I chose vanilla milkshakes to pair with “Independence Day” because they’re both classic staples from my childhood, and there is a diner scene in the movie. Plus, I wanted to deviate from the standard ice cream and sorbet recipes for the Summer of Scoops.

This vegan, gluten-free recipe makes 1 milkshake plus some extra vanilla ice cream. You can make 2-3 more shakes or just eat the ice cream as is.

Vanilla Ice Cream Ingredients
2 cups vegan unsweetened, vanilla-flavored milk
1 11.2-ounce carton vegan unsweetened, vanilla-flavored creamer
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
0.125 cups vegan sugar
1 teaspoon xanthan gum

Shake Ingredients
a quarter of the above vanilla ice cream
0.25-0.5 cups milk

Toppings (optional)
whipped cream (spray can is best)
sprinkles

Instructions
Pour all of the ice cream ingredients (milk, creamer, vanilla extract, sugar and xanthan gum) into your blender. You can use plain milk and creamer if you can’t find vanilla-flavored. The xanthan gum can be omitted, but it really does help soften the ice cream.

Pulse until everything is evenly mixed.

What happens next depends on your ice cream maker. If you have a more standard one, you’ll pull your chilled (for 24 hours) bowl out and make the ice cream.

If you have one like mine, fill four pints partially with the ice cream mixture so you have room to make the milkshakes later. Freeze for 24 hours.

After that time, you put the pints into your ice cream maker and let it do its magic on the ice cream setting. (Get more of my ice cream 101 tips here.)

After the ice cream is at your desired consistency, it’s milkshake time! If your ice cream maker has a milkshake function, just pour the additional milk on top of the ice cream in the pints. Then run it through the ice cream maker on the milkshake setting.

If your ice cream maker doesn’t have a milkshake function, you just add half a cup of vanilla milk and a quarter of your churned vanilla ice cream to a blender and pulse until you have a shake.

Pour it into your favorite glass and top with your desired toppings. I went with whipped cream and rainbow sprinkles.

Serve and enjoy with “Independence Day!”

The Easy Route
You can pretty easily find vegan vanilla ice cream if you want to skip the step of making your own.

Vanilla is also a pretty common milkshake flavor if you have a local spot that makes vegan milkshakes (please share those details in the comments).

The Pairing
I have seen “Independence Day” dozens of times. It is a staple of my childhood.

If you aren’t a millennial who is very familiar with this sci-fi action classic with an all-star cast, it follows a few key characters across the United States as an alien invasion threatens the world.

I would say there are four main characters. First, there’s U.S. President Thomas Whitmore, played by ’90s icon Bill Pullman. Then you have Russell Casse (Randy Quaid), a conspiracy theorist pilot who claims he was abducted by aliens in the past.

Will Smith delivers a movie star-making turn as Capt. Steven Hiller, a pilot with the U.S. Marines.

And finally, we are blessed with the presence of the one and only Jeff Goldblum as David Levinson, a scientist who makes key discoveries about the invading aliens.

The chemistry between Smith and Goldblum is off the charts, and rewatching it recently made me sad the movie takes so long to put them together.

Vivica A. Fox, Ross Bagley, Judd Hirsch, James Duval, Margaret Colin and Mae Whitman round out some of the ensemble that helps connect these characters together.

Of course, it is a little far fetched how all of these people are interconnected, but it follows the trope of how most apocalyptic movies go, bringing diverse groups of people together to keep humanity alive.

On this particular Independence Day where many people might not feel very patriotic, that is the message I’m taking with me from this movie. It takes all of us who want something different out of our country (than a corrupt Supreme Court, a broken two-party system with two awful presidential candidates, diminishing rights for women/people of color/2SLGBTQIA+ folks, and investment in genocide and other atrocities, for starters) to work together and demand better.

I know I got a little ranty there, but thinking of this movie and how the characters work together got me inspired to think about how we can work together to keep humanity alive.

If you decide to make vanilla milkshakes and/or watch “Independence Day,” let us know! Tag us in your Instagram posts & stories, threads, tweets or TikTok videos: @veg_out_recipes