Green Smoothie Bowl
Thick enough to eat with a spoon, which means frozen fruit and almost no liquid. Blend order matters more than the ingredients.
Nutrition Info (per serving)
- 420
- Calories
- 10g
- Protein
- 20g
- Fat
- 54g
- Carbs
Ingredients
- 2 frozen bananas
- 150 g frozen mango
- 60 g spinach
- 100 ml coconut milk or milk
- 2 tbsp almond butter
- 1 tbsp chia seeds
- 1 lime
- A pinch of salt
- 2 tbsp granola
- 1 kiwi
- 1 tbsp pumpkin seeds
Instructions
- 1Freeze the bananas the day before, peeled and cut into chunks. This is the single thing that makes a smoothie bowl thick — fresh banana plus ice gives a watery, gritty result instead.
- 2Put the liquid in the blender first, then the spinach, then the frozen fruit on top. Blending from the bottom up gives the blades something to grip and stops the machine seizing around a solid block of frozen fruit.
- 3Add the almond butter, the juice of half the lime and the pinch of salt.
- 4Blend on low first to break everything up, then high. Use the tamper if your blender has one, and resist adding more liquid — stop and scrape the sides instead.
- 5The finished texture should hold the mark of a spoon. If it pours, it is a smoothie and needs more frozen fruit.
- 6Pour into two shallow bowls and smooth the surface.
- 7Top with the chia seeds, granola, sliced kiwi and pumpkin seeds, and eat immediately — it melts.
A smoothie bowl is a smoothie that is thick enough to need a spoon, and everything about making one well comes down to controlling water.
Frozen fruit, not ice
Ice is frozen water. Add it and it melts into the blend, diluting flavour while providing thickness that disappears within minutes.
Frozen fruit does the opposite: it provides the same cold thickness while adding flavour and body. Frozen banana in particular is unmatched — its high pectin and starch content gives a texture close to soft-serve ice cream.
Freeze bananas when they are heavily speckled, peeled and cut into chunks in a bag. They keep for three months and are useful for far more than this.
Almost no liquid
The instinct when a blender struggles is to add liquid. Do that here and you have a drink.
100 ml for two servings is enough. If the blender is jammed, stop it, scrape the sides down, and start again on a lower speed. Most blenders that seem unable to handle frozen fruit are simply being run too fast, too early.
Blend order
Liquid at the bottom, then leaves, then frozen fruit on top. The blades need something fluid to move before they can pull the solid material down, and starting with a block of frozen fruit against the blades creates an air pocket that spins uselessly.
This applies to every blender and it is the single most common reason people think theirs is underpowered.
Fat and salt
Two tablespoons of almond butter does more than add protein. Fat coats the tongue and carries flavour, and without it a fruit-and-spinach blend tastes thin and slightly sharp.
The pinch of salt does the same job it does everywhere else — it makes the fruit taste more like itself.
Spinach is invisible
Sixty grams of raw spinach adds colour and a large amount of vitamin A and K, and contributes almost nothing to the flavour once there is banana and mango in the bowl. Kale is more assertive and more fibrous; if you use it, remove the stems.
Nutrition
Around 420 calories with 10 grams of protein. Most of the carbohydrate is fruit sugar with a good amount of fibre alongside it, which slows absorption considerably compared with juice.
For more protein, add a scoop of protein powder or 100 g of Greek yoghurt — both blend in without changing the texture much.
Eat it immediately. Left standing it separates and melts, and there is no rescuing it.
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