So, here’s the thing. I’ve been absolutely, bladdy awful at getting in my five a day recently. Truly terrible at it. I mean, I’d say I get about half that; I’ve never had trouble sneaking a healthy portion of vegetables into my dinner, but for the rest of the day, anything goes. Fruit just isn’t what I go for when I want a snack. Five doughnuts, no problem. Five (squared) custard creams, easy mate. Five pieces of fruit? PASS. I’m not sure what happened, because the truth is I’ve always really loved fruit – and when I do actually make the effort, I really enjoy eating it. But over the past couple of years – either out of laziness or bad habit – I’ve just stopped reaching for it, and I’ve really noticed a change in my skin and my energy levels because of that.

I’ve been making it my mission recently to find easy ways of sneaking in those missed portions of fruit, and I’ve kind of come to the conclusion that breakfast and the mid-afternoon munchies are when I’m more receptive to scoffing a bit of fruit instead of dipping into the old biscuit tin. So I started making the odd smoothie bowl for breakfast as a way of rekindling my love of fruit and – d’you know what? – I’ve enjoyed making them so much that I’ve even occasionally swapped out my lunchtime egg on toast for one! They’re easy to make, can be prepped ahead of time and there are so many different flavour combinations that it’ll be a long, long time before you get bored of scoffing them. Oh, and did I mention that they’re pretty? 😉

The Idea

You’ll probably have seen smoothie bowls all over either Pinterest and Instagram and shrugged them off as essentially pretty but pointless – a lot of faffing around for something designed to be inhaled first thing on a Monday morning before you fly out the door. They’re basically a bowl of blitzed fruit (and sometimes added flax seed or protein powder), mixed with fresh yoghurt (or a dairy-free alternative) and topped with more fresh fruit, nuts and granola. But they’re not as time-consuming as they look; the blended base recipe can be prepped and whipped up the night before, or even frozen for the week ahead. That way, all you need to do is mix it into your chosen yoghurt and then add whatever toppings you fancy.

The Basic Base Recipe

The base recipe is simple – provided you’ve got a blender handy – and uses only a handful of ingredients. It’s adaptable; so if you’re not a banana fan then substitute it with 80g of another fruit, and the yoghurt can be swapped out for any dairy-free alternative (personally, I love coconut yoghurt). You can also add in protein powder and/or flax, hemp or chia seeds if that’s your jam. Once you’ve got the base figured out, you can mix it up and get creative! As mentioned above, it can be blitzed up the night before or on a Sunday when you’re prepping your meals for the week ahead – letting you hit snooze on your Monday morning alarm! 😉

Ingredients (serves one)

1 large banana, sliced and frozen
120g of your chosen fruit, chopped and frozen
1 tsp runny honey, agave or maple syrup
100 ml chosen yoghurt

In a blender, blitz the banana, fruit and honey together on a low setting until the mixture resembles ice cream. If you’re prepping ahead of time and plan on freezing the mixture now’s the time – just pour it into a portion size ziplock and freeze. Just remember to pop it in the fridge to defrost slowly the night before you intend to eat it.
Once you’re ready to serve up the smoothie bowl, mix in the yoghurt until smooth and combined – then add toppings. Easy!

Toppings

When it comes to toppings, there are so many different ways you can go – but a combination of fresh fruit, seeds and/or nuts and some kind of cereal or granola works really well – especially if you flavour-match your fresh fruit with whatever fruit you’ve put in your base recipe. If you’re feeling particularly extra, you can even pop a couple of edible flowers on top or some grated chocolate.

Recipe Ideas

By swapping out the base fruit and yoghurt flavour and then adding different combinations of toppings there are literally thousands of different recipes you could come up with. But here are three I’ve been enjoying lately to get you started… 🙂

Pina Colada

1 large banana, sliced and frozen
120g of fresh pineapple
1 tsp runny honey
100 ml coconut yoghurt
Topped with: sliced, fresh pineapple, dessicated coconut, poppy seeds and marachino cherries.

Peanut Butter and Jelly

2 large bananas, sliced and frozen
1 tsp maple syrup
1 tbsp smooth peanut butter
100 ml toffee yoghurt
Topped with: sliced bananas, raspberries, pecans and raisins

Strawberry Bakewell

1 large banana, sliced and frozen
120g of fresh strawberries and raspberries
1 tsp runny honey
100 ml almond yoghurt
Topped with: fresh strawberries, almond granola, dried cherries, white chocolate dots, poppy seeds