Portland Summer Smoothie Bowl

I’ve been making smoothies and smoothie bowls multiple times a week every spring, summer and fall for almost a decade now – ever since I moved to Portland and got my first high speed blender. So today I am sharing my Portland Summer Smoothie Bowl.

This Portland Summer Smoothie Bowl is super easy, healthy and incredibly refreshing. The base is made up of mango, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries and aćai. You can top it with whatever you’d like and I topped mine with some pantry granola, flaky coconut and more frozen berries.

Despite having access to amazing farmers markets, grocery stores, our own multiple blueberry and thornless raspberry bushes and way-too-invasive-but-yields-such-good-Himalayan-blackberries, I wanted to have a recipe that was more accessible to other busy parents who buy things in bulk. So I use frozen fruit for my Portland Summer Smoothie Bowl recipe.

These are all frozen fruit packs I get from Costco. I try to freeze what I can on my own but these frozen fruit packs come through for me when I’m in a pinch.

I take the frozen fruit and I simply blend it with soy milk. I like this unsweetened soy milk from Costco. And, no, soy isn’t bad for you and people need to stop spreading rumors about it. See recipe below for measurements.

For ease I also use a 2-cup measuring glass. I pour the ingredients in the glass. I start with the mango then empty it out into to the blender, then the berries and then the milk.

For ease I also use a 2-cup measuring glass. I pour the ingredients in the glass. I start with the mango then empty it out into to the blender, then the berries and then the milk. Then, of course, add the acai on top.

Then we blend on low and slowly increase to medium. The blender will stop blending at some point because we have to bring the contents down to the blades. Scraping the sides with the spatula is always helpful. Because of the relatively small amount of liquid, blending becomes a lot more difficult. So the contents of the blender need some kind of an “assist” to get down to the bottom of the blade. So if the blender seems to “not be doing a good job”, that’s normal. Ya just gotta scrape!

If it’s gotten to the point where stuff just won’t blend for more than a few seconds time even with all the scraping in the world, then add a tiny bit of vegan milk to help it out. Too much vegan milk and it’ll turn into a smoothie drink and not bowl. Then you’re screwed unless you’re down to drink a smoothie – which is fine to me!

You know you’re done blending when you get this nice pinwheel effect at the top of your smoothie.

When you’re done, add whatever you’d like! For me this varies as I usually just use whatever I have on hand. This time I had the granola, coconut flakes and to make it cute, I just added the frozen berries. Hope you enjoy!

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