Eating an acai bowl for breakfast is essentially like waking up and immediately having dessert. But because acai berries are a superfood, you can get away with it. When I was living in the endless summer of LA I was eating a lot of acai bowls. This recipe is an attempt to recreate the creaminess of my favourite one. It’s a very simple recipe, but it is the result of some experimentation. Sweet enough, creamy enough, not too icy or runny.
Acai Bowl Recipe
SERVES 2
Acai mix
- 1/2 cup plant-based milk
- 2 frozen bananas
- 1/2 cup frozen berries
- 100 g frozen acai
Granola
- 2 cups rolled oats
- 1/4 cup almonds, chopped
- 1/4 cup sunflower seeds or pepitas
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground ginger
- 1 teaspoon sea salt
- 1/4 cup maple syrup
- 2 tablespoons olive oil or coconut oil
Toppings
Choose from: granola, sliced banana, sliced strawberries, blueberries, any other fresh fruit of your choice, nut butter, nuts and seeds, coconut yoghurt
For the granola, preheat oven to 180°C.
Put everything on a non-stick baking tray, mix well to coat the ingredients with syrup and oil, spread evenly over the tray and bake for 15 minutes, then stir. Bake for another 15 minutes. Depending on how big or small your baking tray is, the granola could surprise you and brown very quickly, so keep an eye on it. Take out of the oven and leave to cool.
For the acai mix, put all the ingredients into a food processor, for best results, or a high-speed blender.
The mix requires 3 or 4 minutes of blending. Don’t be perturbed if it looks too thick – it’s supposed to be thick. Nobody likes a runny acai bowl. If it’s so thick that it’s not blending, add a splash of plant-based milk.
Pour the acai mix into a bowl and cover with granola and your choice of fruit, nut butter and so on – you pretty much slam it all together.
NOTES
This makes enough granola for quite a few acai bowls (depending on how much you snack on it). Stored in an airtight container for about a month.
For a less sweet bowl, replace half a frozen banana with half a frozen zucchini.
This is an extract from Kindness Community Vegan Cookbook by Edgar’s Mission (Affirm Press, $35). Photography by Julie Renouf.
