Trehalose is particularly useful in ice cream, gelato and sorbet because sugar does much more in a frozen dessert than simply make it sweet.

Sugar contributes to body, texture, freezing behaviour, scoopability and the way flavours are perceived. Simply reducing the amount of sugar can therefore leave a frozen dessert hard, icy or lacking body.

TREHA® trehalose provides another option.

At about 40% of the sweetness of ordinary sugar, TREHA® allows you to retain useful sugar solids while substantially reducing overall sweetness.[1] This makes it possible to create ice cream and sorbet where the flavour of milk, cream, fruit, chocolate, nuts and other ingredients can come through more clearly.

For most recipes, you do not need to redesign everything from scratch.

A good first experiment is:

Ice cream and gelato: replace around 20–30% of the sucrose with TREHA®.

For sorbet:

Start with TREHA® at around 5% of the total mixture.

Those two rules provide a practical starting point that sits comfortably within manufacturer guidance and professional frozen-dessert formulations.[2]

Why use Trehalose in ice cream?

TREHA® gives the ice-cream maker greater control over several characteristics at once:

• lower sweetness
• clearer ingredient flavours
• smooth, soft texture
• improved resistance to melting
• control of ice-crystal growth
• better frozen stability
• greater flexibility when balancing a recipe

Nagase Viita, the manufacturer of TREHA®, recommends 15–40% replacement of sucrose in vanilla ice cream and 5–8% TREHA® of the complete formulation in sorbet.[2]

For most home and professional users, the middle of these ranges is an excellent place to begin.

Reduce sweetness without simply removing sugar

This is perhaps the biggest advantage of TREHA® in frozen desserts.

Suppose an ice-cream recipe contains 150g of ordinary sugar.

Reducing that to 100g will certainly make the ice cream less sweet, but it also removes 50g of solids from the formulation. Those solids contribute to the physical properties of the finished ice cream.

Replacing part of the sucrose with TREHA® instead allows you to retain those solids while reducing perceived sweetness.

For example:

150g sucrose

can become:

110g sucrose + 40g TREHA®

The total quantity of sugar remains similar, but the finished ice cream tastes considerably less sweet.

This gives you much more freedom to make the main ingredient taste like the main ingredient, rather than simply tasting of sugar.

How much Trehalose should I use in ice cream?

For a conventional dairy ice cream or gelato:

Start by replacing 20–30% of the sucrose with TREHA® by weight.

If your recipe contains:

200g sucrose

try:

150g sucrose + 50g TREHA®

That gives 25% replacement.

Nagase's wider recommended range for vanilla ice cream is 15–40% sucrose replacement, so there is plenty of scope to increase the amount of TREHA® where lower sweetness or stronger flavour expression is wanted.[2]

Practical starting ratios

These are starting points. Once you understand what TREHA® is doing in your recipe, it can be used much more extensively.

TREHA® in professional gelato

Professional gelato formulations commonly combine several different sugars rather than relying entirely on sucrose.

A published Sosa Fior di Latte formulation, for example, uses:

• 593g whole milk
• 160g cream
• 90g sucrose
• 44g trehalose
• 35g glucose powder
• 39g dextrose
• milk powder and stabiliser.[3]

TREHA® therefore makes up 4.4% of the complete gelato mix, working alongside sucrose, glucose and dextrose to create the desired balance.

This demonstrates an important principle of professional gelato making: sugars are ingredients with different technical properties, not simply different ways of making something sweet.

TREHA® adds another tool to that system.

Bring milk and cream flavours forward

Highly sweetened ice cream can easily mask delicate dairy flavours.

TREHA® allows sweetness to be reduced while retaining the sugar solids required for the formulation. Nagase specifically identifies stronger milk character as a benefit of replacing part of the sucrose with TREHA® in vanilla ice cream.[2]

This makes it particularly useful in:

• Fior di Latte
• vanilla ice cream
• clotted cream ice cream
• mascarpone gelato
• yoghurt frozen desserts
• cheesecake ice cream
• delicate nut flavours

Instead of increasing flavourings to compete with the sugar, you can reduce the sweetness that is obscuring them.

Trehalose in chocolate ice cream

The same principle works particularly well with chocolate.

Dark chocolate and cocoa contain complex bitter, roasted and acidic notes. Excessive sweetness can flatten those characteristics.

Replacing part of the sucrose with TREHA® allows the cocoa and chocolate flavours to become more prominent while maintaining the sugar solids required by the ice cream.

For chocolate ice cream, a good first trial is:

20–30% sucrose replacement with TREHA®

The same approach can work particularly well with:

• coffee
• pistachio
• hazelnut
• sesame
• tea
• spices
• salted flavours

The stronger you want the core ingredient to taste, the more useful control over sweetness becomes.

Trehalose and ice crystals

Ice crystals are one of the defining characteristics of frozen-dessert quality.

Very small crystals contribute to the smooth texture associated with good ice cream and gelato. As frozen desserts experience storage and temperature changes, crystals can grow and the product can become increasingly coarse or icy.

Trehalose has a particularly interesting effect on this process.

Controlled research comparing trehalose and sucrose solutions found TREHA® to be approximately twice as effective as sucrose at suppressing the growth rate of ice crystals under the experimental conditions.[4]

Nagase/Hayashibara has also demonstrated reduced ice-crystal growth in its own TREHA® frozen-food testing.

The practical benefit for the ice-cream maker is straightforward:

TREHA® can help control ice-crystal growth and support a smoother frozen texture during storage.

That becomes particularly valuable when a product is stored for days or weeks rather than eaten directly from the machine.

Hayashibara's ice-crystal testing

Hayashibara compared concentrated sucrose and TREHA® solutions under controlled freezing conditions.

In the sucrose sample, average measured ice-crystal area increased from 263.5 μm² to 377.4 μm².

In the TREHA® sample, it increased from 234.1 μm² to 296.9 μm².

That represents approximately:

45% less ice-crystal growth with TREHA® than sucrose in the test.

This is one of the properties that makes TREHA® particularly interesting for ice cream, sorbet and other frozen foods.

Smoother, softer frozen desserts

Nagase's own vanilla ice-cream and raspberry-sorbet formulations identify smooth, soft texture as a key benefit of TREHA®.[5]

Its vanilla recipe combines:

• milk
• cream
• concentrated skimmed milk
• 30g TREHA®
• egg yolk
• 35g sucrose
• glucose syrup.[5]

Rather than using trehalose in isolation, the formula combines several carbohydrates to deliver sweetness, solids and frozen texture.

This is a useful model for experimenting with TREHA® at home or professionally.

You do not need to eliminate sucrose. In many cases, TREHA® works best as part of the sugar system.

Trehalose and melting resistance

TREHA® can also improve the way a frozen dessert behaves after it leaves the freezer.

Nagase specifically identifies resistance to melting as a benefit of its TREHA® ice-cream and sorbet formulations.[5]

Independent research into artisanal ice cream has likewise shown increased melting resistance when trehalose replaces sucrose.[6]

That can be particularly useful for:

• restaurant desserts
• plated ice cream
• gelato displays
• ice-cream cakes
• buffets
• frozen dessert components
• products that need to retain their form during service

Better melting resistance gives the chef or manufacturer a wider serving window while helping the dessert maintain an attractive texture and appearance.

How to use TREHA® in sorbet

Sorbet may be one of the best applications for TREHA®.

A good fruit sorbet requires sufficient dissolved sugar to produce the right body and frozen texture. The difficulty is that the amount of sugar needed for the formulation can make delicate fruit taste excessively sweet.

TREHA® helps separate these two requirements.

Nagase recommends:

TREHA® at 5–8% of the complete sorbet formulation.[2]

For your first experiment, start at:

5% of total mix weight

So:

1kg sorbet mix = approximately 50g TREHA®

The remaining sucrose and glucose can then be balanced around the fruit and the desired finished sweetness.

Raspberry sorbet: a useful starting formula

Nagase publishes a simple raspberry sorbet containing:

• 230g raspberry purée
• 98g water
• 45g granulated sugar
• 20g TREHA®
• 16g glucose syrup.[5]

TREHA® represents almost exactly 5% of the finished formulation.

That makes it an excellent starting point for experimentation with other fruits.

The result takes advantage of one of TREHA®'s most useful characteristics in sorbet: retaining enough sugar solids for a smooth frozen dessert without allowing sweetness to overpower the fruit.

Make the fruit taste more like fruit

Fruit sorbet often involves a frustrating compromise.

You need:

enough sugar for good frozen texture

but you also want:

a clean, intense fruit flavour

Increasing sucrose can improve the physical formulation while making the sorbet progressively sweeter.

TREHA® gives you another route.

Because it is only about 40% as sweet as sucrose, more of the sugar solids can come from TREHA® without producing the same level of sweetness.[1]

Nagase specifically describes TREHA® as bringing the flavour of fruit to the foreground in sorbet.[2][5]

This makes it particularly attractive with:

• raspberry
• strawberry
• blackcurrant
• cherry
• passion fruit
• mango
• citrus
• pineapple
• rhubarb

The objective is simple: more fruit character, less intrusive sweetness.

Trehalose in soft serve

Soft serve uses a different balance of sugars, milk solids and stabilisers from conventional hard-packed ice cream.

TREHA® can therefore be useful at significantly lower concentrations.

Rather than immediately replacing a large proportion of the sucrose, start in the low single-digit percentage of the complete mix and assess:

• sweetness
• extrusion
• softness
• melting
• flavour
• holding behaviour

For commercial soft serve, the complete sugar and stabiliser system should be considered together.

Can I replace all the sugar with Trehalose?

TREHA® can be used at much higher levels than the 20–30% starting recommendation, particularly where very low sweetness is required.

Research into artisanal ice cream has shown that extensive sucrose replacement with trehalose can produce substantially increased melting resistance and much greater firmness.[6]

That makes high TREHA® formulations particularly interesting where the objective is unusual texture or very low sweetness.

For simply adapting an existing vanilla, chocolate or fruit ice cream, however, partial replacement is the easier place to begin.

Start at 20–30%, taste the result, then increase the TREHA® if you want still lower sweetness or stronger flavour expression.

Trehalose in savoury ice cream

Savoury frozen desserts are where TREHA® becomes particularly interesting.

Traditional sugar may still be required for the physical properties of the dessert, but the resulting sweetness can be completely inappropriate for a savoury dish.

TREHA® allows much greater quantities of functional sugar solids to be incorporated without making the finished product taste like a conventional dessert.

Possible applications include:

• cheese ice cream
• mustard ice cream
• herb sorbet
• vegetable sorbet
• olive-oil ice cream
• savoury granita
• frozen components for restaurant dishes

This opens up possibilities that are extremely difficult to achieve with sucrose alone.

The evidence also supports TREHA® as a serious ice-cream ingredient

Recent peer-reviewed work comparing sucrose alternatives in Fior di Latte ice cream found trehalose to provide the most balanced sensory results among the alternatives examined, as well as strong emulsifying performance.[7]

Combined with its established professional use and manufacturer guidance, this helps explain why TREHA® is increasingly useful to pastry chefs, gelato makers and food developers looking for more control over their frozen formulations.

A simple ice-cream experiment

If you already have a successful ice-cream recipe, the easiest way to understand TREHA® is to make a direct comparison.

If your original recipe contains:

150g sucrose

make two batches.

Original

150g sucrose

TREHA® version

110g sucrose + 40g TREHA®

Keep everything else unchanged.

Then compare:

• sweetness
• flavour intensity
• creaminess
• texture after freezing
• scoopability
• melting
• texture after several days in the freezer

This isolates the effect of the sugar change without requiring you to reformulate the whole recipe.

A simple sorbet experiment

For a 1kg fruit-sorbet base:

Start with approximately 50g TREHA®.

Build the remaining sugar system around the fruit and your normal sucrose or glucose ingredients.

With strongly flavoured and acidic fruits, the difference can be particularly noticeable because TREHA® allows the fruit character to remain prominent rather than being overwhelmed by sweetness.

TREHA® gives you another control

The real advantage of TREHA® is not simply that it is a less-sweet sugar.

It gives the ice-cream maker another formulation tool.

Instead of relying on sucrose to determine sweetness, solids and much of the frozen behaviour at the same time, TREHA® allows those characteristics to be controlled more independently.

That means greater control over:

• sweetness
• flavour intensity
• texture
• ice-crystal growth
• melting behaviour
• frozen stability

For ordinary dairy ice cream and gelato:

Start by replacing around 20–30% of the sucrose with TREHA®.

For fruit sorbet:

Start with TREHA® at around 5% of the complete mixture.

From there, adjust according to the flavour, sweetness and texture you want.

Buy TREHA® for ice cream, gelato and sorbet

Trehalose UK supplies genuine Japanese TREHA® manufactured by Nagase Viita Co., Ltd., formerly Hayashibara.

TREHA® Trehalose Powder 1kg
Ideal for home ice-cream makers, recipe experimentation and small-batch development.

TREHA® Trehalose Powder 2.5kg
For regular users, pastry chefs, gelato makers and professional kitchens.

TREHA® Bulk Trehalose Powder 20kg
For gelaterias, food development and commercial frozen-dessert production.

For a broader explanation of how TREHA® differs from ordinary sucrose, see Trehalose vs Sugar: What's the Difference?

For other culinary applications, see How to Use Trehalose in Baking and How to Use Trehalose in Bread.

References & further reading

[1] Nagase Food Ingredients. “FAQs.” TREHA®. Manufacturer information on TREHA®, including its measured sweetness of 38% relative to sucrose in a 5% solution. For practical consumer guidance, Trehalose UK describes this as about 40% as sweet as sucrose.
Nagase TREHA® FAQs

[2] Nagase Viita Co., Ltd. “TREHA® Recommended Usage Levels: Confectionery and Frozen Desserts.” Manufacturer guidance recommending 15–40% sucrose replacement in vanilla ice cream and 5–8% TREHA® of total formulation in sorbet.
Nagase Viita TREHA® usage guidance

[3] Sosa Ingredients. “Fior di Latte by Iván Vázquez.” Professional gelato formulation using trehalose alongside sucrose, glucose and dextrose.
Sosa Fior di Latte formulation

[4] Sei, Tadanori, Takehiko Gonda, and Yoshiyasu Arima. “Growth Rate and Morphology of Ice Crystals Growing in a Solution of Trehalose and Water.” Journal of Crystal Growth 240, nos. 1–2 (2002): 218–229. The study found trehalose approximately twice as effective as sucrose at suppressing ice-crystal growth under the experimental conditions.
Journal of Crystal Growth study

[5] Nagase Food Ingredients. “Ice Cream and Sorbet.” TREHA® Recipes. Manufacturer formulations for vanilla ice cream and raspberry sorbet, including smooth texture, melting resistance and enhanced fruit flavour.
Nagase TREHA® Ice Cream and Sorbet recipes

[6] Moriano, Maria Eletta, and Cristina Alamprese. “Honey, Trehalose and Erythritol as Sucrose-Alternative Sweeteners for Artisanal Ice Cream: A Pilot Study.” LWT – Food Science and Technology 75 (2017): 329–334. The study found that trehalose increased melting resistance and firmness as sucrose substitution increased.
LWT artisanal ice-cream study

[7] Liburdi, Katia, Alessandro Crinò, Chiara Fabrizi, and Marco Esti. “Preparation and Evaluation of Sucrose-Reduced Ice Cream: Optimization via Physiochemical and Sensory Study.” International Dairy Journal 169 (2025): 106339. Trehalose produced the most balanced sensory ratings among the sucrose substitutes investigated.
International Dairy Journal study