Easy Make-Ahead Acai Bowl Cubes

A few weeks ago I posted a vegan malt recipe that used maca powder for the malty flavor. I mentioned the Navitas Organics brand because I love their maca and, what do you know, a week later I have this box at my door, a gift from Navitas, packed with all kinds of superfood powders! More maca, ashwaganda, chai, turmeric, goji, cacao, and acai powder.

I’ve been experimenting with creative ways to incorporate some of these ingredients into my recipes lately and I think I hit on something really cool here. The idea is that you make a big batch of acai bowl, with all the ingredients you’d want (banana, berries, acai powder, almond milk, flax, etc.) and then you freeze this into ice cube trays so you have an instant acai bowl on hand anytime the craving strikes. Just blend with a little almond milk, top with some fruit and seeds, and you’re ready to go in 2 minutes!

Now, WHY would you want to do this instead of just making one bowl at a time? A number of reasons:

1. To save time. You can do all the “hard” work of measuring and preparing the ingredients in one big batch so that each bowl just needs to be quickly blended when ready.
2. If all you have is acai powder instead of the frozen acai puree, this is ideal because it essentially turns the powering into frozen puree, if that makes sense.
3. Texture! Becuase *all* the ingredients are frozen into cubes, you end up with a thick frozen texture almost ice cream which would be very hard to do if the ingredients were separate.

My base recipe here is pretty cool – it uses flax and almond butter to boost the creaminess, plus lots of blueberries which combine with the acai powder to add ridiculous amounts of antioxidants, and banana to round it all out. What’s great about this recipe is that you can throw in whatever you like in your acai bowls and it should work fine.

Let me show you how I make the cubes…

Makes: 2 bowls

Step One: Blend

Add all the ingredients (minus the toppings, of course) to a high-powered blender and blend until completely smooth. Go easy on the almond milk to start – you want this to be quite thick because you’ll be adding more almond milk when you actually make the bowls in the end – so add just enough to blend smoothly.

Also, the dates are optional. This recipe isn’t overly sweet, so if you’d prefer your bowls on the sweeter side, throw in some dates as well.

Step Two: Freeze

Pour into ice cube trays (cover so they don’t absorb weird freezer tastes) and let them freeze for at least 6 hours. Then, break them out of the cubes and story in zip-top bags until ready to use.

Step Three: Acai Bowl!

Now, when you’re ready to make the actual acai bowl, take the desired number of cubes (this batch makes 2 normal sized bowls) and add them to a blender with just enough almond milk to get things moving in the blender (1-2 tablespoons at a time). When it’s totally smooth, pour into a bowl and top with fruit, toasted oats, seeds, or whatever your inner #SmoothieBowlArtist desires…