Smoothie Bowls at Home
Let's talk smoothie bowls. These babies are so delicious but sometimes can be way overpriced. You can easily create amazing smoothie bowls at home anytime once you get the hang of buying the right groceries and having them on hand anytime you want to make a bomb breakfast or snack! Here are my smoothie bowl staples that I keep stocked in my kitchen always:
- organic frozen fruit
- I like to have on hand regularly frozen mango (Trader Joe's frozen mango is so good because they freeze it when it's nice and ripe and it's very affordable!)
- frozen strawberries, blueberries, raspberries - I like to buy these separate because sometimes berry mix gets old quickly. I usually rotate these three listed when I grocery shop so I at least have one or two bags of these on hand
- frozen pineapple - goes great in green smoothie recipes and is low in sugar, plus who doesn't like a tropical vibe in their smoothie bowl?
- Acai packs: I love the acai packs from Trader Joe's as well, they're organic and affordable. Acai packs go amazing with banana, berries and coconut shreds!
- frozen banana - this is one of those zero-waste tactics to pick up. I like to buy two bunches of bananas, and as they're eaten throughout the week I freeze whichever ones go ripest fastest. This way I always have banana "nice cream" on deck!
- other fruit & veggies
- raw greens: I always have one or more bunches of greens varying between kale, spinach and green chard. So easy to throw these in to your smoothie recipes to get a beautiful color and abundant source of iron. I highly recommend all of us to get acquainted with eating a handful to two handfuls of greens per day.
- avocado: avocado can be an amazing addition to your smoothie bowl recipes. It sounds weird at first but trust me this makes smoothies so creamy. Here's a great recipe.
- medjool dates: love at first bite, dates are one of my top go-tos when making a delicious smoothie. Make sure to take the pits out unless you buy pitted ones! An all time favorite recipe on mine is just frozen banana, almond milk, dates, almond or peanut butter and cinnamon. It's so good!
- seeds
- I always have on hand plenty of flax seed, chia seed and hemp seed! These add amazing nutrient quality to any smoothie bowl. You can blend chia seeds in with your smoothie then add hemp seeds on top! These babies are essential for a vegan diet in my opinion because they provide high quality plant protein and healthy fats.
- non-dairy milk
- The ever so popular almond milk is a great choice, although if you want to start thinking about stepping back on your contribution to water consumption, consider other vegan milks such as hemp milk, pea protein milk, coconut milk , cashew milk and flax milk. Click on the different milks I listed here to see my favorite brands and recipes. Have fun and try them all! Put them in your regular grocery rotation.
- nut butters
- whatever you fancy, whether it be peanut butter, almond butter, sunflower butter, macadamia nut butter, what have you, this is another yummy way to ramp up any smoothie recipe making it creamier and packed with a quality vegan protein and fat source. If you haven't tried Justin's brand maple almond butter you're missing out!
- coconut shreds
- cacao nibs or cacao powder
- granola
Once you have it down to start stocking up and having these kinds of ingredients on hand at home all the time, you will love being able to make smoothie bowls at home! Pictured in this blogs photo is a yummy strawberry banana, dates and chia seed smoothie topped with peanut butter granola, hemp seeds and frozen blueberries! Delicious! I hope you try a new form of grocery shopping geared towards such a healthy habit which is blending smoothie bowls! That way, next time you have a craving for something sugary in the morning for breakfast or in the daytime as a snack, you'll have your smoothie ingredients to turn to. Remember to play around with flavors and discover some amazing recipes! There's really no rule book to this and you'll be surprised how great you feel when you regularly consume greens and seeds especially.
