Recipes, book reviews, monthly favorites, and more! Just your typical lifestyle blog :)

Friday, July 10, 2015

Açai Bowls

So this dish has been a trend that's popping up EVERYWHERE lately. I originally found out about it in Australia, but açai berries are showing up on the shelves of my local supermarkets making it super easy to get my hands on the ingredients in America!



Some background: Açai berries (pronounced ah-sah-EE) are the fruit of the açai palm tree indigenous to the Amazon of Brazil. The dark purple berries are rich with antioxidants, and fall under the category of superfoods, which is why they are such a health trend these days! I'm absolutely in love with them because they taste delicious and are very easy to make.

Recipes for this vary greatly so I'm just going to share mine. You can always try this, and make adjustments in the future to add your own spin on the dish.

What you're going to need:


  • 1 ripe banana (or half a banana if you don't want to use banana as a topping)
  • 3/4 cup unsweetened coconut milk
  • 1 packet of frozen açai berry juice (thawed in warm water) (I couldn't find the Simply Balanced brand when looking online so I could link "açai berry juice" but I found another that will work just as well. I'm pretty sure I just picked mine up from Target)
  • 1/2 serving of vanilla protein powder OR 1/2 teaspoon organic honey (to taste)
  • 2 (or more) cups ice
  • Additional toppings (other sliced fruit, nuts, ect)


  • Throw half your banana in the blender, along with the coconut milk (honestly you're supposed to use anywhere between half a cup and a cup so I just play around with measurements), the thawed juice puree, the protein powder or honey (keep in mind that protein powder is NOT PALEO so when I'm feeling strict I'll sub with honey. If I don't it doesn't taste sweet enough to me), and the ice. 
  • Blend until the mixture is a very very thick smoothie, one that you wouldn't want to try and suck down with a straw. You may need to stop blending once and awhile to stir the ice around if it's not getting completely mixed in, and you may also need to add more ice to reach the appropriate consistency. 
  • After you finish that, pour your thick purple smoothie into a bowl and cut up the remaining banana and your other fruits and place it on top of the açai smoothie in the bowl. I used pecans and bananas the last time I made the recipe but I've done other fruit and nut combinations before. Try not to overdo it on nuts because that will add more fat to your healthy meal.
Açai bowls are perfect for breakfast, and I sometimes even eat them as an after-workout treat (like dessert!). I used My Fitness Pal to calculate the nutrition facts for an açai bowl with 1 banana, 3 tablespoons of pecans, and protein powder instead of honey as an example to provide below.


Example Nutrition Facts (with my toppings of choice):

Calories: 639
Fat (g): 35.1
Carbs (g): 55
Sugars (g): 24
Protein (g): 32.5

Vitamin A: 10.5%
Vitamin C: 30%
Calcium: 23%
Iron: 3%

The reason sugar looks so high is you have to keep in mind that this is a FRUIT. I personally don't care when I get calories and sugars from fruit, but that's just me. My biggest requirement was that it had good macros, and I was satisfied with the protein to fat ratio, and it helped me hit my daily carb goal. All in all I absolutely LOVE this recipe. Comment down below if you give it a try! :)

No comments:

Post a Comment