There’s just something about a creamy, texture-perfect bowl in the morning. It’s art, really.

Do you follow any of the most popular smoothie bowl accounts on Instagram? Their dreamy posts show the blending, spooning and topping of amazingly colourful, smooth and creamy bowls. This post is meant to teach you how to achieve a smoothie bowl that mimics that perfect texture and all of the other hacks that go along with creating the ultimate smoothie bowl, including product recommendations and links.

HOW TO CREATE THE PERFECT SMOOTHIE BOWL – TEXTURE

TEXTURE is one of the most important things about a smoothie bowl. Not too soupy so that it doesn’t support all of your delicious topping choices, and not too stiff so that it is “nice cream.” We are looking for that glorious in-between stage.

And here’s how: Choose a high-powered blender. The Vitamix is ah-mazing. I also love the Ninja food processor. This is really important as it needs to be able to pulverize frozen fruit.

CHOOSING THE RIGHT FRUITS

Secondly, choose fruits that “cream-up” well. Bananas (obviously) are the #1 choice. However, if for some reason you can’t have bananas, mangos are an excellent alternative. I buy fresh bananas, wait until they are slightly overripe and brown (but super sweet) and then peel them, cut them in half and freeze them. You can also cut them into rounds, but it’s much easier to know how much you are putting in if they are halved.

THE ADD-INS

Add your frozen fruit choices to a blender/processor with all of your favourite superfoods. I have tried, tested and loved the following – Purple Sweet Potato Powder, Activated Coconut Charcoal, Maca Powder, Blue Spirulina Powder, and Green Spirulina Powder. Usually I choose two or three of them to add in one smoothie bowl. One colourful powder, one protein powder and Maca. Always.

BLEND IT UP!

Once you have your fruit and superfoods ready to go, pulse the blender a few times to start breaking up the fruit. Afterwards, blend on high, and while blending, slowly pour in the tiniest amount of non-dairy milk. This is the tricky part, as too much milk will make it too loose and none at all will make it nice cream (which is good, too). I would say start with one tablespoon and judge from there!

At this point, you need to continuously stop the blender to scrape down the sides of your bowl. Keep doing this until everything is well combined and smooth. Have faith in your smoothie…it will come together. Just do not over-mix as this will also loosen the texture.

HOW TO CREATE THE PERFECT SMOOTHIE BOWL – TOPPINGS

When you have achieved the ultimate smoothie consistency, pour your art into a beautiful bowl and top with all of your favs. My tried and true recommendations are as follows: Hemp hearts, chia seeds, hazelnuts, frozen berries, homemade peanut butter, slivered almonds, granola and coconut flakes.

THE FROSTED BERRY LOOK

One of the most popular toppings you will see in Instagram photos are frozen berries. They develop this gorgeous pale-white layer on their surface after you remove them from your freezer and let them hang out on the counter for a few minutes. Some tricks to achieving this look that I have found work for me are:

• Not washing your berries before freezing them (either buy organic or wash AFTER you take pictures…hehe)
• Do not stack berries on top of each other in their container in the freezer- just one single layer is best
• Leave them in your freezer for longer than 24 hours to achieve this look
• After a day or two in your freezer, remove them for about 10-15 minutes (don’t use them) and then put them back into your freezer…the next time you pull them out, they will be perfect!
• When plating, use food tweezers to place carefully – the warmth of your fingers will melt the spots you touch

Now take some pictures and grab a spoon!

I hope this post helps you achieve your ideal smoothie bowl. Here is an example of a pretty standard recipe that I use when creating my own. Enjoy!

How to Create the Perfect Smoothie Bowl – Mauve Smoothie Bowl

Servings: 2

Prep time: 5 minutes

Ingredients:

• 2 frozen bananas
• 1/2 cup frozen mango
• 1 tbsp vanilla protein powder
• 1 tsp maca powder
• 2 tsp Purple Sweet Potato Powder, optional (you can replace with your favourite superfood powder)
• splash non-dairy milk

Instructions:

1. To a high-speed food processor or blender, add frozen fruit, protein powder, maca and superfood powder. Pulse a few times and then blend. While blending, drizzle in the non-dairy milk. You only need a tiny amount. Blend until everything is combined and smooth, scraping down the sides a few times as it comes together.
2. Transfer to a bowl and add toppings of your choice. Enjoy!

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