Vegan Coconut Chunky Monkey Smoothie
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It feels like forever since I put up a new blog post. A lot has been happening since the beginning of May to keep me away from To Salt & See - one of which was traveling through SE Asia. We first traveled to Bali, spending time in Nusa Penida, Canggu, and Ubud. I’m hoping to have a separate travel post regarding our Bali adventures, so I won’t go into too much detail about it here, but one thing that I will say about Bali is that it is HOT. Minnesota was just starting to transition from winter to spring when we left, so getting hit immediately with extreme humidity, intense sun, and high temperatures, was ROUGH.
We spent the first couple days hiking around Nusa Penida with our friends from college, which meant that we spent a lot of time outside in the sun, and we consequently, sweated a lot. I ended up getting an intense heat rash because it was such a shock to my skin. Thankfully, I had a doctor with me who diagnosed and treated me, so the rash cleared after a few days.
Most of the food that we had on Nusa Penida was either hot or fried, which is very unappealing to me when I myself am hot or frying in the sun. Which is why when I finally found refreshing smoothies at our next location, Canggu, I was so excited! We went to Shady Shack, a very popular vegetarian restaurant, because I saw online that they had smoothie bowls. I had their Cacao Dreams Smoothie Bowl, which had a base of cacao, dates, bananas, cashew butter, and coconut milk. I loved it so much that I just had to share a copycat version with you guys!
The dates gave the smoothie a perfectly thick texture, and when combined with coconut milk, it was extremely filling. The coconut milk also lends itself to creating a creamy and rich taste. The recipe only requires a few ingredients, and only takes a couple minutes to make. Like I mentioned already, the smoothie is rather filling, so feel free to save any remaining amount in the refrigerator for a treat later on!
Vegan Coconut Chunky Monkey Smoothie
Prep time:
Serves: 2Ingredients:
- 1 1/2 cups coconut milk
- 3 dates, pitted
- 2 bananas, frozen
- 1 Tablespoon cocoa powder
- 1 Tablespoon cashew butter
Instructions:
- Blend the coconut milk and dates on high speed until smooth (~30 seconds).
- Add the banana, cocoa powder, and cashew butter. Blend on high speed until smooth.
I used to make granola all the time in college thanks to acquiring the recipe of my favorite granola made at a local cafe. Strangely, I rarely make it now though, despite eating granola every day with yogurt. I have been wanting to develop a granola recipe for the site for a couple years now, but I always seem to fail whenever I attempt to develop one. I had a difficult time getting the perfect dry to wet ratio, and achieving the flavor and level of sweetness that I desire. I’m wondering if it is because I am being too critical of the recipes I have made, because after all I have sampled A LOT of different kinds of granolas. When I lived in Hawaii after college, my friend and I would frequently visit the local Whole Foods store with the sole intent to sample all of the granolas that they had in the bulk section. We did this nearly every day…
When reviewing my failed attempts, I realized that I was attempting to recreate granolas that I have enjoyed in the past. But I think that was my problem. No matter how good the recipe was, I was never going to be able to exactly recreate the flavors that I was attempting to recreate. So I decided to develop a recipe for a type of granola flavor that I had never had before in order to bypass my hypercritical granola taste buds.
Pulling inspiration from summer and our trip to Asia, I really wanted to incorporate a coconut flavor. After a couple variations, I landed on pairing the coconut with chocolate to create a rich and subtly sweet taste, which balances wonderfully with the creamy tang of a Greek yogurt. The best part about granola recipes are that they are easy to make. And one of the best things about THIS recipe is that while this granola is baking in the oven, your kitchen will smell like a coconut paradise! Seriously!