Carrot Mango Ice Pops: A Frozen Dessert With No Added Sugar

Nutrition Snapshot

• Carrot, orange, and mango give these pops their orange pigments, the carotenoids that fit an anti-inflammatory eating pattern.
• Whole milk Greek yogurt adds protein and a creamy texture, and serving a pop after a meal improves carotenoid absorption.
• Juicing removes the fiber from the carrot and the orange, so use the more fiber swap in the notes to get it back.

A frozen dessert is one of the easier places to put a vegetable, and this one gets carrots into a child who turns them down cooked. Carrot juice, mango, orange juice, lime, and whole milk yogurt go into the blender, and nothing is added to sweeten them. Fifteen minutes gets you ten pops that hold in the freezer for two months.

Serve These After a Meal, Because Fat Is What Carries Carotenoids In

Carrot, mango, and orange all carry carotenoids, the orange and yellow pigments that include beta carotene. In a whole raw carrot most of the pigment stays inside plant cell walls, and chewing opens only some of them. Juicing and blending break those walls first, so the pigment in these pops is already released.

Carotenoids move into the body with dietary fat, so absorption depends on the fat in the meal around them. People who ate a salad with fat free dressing absorbed almost none of the carotenoids in it (Brown MJ, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2004, PMID 15277161). The yogurt supplies a little fat. Serve a pop after a meal that has fat in it and you absorb more.

What’s in a Serving

Each pop holds about a third of a cup of carrot, mango, and orange, which is most of a half cup serving of produce. The deep orange color comes from the carotenoids, most of them from the carrot and the mango. Your body converts some of that beta carotene into vitamin A, and the rest circulates intact. The yogurt adds a little protein.

All of the sugar here comes from the fruit and the juice, and nothing is added. Juicing removes the pulp from the carrot and the orange, so a pop has almost no fiber. Most of what is in a pop came from juice, so make it one part of the day’s fruit. The card below shows the calculated figures for one pop.

What to Buy

Carrot Juice

Buy 100 percent carrot juice from the refrigerated case, and read the label for a second fruit. Many bottles sold as carrot juice are carrot and apple, which raises the sugar without adding carotenoids. A bottle that lists carrot alone is what this recipe is built on.

Frozen Mango

Frozen mango is picked ripe and chills the mix as it blends, so the pops set faster. Fresh ripe mango works in the same amount if you add three or four ice cubes to the blender.

Plain Whole Milk Greek Yogurt

Use plain yogurt, since the vanilla kind carries added sugar. Choose whole milk rather than nonfat. The milk fat adds to the fat that carries the carotenoids, and it gives the pop a richer taste. Greek style is thicker than regular yogurt, and that thickness gives the finished pop a creamy texture.

Who This Fits and Who Goes Easy

These pops suit anyone building an anti-inflammatory eating pattern around colorful produce. Anyone watching blood sugar can have one, counting it toward the day’s fruit. The fat and protein in a meal slow how fast the sugar in a pop reaches your blood. A pop after a meal gives a smaller rise than the same pop on its own.

Carrot juice and orange juice are both high in potassium. If you are on a potassium restriction for kidney disease, ask your dietitian before making these.

How to Make It Your Own

Frozen peach or pineapple works in place of the mango with no change to the texture. Half a cup of baby spinach blends in without much change to the flavor. It does turn the pops a muddy green, so use an opaque mold if the color is a problem. A pinch of ground ginger or cinnamon in the blender gives the finished pop a warmer flavor.

The swaps that change the nutrition:

• Dairy free: use two thirds of a cup of full fat canned coconut milk in place of the yogurt, which puts several times more fat in a pop and drops the protein.
• More fiber: replace the carrot juice with one medium carrot, grated, and the orange juice with a whole peeled orange, then blend an extra minute.
• Lower sugar: cut the orange juice to a quarter cup, and make up the volume with water and an extra squeeze of lime.
• Nut free and low sodium: the recipe is both as written.

Storage, Make-Ahead, and Serving Ideas

The recipe makes about thirty ounces of mixture, which fills ten three-ounce molds, and larger molds give you seven or eight pops. The pops need at least six hours in the freezer and are firmer after a night. If your molds are in use, blend the mixture the night before, refrigerate it, then pour and freeze in the morning.

They keep two months in the mold. You can also unmold them once solid and store them in a freezer bag with the air pressed out, to keep ice crystals off. To unmold one, dip the mold in warm water for twenty to thirty seconds and pull the stick straight up. Blended and refrigerated, the mixture also pours over ice as a drink.

Carrot, Mango, and Orange Make a Dessert Out of Produce

A pop built on carrot juice, mango, orange, and whole milk yogurt gives you carotenoids and a little protein. The sugar in it came with the fruit. Fiber is what juicing takes out, and the more fiber swap brings it back. Serve one after a meal that has fat in it and you absorb more of the pigment.

Serve It With

A pop next to a slice of Cinnamon Avocado Quick Bread for a Tender, Butter-Free Loaf makes a dessert plate with fruit, vegetable, and healthy fat on it. For an afternoon snack with more staying power, serve a pop alongside Crispy Roasted Chickpeas with Smoked Paprika and Garlic. For more on beta carotene and the other foods that carry it, see Beta Carotene: A Closer Look.