Sweet Potato Chocolate Smoothie Bowl with Pumpkin Spice

A high fiber treat that’s also decadently creamy, this whole food plant-based date sweetened smoothie bowl is bursting with warm soothing flavor. Top it with healthy cacao nibs and quinoa flakes for a satisfying crunch.

WHY I LOVE IT

I’ve always had a thing for the starchy caramelized goodness of roasted sweet potatoes. This smoothie bowl is a quick and particularly fabulous way to turn pre-baked sweet potatoes into a nourishing breakfast, snack or dessert. The flavors remind me of Thanksgiving. It’s like sweet potato casserole and pumpkin pie coming together plus a subtle but uplifting dose of chocolate. I love that this is a nourishing and filling whole food plant-based (WFPB) adherent recipe sweetened with whole dates and thickened with oats and ground flaxseed. Topping this bowl with cacao nibs and quinoa flakes keeps it low in saturated fat and free of refined sweeteners. But when I want a richer, more dessert-like, experience I use grated chocolate and chopped nuts or coconut.

SWEET POTATO/ YAM OPTIONS

I used garnet yams when making this recipe, but any other variety of yams or sweet potatoes would also work. Try to go for the sweetest sweet potato or yam you can find. Japanese matsutake sweet potatoes are a great option because they are intensely sweet. If you use a lighter colored sweet potato like matsutake, using turmeric will help intensify the color.

BAKE SWEET POTATOES AHEAD OF TIME

Pre-cooked ingredients mean you need to think ahead. I’ve noticed that yams and sweet potatoes, even when kept in the fridge, don’t last as long as other root vegetables like beets or white potatoes. This is especially true if you buy organic. What I like to do is to bake up a batch as soon as I get them back from the store. Then I keep them in a sealed container in the fridge for up to a week and snack on them or use them in recipes as needed.

My favorite way to cook yams and sweet potatoes is in the oven at 350 F°, on a parchment paper covered cookie sheet, for at least an hour and up to an hour and a half. Larger yams and sweet potatoes require more cooking time. The idea is to cook them until they are very soft with a lot of give when you squeeze them. They need to be soft so that you can cut them in half lengthwise and scoop out the mushy inside to use in recipes like this one where you don’t want the peels. For a step by step guide to cooking sweet potatoes and yams click here.

FOOD PROCESSOR RECOMMENDED

This is a very thick smoothie bowl. Although I own a pretty good high speed blender that would probably work for this recipe, I prefer to make it in my food processor. You can always add a little more plant milk to help this recipe work better in a blender. Anyone reading a smoothie bowl recipe, is probably great at using electronic appliances to blitz ingredients into creamy awesomeness, so I’ll let you figure this one out.

DATE SWEETENED MAGIC

This recipe gets most of its sweetness from whole dates which are processed into the smoothie in a food processor or high speed blender. Nearly all of my sweet recipes get most of their sweetness from whole dried fruits, and my go to dried fruits for sweetening recipes are dates. Dates are intensely sweet with a rich caramel-like flavor that blends seamlessly with other ingredients. From a nutritional standpoint, dates are a whole plant food packed with fiber and a symphony of other nutrients.

CHOOSING DATES

My favorite dates are pitted Deglet Noor because they are sweet, flavorful, widely available and usually soft and moist. You can also use other kinds of dates by prepping and measuring them in the same way as you would Deglet Noor.

PREPPING DATES

When using dates in recipes I always begin by chopping or slicing them. I have found that dates that are supposedly pitted are, in fact, usually not all pitted. Pre-slicing my dates gives me the opportunity to remove any hidden pits and hard stems that may still be attached. In recipes like this one where the dates will be processed, slicing the dates allows them to be processed more quickly and effectively. Finally, slicing dates allows for greater consistency when measuring. Once the dates are sliced they can be pressed into measuring cups or spoons.

GRINDING OATS

I like to grind oats into a coarse oat flour before adding the other ingredients to the food processor or blender. Start with rolled oats, old fashioned or quick, and place them in your processor or blender. Then pulse until you create a coarse flour. For a smoother smoothie bowl you can process oats into a finer flour. It’s up to you. One quarter cup of oats makes approximately one quarter cup of oat flour. Keep in mind that pure oats are gluten-free, but since oats can become contaminated with gluten during processing or harvesting, choose a brand of oats or oat flour marked gluten-free if you need to be 100% gluten-free for health reasons.

THE HEALTHIEST CHOCOLATINESS

Rejoice! Cocoa powder and cacao nibs are whole plant foods with a number of nutritional benefits.

Cacao nibs are crushed, roasted (or sometimes un-roasted) pieces of the cacao bean, without added sweeteners or other ingredients. Cocoa powder is also derived from whole cacao seeds. And though there is more processing involved in making cocoa powder, many of the nutrients present before processing are retained. These include fiber, antioxidants and minerals like iron, magnesium, copper and zinc. There are two types of cocoa powder: natural and Dutch-processed, a.k.a. European-style cocoa powder. If you want to maximize the nutritional benefits of cocoa powder, go for natural instead of Dutch-processed because in removing some of the acidity, the Dutch processing technique also decreases flavanol content. And flavanols are powerful antioxidants with a variety of health enhancing benefits. But that doesn’t mean that Dutch-processed cocoa is bad for you, only that it’s a little less good. Natural cocoa powder will always be more acidic. If the tang bothers you, then go with Dutch-processed.

TAHINI AWESOMENESS

I love the silky nuttiness that comes from using just a small amount of tahini in this recipe. If you’d like, you can use sunflower seed butter or a nut butter such as almond or cashew in place of tahini. Creamy peanut butter would work texture-wise but I don’t recommend it because I think the taste of peanuts would overwhelm the other more subtle flavors.

What exactly is tahini? Tahini is a paste made of whole ground sesame seeds. Many of us know it as a staple in traditional Middle Eastern cuisine, but historically it has also been used throughout the Mediterranean and parts of Asia. Today tahini is popular all over the world. Unlike oils which are extractions removed from whole plant foods and thus lower in nutrients, tahini is made from the whole sesame seed and is thus nutrient dense. In fact, you could say that tahini is a nutritional powerhouse. It’s a great source of calcium and contains protein, fiber, selenium, and more. Check the label and try to get tahini that doesn’t have added oil though, because some brands do.

Due to its high fat content, people sometimes have trouble understanding that tahini is an acceptable ingredient in a WFPB adherent diet. But having fat doesn’t keep something from being a whole plant food. Avocados are a whole plant food, as are nuts and fresh coconut. All of these foods are also high in fat. Fortunately for fat gram counting WFPB adherent foodies, a little bit of tahini goes a long way.

QUINOA FLAKES & ALTERNATIVES

Quinoa flakes are a nice way to add nuttiness and texture variation without the saturated fat and high caloric density of chopped nuts or coconut flakes. The flavor reminds me more of coconut than of nuts, but they can work as a substitute for either. Use whatever you prefer or have on hand. Slithered almonds, chopped pecans, or toasted coconut would all make wonderful toppings for this smoothie bowl.

WHY ADD TURMERIC?

Adding a teaspoon of phytonutrient packed ground turmeric to this recipe will give it a deeper, more intense, sweet potato color while contributing a very subtle warm flavor. Honestly, you can barely taste one teaspoon of turmeric in this recipe, but it does a lot in terms of boosting nutrients and improving the color. If you love the taste of turmeric you could use a little more. Alternatively, if you want the benefits of turmeric but think you may not like the taste, use a half teaspoon instead.

PUMPKIN SPICE ALTERNATIVES

No pumpkin spice? Using cinnamon, or a smaller amount of allspice, instead of pumpkin spice works well. Or you could go for another sweet fall themed spice blend like apple pie spice. For a different flavor profile I happen to love, try ground cardamom, either by itself or with a pinch of nutmeg.

SOME LIKE IT SWEET

This smoothie bowl is already quite sweet with a lot of dessert potential. Adding just one tablespoon of maple syrup or molasses cranks up the sweetness. So if sweet’s your thing, and you’re not strictly WFPB adherent, don’t be afraid to experiment with a bit of extra sweetening. Using grated plant-based chocolate instead of cocoa nibs will also take things in a more dessert-like direction.

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