Soy-Free Vegan Tropical Acai Berry Bowl Recipe

Whipping up acai bowl recipes are pretty easy. I like to use whatever fresh and frozen fruits I had on hand. This one is similar to my Acai Banana Berry Bowl Recipe , but it’s perfect for summer with fresh mango and berries. Acai bowls can be topped with your favorite fruits, but I know some of you have never had one before and are unsure how to make them at home.

Acai is usually sold in a frozen puree for use in smoothies, acai bowls and frozen desserts. You can also buy acai juice, powder and supplements, but I stick with the puree because it’s delicious and a little less processed.

Acai bowls are made up of frozen acai puree, apple juice or soy milk, frozen fruit, granola, fresh fruit and sometimes honey. If you do not have acai frozen puree in your country (I found it at the health food store in Canada and the USA) you can substitute about 1 cup of frozen blueberries.

This is a soy-free version which uses apple juice instead of soy milk to blend it together. You can also use fresh pressed apple juice if desired as well.

Soy-Free Vegan Tropical Acai Berry Bowl Recipe

 
Serves 1

Bowl Ingredients:

4 oz/ 1/2 cup apple juice (unsweetened if desired)
2 100g packets of frozen Acai (I used Sambazon Original Smoothie Packs)
3/4 cup frozen mango (sub a fresh mango if you do not have a high powered blender such as a VitaMix or Blendtec)

Garnish Ingredients:

1/3-1/2 cup low fat granola of choice (I like Galaxy Granola as it’s oil free)
1/2 -1 ripe banana, peeled and sliced
1/2 cup fresh ripe ataulfo mango, diced
1/2 cup diced strawberries
Small handful of blueberries
Drizzle of honey or agave *optional (I don’t find I need this in mine)

 Directions:

1. Remove packets of acai and frozen bananas from freezer.

2. Slice the mango, slice the banana and wash the blueberries and set aside.

3. Add apple juice to your blender. Break up the frozen acai into smaller pieces and cut the plastic open and pour into blender. Add the mango. Blend on low or pulse to break up the frozen fruit. If you have a VitaMix use the tamper to puree into a soft serve. If you have another type of blender you may have to stop and stir and keep pulsing to combine. Stop blending when smooth.

4. Scrape acai mixture into a bowl.

5. Top acai with granola.

6. Top with diced mango, bananas, strawberries and blueberries.

7. Serve.

Have you ever had an Acai bowl? What’s your favorite topping?

Acai Banana Berry Bowl Recipe

I have been having my fill of acai bowls since visiting southern California. Originally they come from Brazil, but they are also popular in Hawaii and many American juice bars. I visited one of my raw food friends in California and had the chance to actually make something while on the road in her kitchen. I went in search of acai frozen smoothie mix (as I haven’t seen it yet where I am in Canada) and found some from Sambazon at Whole Foods. (Check their website to find a dealer near you.) It’s about $4.99 for four 100g gram packages. You can use one package for smoothies, or two in acai bowls.

Anyway, these acai bowls are SUPER easy to make and very delicious! The formula is simple: apple juice (or another liquid), frozen acai and banana and topped with granola, fruit and honey or other sweetener. It’s essentially a fruit smoothie granola bowl. You can eat it for breakfast, lunch, after a workout or any time of day. Now these are generally pretty large once you add a bunch of fruit on top of it, so be prepared to make a meal out of it. If not use less fruit topping and less granola for a smaller meal.

If you can’t find frozen acai anywhere near you, you can still make something similar. Try substituting frozen blueberries instead (about 1 cup) and blending that in with the banana and apple juice.

Now onto the delicious recipe!

Acai Banana Berry Bowl Recipe

Serves 1

Bowl Ingredients:

4 oz/ 1/2 cup apple juice (unsweetened if desired)
2 100g packets of frozen Acai (I used Sambazon Original Smoothie Packs)
1 frozen ripe banana (sub a fresh banana if you do not have a high powered blender such as a VitaMix or Blendtec)

Garnish Ingredients:

1/3-1/2 cup low fat granola of choice
1/2 -1 ripe banana, peeled and sliced
1/2 cup strawberries, sliced
handful of blueberries or other berries
Drizzle of honey or agave *optional

 Directions:

1. Remove packets of acai and frozen bananas from freezer.

2. Wash and slice the strawberries, slice the banana and wash the blueberries and set aside.

3. Add apple juice to your blender. Break up the frozen acai into smaller pieces and cut the plastic open and pour into blender. Add the banana. Blend on low or pulse to break up the frozen fruit. If you have a VitaMix use the tamper to puree into a soft serve. If you have another type of blender you may have to stop and stir and keep pulsing to combine. Stop blending when smooth.

4. Scrape acai mixture into a bowl.

5. Top acai with granola.

6. Top with bananas, strawberries and blueberries.

7. Serve.

Have you ever had an Acai bowl? What’s your favorite topping?

Fruit and Veggie Smoothie Recipe with Beet Juice

Sometimes people ask me, “Can I put vegetables into my fruit smoothies?”.  And I say “Well that depends”. I wouldn’t necessarily tell a novice that they should try broccoli or carrots in a smoothie, because those vegetables are pretty hard to blend and you may not like it. Same goes for beets. Don’t just toss them into your blender (unless you have a really high powered one and like a gritty chewy smoothie).  So instead I recommend for those wanting to up the nutrition of their fruit smoothies that you juice some veggies like carrots or beets and use that as a base for blending. That way you can get the added nutrition of veggies in your fruit smoothies just like a V8 juice, but a much much healthier version.

Normally I only use water to blend my smoothies (because I use sweet fruit like ripe bananas I can get away without using packaged fruit juice), but using a fresh pressed veggie juice is an idea you can try as well. We all know you can certainly drink more beets or carrots than you can chew, so once in a while this may be a good option for you to sneak in some more veggies to your diet. (Or the diets of your loved ones!)

I decided to try it out, and it’s a very interesting taste, you get the earthiness from the beets, without the smoothie being too overly sweet and it’s a cross between a smoothie and plain veggie juice. It’s nice actually. So this way you are still keeping a lot of the fiber intact and this helps create bulk and fullness so your smoothie is much more satisfying as a meal than just a plain old juice.

Here is my beet juice smoothie creation:

Beet Banana Mango Strawberry Smoothie

Serves 1-2

Ingredients:

1/4 cup fresh beet juice (about a bunch of small beets juiced, tops optional)
2 ripe bananas
1/2 cup fresh or frozen mango
1/2 cup strawberries

Directions:

Pour beet juice into blender and add remaining ingredients. Blend on high until smooth. You can either juice the beet tops or you can chop them up and blend them in.

Additional Tips:

Remember beet greens are a little stronger tasting than lettuce so start  out with a little at first and taste test and see what you think. To make this even sweeter add another banana.

Other veggies you can consider juicing to add to your fruit smoothies:

  • carrots
  • golden beets
  • cucumbers
  • celery
  • greens (but you can always blend them in too)
  • other mild veggies

I don’t recommend strong vegetables from the brassica family such as broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower etc.  You CAN however make a savory blended salad or savory veggie stew if you use things like tomatoes for the base and skip the fruit.  I just don’t find strong sulphur containing vegetables go well with fruit.

Have you ever had beet juice or beet greens in a smoothie before? What did you think?

A Healthier Alternative to Special K, Frosted Flakes And Other Processed Sugary Cereals

Who needs to eat Special K for breakfast every day for 2 weeks to lose weight? You certainly don’t have to. You can find any low sugar, low fat cereal of your choice, top it with some fruit and a little almond or soy milk and use that as a low calorie breakfast to start your day. Fresh fruit is always preferable, but you can add things like dried raisins, goji berries, sliced up apricots, prunes, figs etc. as well.

Sugary cereals were never healthy, they were just an excuse to get children and those concerned with fibre intake to eat some grains and get their servings of dairy in. If you’re vegan and still want to eat some cereal from time to time, make up a healthy one of your own. I have some organic corn flakes here (because they were low fat, low sugar and low salt) and dressed them up wish fresh sliced strawberries and served it with some original sugar free almond milk. I also like using sliced bananas, but I didn’t have any that were ripe. Raspberries or other berries work great too. This recipe is gluten free and soy free as well.

 

Homemade Special K – Corn Flakes With Fresh Strawberries and Almond Milk

Serves 1

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups organic corn flakes (low fat, low sugar, low salt)
1/2 cup fresh sliced strawberries
2/3-3/4 cup almond milk (I used Blue Diamond Almond Breeze Unsweetened Original)

Directions:

Add cereal to a bowl. Top with strawberries, add almond milk and any additional fruits or sweeteners if desired.
If you want to add a sprinkle or brown sugar you can, or you could try the sweetened original version of almond milk if that’s more to your taste.

Enjoy!

Is There A Vegan Chocolate Hazelnut Butter? (Like Nutella) Why, Yes There Is!



Justin's Chocolate Hazelnut Butter Blend with Strawberries

Have you ever asked yourself the question, “Is there a chocolate hazelnut butter or spread that is vegan?” I have. And when I previously googled it, I came up with nothing but homemade recipes for chocolate hazelnut butter spread. Hazelnuts are expensive, and I didn’t plan on making it for just a small sample. Plus if it’s fresh it also goes bad within a week and I was not about to eat the whole batch in one week.

I think everyone remembers eating Nutella as a kid, or if you live in Europe, you probably ate it or still eat it regularly. They have this serious OBSESSION with Nutella in crepes filled with fruit. Very decadent indeed… That get’s me thinking I need to make a vegan chocolate hazelnut crepe recipe soon, I’ve never had one… but for now we’re going for chocolate hazelnut butter on toast with strawberries.

Since I’ve traveled in Europe a lot and there are also many creperies in Vancouver, Canada many places I’ve seen serve crepes with Nutella and because it had dairy in it, it’s not vegan. (The crepes are also not vegan as well.) I’ve often wondered if ANY company was going to get up the guts to actually make a healthier chocolate vegan hazelnut spread without the dairy and for the longest time could not find any. I checked the health food stores in Canada and no dice. I checked a bunch in the USA as well, and just recently found 2 different brands that were dairy free! This was a surprise to me because I had been casually reading labels for a while.

Since the dairy industry has been so adept at lobbying for companies and restaurants to put milk and cheese into everything, it can be very hard to find plain chocolate ANYWHERE. Almost every chocolate and chocolate bar EVEN DARK CHOCOLATE that is manufactured in the USA contains milk fat solids.  They do this because dairy is highly addicted, just as addictive as opiates are actually and it makes people eat and crave more. So they now put dairy in all of the dark chocolate to make you eat MORE. How rude!

Same goes for creamy chocolate hazelnut spreads, they put dairy in it to make it more addicting and get you to eat more. Plus it probably is cheaper to add milk to it and less hazelnuts as those are more expensive.

I started looking for vegan alternatives a while ago, but never found any until now. It’s not something I would eat regularly, but more of a treat to put on a slice of toast or a crepe or for a vegan waffle or something.  You know, a healthier-than-the-original-version treat.



Justin’s Chocolate Hazelnut Butter Blend on toast with strawberries. A filling snack or treat for you or your kids.



The strawberries are nice because it makes it not too sweet and has a little tartness to it.



This little baby I found in Portland, OR at Whole Foods Market on a recent trip. I have sampled Justin’s peanut butter cups (the dark chocolate variety are vegan) and was quite impressed at their not too oily or  too sweet peanut butter cups. (Christmas treat).

Here they had an entire line of natural nut butters. Including chocolate peanut butter and chocolate almond butter. Crazy! I know…



Let’s take a look at the side. Ah a nice note, it shows they are trying to make a product that is healthier than the major competitors. Who eat’s frosting for breakfast indeed? Nutella eaters that’s for sure. Here are the list of ingredients in Nutella from their website: INGREDIENTS: SUGAR, PALM OIL, HAZELNUTS, COCOA, SKIM MILK, REDUCED MINERALS WHEY (MILK), LECITHIN AS EMULSIFIER (SOY), VANILLIN: AN ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR.



Ingredients and nutritional information. It still contains some oil in the form of palm oil (saturated fat), so sad face 🙁 but at least it’s not hydrogenated and it’s one of the last ingredients on the label, not the first.  It’s 90 calories and 7.5 g of fat per tablespoon. Ok good to know. One or two tablespoons max is all you should use for a serving.

Nutella comes in at 100 calories per tablespoon and 5.5 grams of fat, so  it’s a little less fat than Justin’s… but Nutella’s first ingredients are sugar and oil and then it’s hazelnut taste is watered down by milk and whey. Justin’s doesn’t have sugar until the third ingredient, and oil is the third last, before vanilla and salt. If you were going to pick one that was a healthier option between Justin’s and Nutella, Justin’s would win. It definitely has more natural ingredients and whole foods in it than mass produced Nutella.



Here is Justin’s Chocolate Hazelnut Butter Blend inside. It’s quite thick. There’s no oil on top and it doesn’t look rock solid like coconut oil does at room temperature.



Here’s another vegan Hazelnut Butter. This is the first vegan chocolate Hazelnut Butter I found by New World Natural Foods, it’s from a local health food store in Bellingham, Washington. I thought they were the only brand that made a vegan hazelnut butter, so I picked it up.



Upon closer inspection though, it is fattier than Justin’s. 100 calories and 8 grams of fat per tablespoon.



They use cocoa butter instead of palm fruit oil. This butter is stable at room temperature (a saturated fat), which means it is a solid at room temperature and not a liquid. So this must be why they chose to use it in their butter.



Here is what the chocolate hazelnut butter looks like inside. It’s very solid looking and actually looks like cacao or coconut butter. If you seen these you might see the resemblance. There’s little white solid flecks in it, and this is the oil, solidified.



Here is a comparison on warm toast for you. Justin’s Chocolate Hazelnut Butter Blend is on the left and New World Natural Food’s Chocolate Hazelnut Butter is on the right.  Immediately I could tell the difference in the two. The one on the right melted very quickly into a liquid. Justin’s was a little harder to spread but more like a nut butter.  New World Natural Food’s was more like chocolate sauce when spread.



Here it is again from up top.



So there you have it, there are at least TWO options for vegan chocolate hazelnut butter for you. Justin’s also makes chocolate peanut butter and chocolate almond butter (it is cheaper than the hazelnut butter) if you’re looking for a more affordable treat for your family.

Like I said I was mostly curious because there was a lack of vegan options for this kind of product and I remember eating Nutella as a kid. If it’s your only source of nuts for the day and you have 1 or 2 tbsps, you should be ok. If you’re still eating oils, lots of nuts and avocados and meat and dairy however, this may be a diet of too many rich foods already. Adding this on top of it won’t be healthy.

So which one do I prefer? Hands down I prefer Justin’s Chocolate Hazelnut Blend.  I like that it isn’t too sweet, it’s a little thick, it doesn’t melt into chocolate sauce and it’s ingredients are much more natural than Nutella. For an occasional treat I like this product and they make a ton of different nut butters you can get at Whole Foods Market as well.

Have you ever tried a vegan chocolate hazelnut butter? What did you eat it with?