Plant Based U

Fat-Free and Low Fat Vegan Plant Based Recipes

granola

Tropical Mango Banana Acai Bowl

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I have another delicious acai bowl recipe for you with mango and banana. This one is similar to my Acai Banana Berry Bowl Recipe , but it’s perfect for summer with this tropical twist. Basically you can top your acai bowl with anything you want, 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.

Tropical Mango Banana Acai Bowl

 
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
handful of blueberries or other berries
Drizzle of honey or agave *optional

 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 bananas, strawberries and blueberries.

7. Serve.

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

Acai Banana Berry Bowl Recipe

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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?

Antioxidant Omega-3 High Protein Vegan Granola Bars

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(made with quick oats)

The other day I was looking at granola bars at the grocery store and I was starting to get frustrated. Most granola bars are pretty unhealthy, they contain a lot of high fructose corn syrup, milk ingredients, oil, nuts and salt.

When you’re looking for a quick high energy snack for traveling, hiking or to have before your work out it’s nice to eat something that’s just as healthy as a home cooked meal. So I decided to make my own homemade no-bake vegan granola bars, and came up with this bar which is high in protein and contains lots of omega 3’s and antioxidants in it too.

Instead of using oil and corn syrup to bind the oats together I used really ripe mashed bananas and it almost makes these bars taste a little bit like oatmeal banana bread. I also threw in lots of goodies like sultana raisins, Sun-Maid raisins, dried cranberries, goji berries, ground flax seed, ground chia seed, hemp hearts, dark chocolate, and coconut flakes.

All in all they are pretty darn tasty! I definitely don’t mind eating one of these and they’re perfect for traveling or hiking too. I decided to make two batches to test out the difference between instant/quick oats and traditional rolled oats.

They basically tasted the same, but the instant oats were a little easier to chew as the oat pieces were smaller. So it’s up to you on what type you’d like to use. (But don’t use steel cut oats, or oat groats as they aren’t cooked yet and are too hard to chew.)

It’s also a high raw food bar, as many of the ingredients are naturally raw like the bananas, raisins, goji berries, flax, chia, and hemp.  For this reason they need to be stored in the freezer because raw banana is perishable and it will spoil quickly if left on the counter or in the fridge.

Vegan chocolate chips can be hard to come by depending where you live, almost every chocolate chip I saw at the store contained milk ingredients, so instead I just bought a Lindt 70% cacao chocolate bar which was dairy free and chopped that up to use as chocolate pieces. It’s also much lower in sugar than traditional chocolate chips as well.  40 g equals 4 squares out of the Lindt bar. You could also substitute 1/4 cup of dark chocolate chips, or vegan carob chips as well.

(made with rolled oats)

Omega 3 Antioxidant Vegan Protein Bars

Makes 10 bars

Wet Ingredients:

2 medium ripe bananas, mashed (about 1 cup)
1/4 cup maple syrup (or other vegan syrup)
1/4 cup smooth peanut butter
2 tsp vanilla extract

Dry Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups quick oats or rolled oats (I tested both)
3 scoops vegan protein powder (I used Vega Sport chocolate flavour, but you can also use unflavored hemp protein powder)
1/4 cup shredded coconut *optional
2 tbsp hemp seed (hemp hearts)
3 tbsp chia seed, ground
3 tbsp flax seed, ground
2 tsp ceylon cinnamon
1/2 cup raisins (I used golden and Sun-Maid)
40 g dark chocolate broken into pieces or chocolate chips
1/4 cup dried cranberries
1/4 cup goji berries

Directions:

1. Mash the banana with a fork and mix wet ingredients in a large bowl.

2. Next add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients.

3. Stir until well combined.

4. Line a square pan with saran wrap and press mixture into pan.

5. Place pan in freezer for 3-4 hours until firm and then remove from pan.

(rolled oat bars)

6. Slice into 10 bars with a sharp knife.

(Quick oat bars)

7. Wrap each bar in saran wrap and store in freezer.

8. Let come to room temperature before eating.

Nutrition Facts 10 Servings Amount Per Serving: Calories 282.0 Total Fat 10.1 g Saturated Fat 2.2 g Polyunsaturated Fat 2.8 g Monounsaturated Fat 2.6 g Cholesterol 0.2 mg Sodium 335.9 mg Potassium 301.2 mg Total Carbohydrate 34.4 g Dietary Fiber 6.7 g Sugars 18.1 g Protein 15.2 g

Have you ever made homemade granola or protein bars before? What do you put in them?