Chocolate ice cream for breakfast... call yourself a nutritionist?! Shouldn't you be recommending fruit and nuts for breakfast?
Well, what if I told you you could have both? That's because the only ingredients in this 'nicecream' recipe are bananas, cocoa powder, peanut butter, and almond milk. Plus, no ice cream machines necessary, it's ready instantly just using a blender. The trick is freezing the bananas the night before - when blended with the other ingredients, churning up the high pectin content of the banana creates an incredibly smooth texture, just like soft service ice cream. Add some cocoa powder and peanut butter and you have one of the best flavour combinations known to man.
Vegan chocolate, banana, and peanut butter 'nicecream'
Ingredients (serves 2):
2 bananas (ripe with black spots is critical)
2 Tbsp cocoa powder
2 Tbsp peanut butter
4 Tbsp almond milk
Method:
Peel and chop the banana up into 1cm slices and pop in the freezer the night before. In the morning, take out your frozen banana, separate the slices, and chuck in a food processor or chopper container attached to handheld blender (high speed blenders like nutribullets are too fast for this) along with the almond milk. Pulse a couple of times, until the banana begins to smash up. Scrape down the sides and pulse again - it will look crumby at first, then gooey, then after a couple of minutes, magically turn into an amazing soft-serve consistency. You may have to scrape down the sides a few times during the process. Add the cocoa and peanut butter and pulse a couple more times to thoroughly mix and aerate the nice cream.
And that's it! You can eat this straight away, or put back in the freezer for 20 minutes or so until firmed up a bit - but beware, this doesn't keep very well in the freezer, so just make enough for now and eat it up!
Nutrition (per serving with 2 Tbsp granola sprinkled on top):
Protein: 10.4g (Women - 20.8% / Men - 18.9%)
Iron: 2.5mg (Women - 16.9% / Men - 22.1%)
Calories: 352 (Women - 17.6% / Men - 14.1%)
Sugar: 21.9g (Women - 24.3% / Men - 18.3%)
Total Fat: 16.0g (Women - 22.9% / Men - 16.8%)
Saturated Fat: 2.9g (Women - 14.5% / Men - 9.7%)
Salt: <0.1g (Women - <1.0% / Men - <1.0%)
Fibre: 8.6g (Women - 28.7% / Men - 28.7%)
See the Nutrition Info page for more details on % of Dietary Reference Values for men and women.