The appearance of the samples containing 2 and 4% inulin was not significantly different from that of the control ice cream (P < 0.05). The sensory evaluation of the texture and appearance of the ice cream samples was carried out by the panellists in terms of softness, toughness, adhesiveness, sandiness and relative size distribution of the ice crystals. The results demonstrated that the inulin-free low-fat ice cream attained a significantly lower average score than the control ice cream.