ate the whole batch.

How I Make Trader Joe’s Cottage Cheesy Lemon Freezy

You’ll need:

• 1 (10.5-ounce) jar lemon curd (I like Bonne Maman’s version too)
• 1 (32-ounce) container full-fat cottage cheese
• 1 cup roughly chopped roasted, salted almonds
• 1 sleeve Trader Joe’s Meyer Lemon Cookie Thins

Scrape the lemon curd into a large container and stir it with a rubber spatula to loosen. Use a lidded, freezer-friendly vessel because you’ll mix and store the ice cream in it.

Add the cottage cheese to a food processor and blend it for one minute. Use a rubber spatula to scrape the sides and process for 30 more seconds. The mixture will look smooth. You can do this with a high-speed or immersion blender.

Scrape the whipped cottage cheese on the lemon curd. Add the almonds and use your hands to break the cookies in. Gently mix the ingredients to combine. I prefer visible ribbons of lemon curd throughout, so I give it five or six big-motion stirs. Go at it with more vigor if you want a more homogenous mixture.

Cover the container tightly and freeze for four to six hours, depending on how chilly your freezer is. Scoop and serve with more crumbled lemon cookies on top.

My Verdict

This ice cream isn’t too sweet and has a little pucker. If you add extra barely-crumbled cookies, you get gleeful bites of buttery textured goodness. It’s delicious, but know that cottage cheese has a lot less fat than cream, so it is lighter, icier, and more textured than regular ice cream.

Before you jump in, here are two tips:

• Trader Joe’s recipe makes a lot of ice cream—you’ll end up with a little over a quart. I bet using a 16-ounce container of cottage cheese and keeping the quantities of the other ingredients the same would result in a sweeter, tarter, and most intensely flavored ice cream.
• Cottage cheese ice cream freezes solid because it contains little fat or sugar. This makes it hard to scoop, which is a downside but not a deal breaker. If the ice cream is too hard, let it sit on your kitchen counter until it’s soft enough to scoop. I wouldn’t microwave it.