Homemade Lemon Gelato Recipe (2024)

Lemon gelato is a classic flavor made with a few simple ingredients.

Making lemon gelato at home is very easy. We'll show you all the steps in a simple but complete way to make homemade lemon gelato with an ice cream maker or without an ice cream maker.

You need only good organic untreated lemons, milk, heavy cream and sugar.

This quick and easy preparation, without eggs and without cooking, requires only one basic rule for its success: the freshness and high quality of the ingredients.

The milk must be whole and fresh, so DO NOT use skim or long-life milk or powdered milk.

The heavy cream must also be of high quality and fresh.

Finally, the lemons, as we have already mentioned, must be of excellent quality, very juicy and scented. It's not necessary to use the zest to make lemon gelato, it depends on your taste, but it's still better if they are organic lemons.

Italian Gelato al Limone is one of the most popular summer desserts ever. It must be sweet but not too much, so to keep its freshness and thirst-quenching power.

So let's see how to easily make homemade Lemon Gelato, the freshest and most thirst-quenching dessert of all summer!

Gelatiera

• The best performing gelato machine is Lello 4080 Musso Lussino 1.5-Quart Ice Cream Maker. It's made entirely in Italy but have spread successfully throughout the world. This model is made for home use but has the same features as the professional machines. Small, with a large, non-removable bowl. The spatula is made of stainless steel. It has a powerful and robust refrigeration system to achieve professional performance without pre-cooling.
• Another high-performance ice cream maker is the Whynter ICM-200LS Automatic Ice Cream Maker (built-in compressor, no pre-freezing). Incredibly easy to use, you can create delicious gelato in the comfort of your own home. Ideal for entertaining, this high capacity unit makes up to two quarts of your favorite frozen dessert in a single batch.
• Other types of gelato makers, without a compressor, plan to keep the special container of the machine in the freezer many hours ahead of time to cool the ingredients while mixing them, but its autonomy is quite short. Among these we recommend Cuisinart Automatic Frozen Yogurt, Sorbet, and Ice Cream Maker which in our opinion is inexpensive and practical.

Other Kitchen Tools

• If you want to make gelato without an ice cream maker, the result is still good if you follow our recipe well. In this case, it's useful a gelato container. You need it in any case, even if you don't eat immediately all the gelato, even if you make your lemon gelato with the ice cream maker.
• To make Lemon gelato you need a citrus squeezer and a fine-mesh strainer to strain the juice.
• A juice extractor machine can be very useful for making excellent lemon gelato. With this appliance the juice is much more concentrated and tasty.
• Other accessories that you can use to serve your homemade gelato can be the tool to make the gelato scoops or the handy scoops to make sundaes of gelato. Finally the waffle cones that kids (and adults, why not!) love so much!

Storage

You can store Lemon Gelato in the freezer for about ten days. Remember to take it out about 10 minutes before serving.

Lemon Gelato: Tips and Variations

Remember that it is important to strain the lemon juice after squeezing it, to remove the bits of pulp so that the gelato is velvety.

If you do not eat all the Lemon Gelato right away, you can store it in a tray in the freezer. Remember to remove it from the freezer at least 10 minutes before serving to make it soft and creamy again.

The watery part of the lemon juice freezes and the homemade gelato hardens after hours in the freezer despite the presence of sugar and cream. This is even more true for homemade fruit gelato.

• LIME: If you like lime, with the same proportions, you can substitute lemon juice for lime juice to get a different, very intense and very summery taste! Or you can also decide to make half lemon juice and half lime juice.
• LEMON ZEST: For a stronger, more aromatic lemon flavor, you can add the grated zest of one or half a lemon. But be careful! Not everyone likes to compromise the smooth, soft, velvety texture of gelato with bits of zest. In the end, it's a matter of taste. More over, if you are not very careful to grate only the yellow part, the white part of the lemon might make your gelato really bitter.
• VEGAN: If you are lactose intolerant or have chosen to follow a 100% plant-based diet, you can replace the milk and heavy cream with soy or other plant-based milk and cream. Just make sure that the cream in question is dessert cream, the whipping kind, to be clear.

How to Serve Gelato al Limone

Lemon Gelato or Gelato al Limone is one of the most popular summer desserts ever. Sweet but with a fresh taste, it's a great end to a meal or a delicious snack, especially in the hot season.

Compared to the classic lemon sorbet (which, like all sorbets, is a frozen dessert consisting only of sugar and fruit), lemon gelato includes a fatty part, consisting of milk and cream. Keep this fact in mind if you want to enjoy lemon gelato after a rich meal.

Lemon Gelato is often combined with Strawberry Gelato. Like Fior di Latte gelato and Chocolate Gelato, Strawberry and Lemon are the most popular classic pairings and must-have flavors in every Italian Gelateria.

Lemon Gelato in Lemon Shells

An original idea is to serve lemon gelato inside the emptied fruit. In this way, the squeezed lemon halves can be reused.

With a teaspoon or knife, remove all the peel and residue left inside the lemon. Leave only the outer peel.

Cut off a small piece of the base to make it stable, being careful not to puncture the peel.

When the lemon peels are ready, they can be stored in the refrigerator for about two days or in the freezer for use as needed.

Recipe Recap