Ultimate Health Report

If you’re trying to limit sugar but you LOVE ALL THINGS CHOCOLATE, this creamy Chocolate Banana Smoothie offers the best of all worlds. Freeze a couple of bananas ahead of time and you’ll be sipping on this sweet and decadent drink in minutes!

When you’re striving to feed your kids right, it’s easy to fall into a pattern of binary thinking. Almost without realizing it, you might find yourself assigning categories to foods, like this:

Broccoli: good. Candy: bad. Carrots: good. Cupcakes: bad.

It’s natural to look for patterns that can help us make quick decisions about what to eat. But when we can think about food in a more nuanced way, we can enjoy a lot more foods without feeling bad about our choices.

Healthy food can taste absolutely delicious and indulgent… just like something we might think of as “off limits.”

This Chocolate Banana Smoothie is the perfect example. It’s super sweet, creamy, and full-to-the-brim with kid appeal. AND it’s made from whole fruit, milk, and other nourishing ingredients.

Buzz up this smoothie today and share it with your kiddos. Embrace the delicious complexity of healthy food!

Is Chocolate Banana Smoothie Healthy?

This smoothie might look and taste like a decadent dessert, but it’s actually full of nourishing, whole food ingredients that you can feel confident serving your kids (even for breakfast! )

The ingredients list is short, simple and whole:

• Bananas
• Whole milk
• Unsweetened cocoa powder
• Honey (optional)

One serving of this smoothie provides six grams of protein, four grams of fiber, plus the goodness of whole fruit and antioxidant-rich cocoa.

How to Make a Chocolate Banana Smoothie

Buzzing up this chocolatey treat is quick and easy, and you’ll be utterly famous with your kids when you make it. Here are a few tips for making it just right:

• Freeze your bananas ahead of time. The next time there’s a bunch of brown bananas staring you down on your counter, go ahead and peel a few, break them in half, seal them in a zip-top bag, and freeze.
• Choose a natural, unsweetened cocoa powder. We like this brand.
• Adjust your sweetener. If you want to go totally free of added sugars in this smoothie, you can leave the honey out entirely. Really. It’s still way sweet!
• Blend it well. Frozen bananas have a tendency to escape the blades in even high-powered blenders. Let yours run for an extra 20 seconds or so, so the smoothie is ultra smooth.
• Serve it right away. This smoothie shines when it’s frosty cold and well-blended. Enjoy it straight away after making it for the best taste and texture. If you do have leftover smoothie, it’ll keep in the fridge, but may separate after a few hours. A quick stir with a straw will restore a more even consistency.
• Top it with whipped cream. This is totally optional, but oh so fun.

More Chocolate Goodness

Try a couple riffs on this chocolate drink with these recipes:
Chocolate Peanut Butter Protein Shake for Kids
Homemade Chocolate Milk

And learn about how chocolate fits into the health equation for kids here.