I was really glad when I came up with this recipe during my frozen pop experiments. I love trying out different flavor combinations and my mom had told me about adding basil to her smoothies regularly, so I wanted to try out some basil in my frozen pops. I wondered which fruit would pair especially well with basil, and after drinking a blueberry basil flavored jun kombucha from the store, I decided to give blueberries a go with the basil. Now I will say, as much as I enjoy these blueberry basil pops, I don’t think this is a recipe that everyone will love. I don’t want that to discourage you from making them, you might be surprised by how much you fall in love with them. Or they might not be your thing. Jeff, for example, is not a huge basil fan, so these frozen pops are not his favorite out of the different kinds that I regularly make around here. If you’re wanting to please a crowd, the strawberry beet pops seem pretty popular with most people. I’m sharing this recipe for blueberry basil pops here because I love them enough that I feel someone out there will too, so this is for you basil fans!

Blueberry Basil Pops

1/4 cup basil

2 cups blueberries

2 dates (or more)

1 can coconut milk (13.5 oz.)

 

………….

Directions:

This recipe makes enough for 6 frozen pops, plus a little extra (to hold you over until your pops are frozen and ready to eat.) Same as before: You’ll need a blender and popsicle molds to make this recipe. To make the pops simply blend up your ingredients, pour the mixture into the molds, and stick the molds in the freezer. It can take up to five hours for them to freeze. You’ll want to leave about one-quarter inch of room at the top of each mold because the pops will expand a little as they freeze. To remove the pops from the stainless steel molds we have, we hold them under running water until they come out easily.)

Notes on Ingredients:

Jeff grew a lot of basil in the garden for me this year to make pesto, and I’ve also been using it for this frozen pop recipe. I have several family members who grow basil in their windowsills, it’s a wonderful herb you can grow yourself even if you don’t have much garden space (or even none at all.) You can also find basil at your local farmer’s market during the summertime, or at the grocery store. I love adding greens to my smoothies and frozen pops and my favorite greens to add are herbs, like cilantro and basil. I had no idea how many health benefits basil had until I read this article.

You can use fresh or frozen blueberries for this recipe. I added a few dates to soften these pops up a little bit, and depending on your taste preference, you can add more to soften them even more if you want to. I didn’t even notice the flavor of the dates because the flavor of the blueberries and basil is really what stands out the most. With the strawberry beet pops, the banana helps soften them up a bit, and for this recipe I chose dates instead. Recently I’ve been learning more about why dates are so good for you. (For fun, you can find two articles about dates: here and here.)

As I shared in my previous post about the strawberry beet pops, our favorite place to purchase coconut milk is from Thrive Market. It also happens to be our favorite place to buy dates. (I wrote about joining Thrive Market and also wrote about why I love the creamy coconut milk base for the pops I make in this post.) From before: If you order through my link, you can get 15% off your first order from Thrive Market. For every person who becomes a paid member through my link, our family receives $25 to spend at Thrive, which we so appreciate. When you purchase through my link it helps support my efforts here, and I thank you for it. Please know that I only promote products and companies that I believe in and Thrive Market is a company that I love.

(Oh, and one more thing I wanted to mention. We purchased some bamboo sticks awhile back for making our frozen pops and we love them. Though technically considered stirrer sticks and not popsicle sticks, we’ve found that they work great as popsicle sticks. I like that they are not splintery like so many popsicle sticks I’ve gotten in the past (especially nice when you’re serving them to kids), and they are also chemical-free. I feel with how many toxins we are exposed to in our world today, it’s a good idea to avoid exposure as much as we are able to and this is one more simple way to do that. Frozen pops just don’t sound as appealing to me with chemically treated wood in the center of them, you know? One bag of the bamboo ones last for such a long time, plus sometimes I wash the bamboo sticks after we’ve used them for our frozen pops and then save them for various craft projects. This is not an affiliate link by the way, just something I wanted to mention.)

I think if I could sum up these blueberry basil pops in one word it would be Refreshing. There’s something about the basil that gives these pops such a refreshing taste, perfect for a hot summer day. If you give this recipe a try, please leave me a comment and let me know what you think! (Awesome? Strange? Wonderfully surprising? Let me know!)

Enjoy!