Nutritious by Gabby

THIS SMOOTHIE. Oh my goodness does this taste like it should be so unhealthy! Luckily, it‘s not! I promise my goal for this smoothie wasn‘t to make a delicious milkshake, but I‘m so happy that‘s how it ended up. This smoothie was born out of a desire for something sweet, filling, healthy, and cold (although I‘m pretty sure I made this back in March so why I wanted something cold is anyone‘s guess).

How often do you feel like you‘re missing out when you see others with ice cream or milkshakes? Well, I hope this smoothie gives you the opposite of FOMO! Not to mention, you won‘t believe how minimal the ingredients are, coming in at just five ingredients. As always, this smoothie is vegan and gluten free with great protein from the peanut butter and no refined sugar. If you chose a ripe banana to freeze, this, along with the maple syrup, will give you all the sweetness you need without the refined sugar.

Ingredients

• Frozen Banana – Before freezing the banana, you want to make sure it‘s ripe. The riper the banana, the sweeter it will be, making for a yummier smoothie.
• Peanut Butter – As always, I opted for a natural peanut butter, with no added sugar or salt. Between the banana and the maple syrup, this smoothie has all of the sweetness it already needs.
• Maple Syrup – Enough said.
• Cacao Powder – This is what gives the smoothie it‘s chocolate flavor. As mentioned, this smoothie already has all the sweetness it needs, so I would choose an unsweetened powder.
• Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk – Do you need me to repeat why it doesn‘t need to be sweetened? Ok, ok, one last time – it already has a great deal of sweetness from the banana and maple syrup!

Substitutions

• Peanut Butter – If you‘re not a peanut fan, you can easily swap out the peanut butter in this recipe for any other type of nut butter. It will change the flavor, but if you don‘t like peanuts, I doubt that‘s something you‘ll mind!
• Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk – I prefer this nondairy milk in this recipe because of the vanilla flavor, but you can try a different nondairy milk as well. Keep in mind, a different milk may cause a change in flavor or slight change in consistency.
• Maple Syrup – If you‘re vegan you will probably want to keep this as maple syrup. If you‘re not, you can try swapping this out for honey as well. However, I do find honey to be slightly sweeter than maple syrup, but go with your own taste buds!