Smoothie Bowl with Chlorella
INGREDIENTS:
-
5 tablespoons gluten-free oat flakes
- 0,5 banana
- 1 teaspoon chlorella
- 0,5 peach
- 0,25 apple
- 0,75 tablespoon pumpkin seeds
- a few walnuts
Buy Nothing can beat a morning that begins with a healthy, delicious breakfast. Today I want to show you a recipe for a quick smoothie bowl with chlorella, which contains loads of healthy nutrients like calcium, iron, magnesium, iodine and B vitamins. You can soak the oat flakes the day before to save time in the morning. Enjoy your meal.
Preparation
I covered the oat flakes with warm water and set them aside to soak. Then I added sliced banana and chlorella and blended it into a smoothie. I poured it into a bowl and topped it with sliced apple and peach. Finally, I sprinkled it with crushed nuts and pumpkin seeds.
One teaspoon of chlorella is not a small amount
Chlorella is the loudest ingredient in this bowl, and a teaspoon is roughly where it stops being a colour and starts being a flavour. It is grassy and faintly marine, and it does not hide behind banana the way spinach does.
If this is your first time with it, start with half a teaspoon and work up. Going the other way is not possible: once a bowl tastes of pond, no amount of fruit rescues it. Buy it as powder rather than tablets for this use, and keep the jar closed and away from light, because chlorella loses colour and flavour quickly once opened.
Warm water for the oats, and how long
The recipe specifies warm rather than cold, and the difference is time. Warm water softens oat flakes in about ten minutes, while cold needs a couple of hours or a night in the fridge. Both work; only one of them fits into a weekday morning.
Do not drain them. The water the flakes have taken up is what makes the bowl blend smooth and gives it the thickness it needs, and pouring it away leaves you adding liquid back a moment later. Five tablespoons of flakes to just enough water to cover is the right starting point.
Banana is the sweetener and the texture
There is no honey, syrup or plant drink in this recipe. Half a banana is doing all three jobs at once: it sweetens, it thickens, and its fat-free creaminess is what turns soaked oats and green powder into something that reads as a smoothie rather than porridge.
Which is why ripeness matters more here than in most recipes. A spotted banana is sweet enough to balance the chlorella; a firm yellow one is not, and with a teaspoon of chlorella against it the bowl comes out green in both senses. Frozen banana slices make it thicker and colder, which suits a summer morning.
Toppings go on last, and stay on top
Apple, peach, nuts and pumpkin seeds are all added to the poured bowl rather than blended, and that is the whole point of a smoothie bowl as opposed to a smoothie: it is eaten with a spoon because there is something to chew.
Slice the apple thin so it does not sink, and add everything right before eating. Nuts and seeds go soft within minutes on a wet surface, and toasting them dry in a pan for a minute first is a bigger improvement than it sounds.
Making it ahead
Soak the oats the night before, as the recipe suggests, and keep them covered in the fridge. That is the only part worth preparing in advance: blended banana browns and the bowl separates within a couple of hours, so the blending happens in the morning.
It takes about two minutes once the oats are ready. If you would rather have breakfasts like this one planned into the week with a shopping list, that is what the Diet & Training by Ann app does.
Smoothie bowl with chlorella
Ingredients
Method
- Cover the oat flakes with warm water, just enough to cover them, and set aside to soak for about 10 minutes.
- Add the sliced banana and the chlorella, without draining the oats, and blend into a smooth mixture.
- Pour into a bowl.
- Top with thinly sliced apple and peach.
- Sprinkle with crushed walnuts and pumpkin seeds just before eating.
Notes
Frequently asked questions
A teaspoon is roughly where it stops being a colour and starts being a flavour: grassy and faintly marine, and it does not hide behind banana the way spinach does. If it is your first time, start with half a teaspoon and work up, because once a bowl tastes of pond nothing rescues it.
Warm softens the flakes in about ten minutes, cold needs a couple of hours or a night in the fridge. Both work, only one fits a weekday morning. Do not drain them afterwards: the water they have taken up is what makes the bowl blend smooth.
More than in most recipes, because there is no honey, syrup or plant drink here and half a banana does all the sweetening and thickening. A spotted banana balances the chlorella; a firm yellow one does not. Frozen slices make the bowl thicker and colder.
Because that is the difference between a smoothie bowl and a smoothie: it is eaten with a spoon because there is something to chew. Slice the apple thin so it does not sink, and add everything right before eating, since nuts and seeds go soft within minutes on a wet surface.
Only the oats. Soak them and keep them covered in the fridge. Blended banana browns and the bowl separates within a couple of hours, so the blending happens in the morning and takes about two minutes. Breakfasts like this one come planned into the week with a shopping list in the Diet & Training by Ann app.
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