This delicious Kale Kiwi Smoothie Bowl looks like it took a while to make, but honestly couldn’t be easier. I love smoothie bowls because they provide the perfect canvas to load up on toppings and get a good amount of ingredients to fuel you for the day, but if you prefer a smoothie you can sip on (or take on-the-go with you), you can do that with this recipe too.
The base of the smoothie bowl is a frozen banana, to which I add a handful of kale and a kiwi. If you don’t have kale, you can also use baby spinach instead. I also added in a spoon of creamy almond butter which makes this smoothie so delicious. Typically, I prefer to sweeten with fruit, like in this case, the banana and kiwi make this smoothie the perfect amount of sweet. If you prefer something sweeter, you have the option to add in a dash of sweetener like honey or maple syrup, or even a date. If you want to make this to refuel post a workout, you also have the choice of adding in a scoop of vanilla protein powder (I’d avoid chocolate for this recipe).
A few tips to get the creamiest, thickest smoothie bowl:
For the best texture, I highly recommend freezing your ingredients. Yes, it requires a bit of planning, but it’s the key to getting a spoonable texture. For this recipe, I froze a banana (after peeling and chopping into chunks) overnight. If you make smoothie bowls often, you can easily meal prep and freeze bananas in a big batch once a week.
The second tip is to start with as little liquid as possible, and only add if needed. For this smoothie bowl, I didn’t use any liquid at all, because the kale and kiwi have enough water content to get the mixture churning in your blender. But, feel free to adjust the thickness to your liking — if you want to make a smoothie you can sip on (and not spoon out of a bowl), you can add about 1/2 cup of your choice of plant based milk — oat milk or almond milk would be delicious here.
Lastly, another thing that really helps getting a creamy smoothie is a powerful blender. Depending on how strong your blender is, you might need a little splash of liquid to get things moving inside. Stop in the middle and scrape down the sides if required.
Just blend everything together and pour it into a bowl. For toppings I used more kiwi, a handful of blueberries and a seed mix. You can top with whatever you like — some combination of fruit and seeds/nuts or granola is great for a little bit of crunch and textural contrast.
- 1 large frozen banana
- 1 kiwi
- A packed cup of kale
- 1 tbsp creamy unsweetened almond butter
- ½ cup almond/oat milk (optional)
- Vanilla protein powder (optional)
- Toppings: kiwi, blueberries, granola or seeds
- Add the frozen banana, kiwi, kale and almond butter to a high speed blender, blend until smooth. Add liquid (almond/oat/regular milk) as desired, to adjust texture or get it to blend.
- Pour into a bowl and smoothen the top with the back of the spoon. Serve with toppings of choice.
