Acai Smoothie

This acai smoothie has all the fun of an acai bowl, in portable form! It’s got the best tropical flavor and a rainbow of healthy toppings.

Do you love a good acai bowl? Then we’ve got the next best thing…or maybe it’s even better. Meet this Acai Smoothie! It’s everything that’s great about the smoothie bowl, but it’s in easy portable form. You don’t have to worry about it melting in the bowl while you try to arrange the toppings with your best artistic flair. Just pop it in a glass and slurp with a straw! This Brazilian bowl is one of my favorite treats, and I was happy to find a fun new way to enjoy it. Here’s what to know!

What is acai, exactly?

Açaí is a berry that grows on palm trees in Brazil. (How to pronounce acai? Say “ah-sah-EE.”) This beautiful purple berry has taken off in worldwide popularity as the health food of the moment. Acai berries have an impressively healthy profile, loaded with antioxidants and nutrients. But keep in mind, they’re also just as nutritious as easily accessible fruits like the blueberry.

Acai bowls are the most popular way to eat this berry. This tasty dish originated from Brazil: it features a thick smoothie-like puree of acai berries and other fruits, topped with colorful fresh fruit, coconut, and other toppings. The next best thing to one of these bowls? An acai smoothie.

Where to buy acai

Here’s the thing: acai berries are native to Brazil, but you can only get them fresh in Brazil. Why are fresh acai berries not allowed in the US? Well, acai berries go rancid within a few days of being picked. So the berries need to preserved before exporting them! There are two ways to eat acai and they’re both becoming easy to find here in America:

• Frozen acai pulp: Due to the popularity of acai bowls, packs of frozen acai pulp are widely available online or at your local grocery. Check in the frozen fruit aisle. Sambazon is a well-known brand that sells acai and has sustainable harvesting practices.
• Acai powder: It’s easy to find acai in a powder form. However, we’ve found it’s not as tasty to make acai smoothies and bowls with the powder, so we suggest finding the pulp.

Ingredients for an acai smoothie

This acai smoothie is very easy to make, once you’ve located your acai pulp! Here’s what you’ll need:

• Acai pulp: See above! You can find this in the frozen section near the fruit in your local grocery, or online.
• Lime juice: Adds just the right zing to the flavor
• Frozen pineapple: Accentuates the acai berries with tropical flavor and sweetness.
• Frozen or fresh mango: Adds a similar flavor: it’s important to add naturally sweet fruit because the berries are naturally tart.
• Banana: Adds a final bit of sweetness and a creamy texture.

Blend it all up with a bit of water, and you’ve got a beautifully sweet tart acai smoothie: with no sugar added! Added sugars and juices can be common in an acai bowl: this one goes all natural.

The best toppings for an acai smoothie

The fun part about an acai smoothie is the toppings! Because toppings are such an integral component of an acai bowl, you absolutely can’t go without them here. We eat with our eyes, and the rainbow effect of the toppings really works. Here are our favorite ways to top this smoothie:

• Almond butter: This is absolutely essential! The texture of almond butter in the smoothie almost reminds me of hot fudge in a sundae. Yep, it’s that good! Plus, it adds plant-based protein which makes the smoothie more filling.
• Fresh strawberries and blueberries: Bring in bright colors with these tangy sweet berries.
• Mango: Add a few mango chunks for color and sweetness: you can even thaw a few frozen ones under warm water.
• Coconut flakes: Coconut flakes add a nice crunch and tropical flavor.

Tips for blending this smoothie

The acai pulp can be very solid, making it hard to blend this acai smoothie. Here are a few tips for the blending process:

• Use a good blender. This acai smoothie works in any blender, but a quality blender makes the process much easier. Even better, use a high speed blender.
• Thaw the packages under warm water until you can break them into smaller pieces. Then remove the packaging. Breaking them into pieces is helpful for blending.
• Add the liquid to the bottom of the blender first. This helps the blades to spin freely and not seize up with the frozen fruit.
• Add more water as necessary. Stop, scrape and add a bit more water as necessary until the smoothie comes to the right texture. We added almost another ¼ cup liquid, since we were using frozen mango and not fresh.

And that’s it! We hope you’ll love this acai smoothie as much as we do! Let us know if you make it in the comments below.

This acai smoothie is…

Vegetarian, vegan, plant-based, dairy-free, and gluten-free.

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