Aronia berry smoothie: lunch fit for a prince

Follow me

 I’m going to show you how easily you can make a nutrient-rich, beautiful, and delicious aronia berry smoothie for lunch today. It’s good enough for any prince or princess in your neighborhood. But first . . . a little love song to fall.

Don’t you love fall?

I do. In fact, I want to marry fall. It is so rich, pleasant, changeable, and full of delights, especially after a punishingly hot and humid Nebraska summer. I just can’t get enough of it.

Truly.

Early fall in Nebraska.

little Mack: But Mom, you were just raving about how much you loved summer and how you didn’t want it to end  . . . just . . . yesterday, I think . . . You wanted to marry summer yesterday, Mom!

Soooo I love summer, too, and it takes quite a bit of punishment before I’m ready for it to come to an end. I am a Daughter of Summer, after all. Whoever said that I’m good at making lemons into lemonade was spot on. Spot. On.

So you’re saying that fall is a lemon? Why would you want to marry a lemon? Why, Mom, why?

(The questions never stop.)

Umm, goodness, you’re full of questions today, Mack. No. Fall is a peach, not a lemon at all. Now. Let’s talk about lunch. Want a smoothie again today, my prince?

I guess. But I feel like arguing with you, first. Then lunch.

You always feel like arguing, and I never do. Hmm. Oh, no! Do you know what’s happening . . . I’m running out of words . . . You know, don’t you, that every person wakes up with a finite amount of words to use in the day, and when they get to the end of their allotted words, they go mute? Then they have to go and lie quietly in their bedroom and take a long nap. And somebody else has to wash the dishes and feed the chickens.

That’s not true. Mommm . . .

Yes, it is! Just the other day—mmm–aaahhkkk . . . . *silence, gaping mouth, eyebrows raised, surprise*

Awww, Mom—-*rolling of eyes*–running off in the other direction–

–my prince, the apple of my eye, whom I adore–

Now. To the matters at hand.

I have been delighted at how much my family is enjoying the aronia berries that we’ve been picking and putting in the freezer. I wrote about them here, along with a dandy recipe for aronia berry scones.

Our appreciation for, and enjoyment of, aronia berries has not waned, Gentle Reader. They are a pretty nifty, super-nutritious, and underutilized berry. I saw this on Facebook the other day: a photo that somebody had posted, a long row of aronia berry bushes, probably knee-high, and just loaded with clumps of berries. The person posting asked “Can anybody tell me what these are? They are growing in our windbreak.”

Gasp.

Aronia berries aren’t sweet like blueberries

or tangy like raspberries. They are tasty, but also a little bitter. So it has come as a nice surprise to me that little Mack actually asks for an aronia berry smoothie for lunch, nearly every day. I know that having a bucket of vanilla ice cream in the freezer doesn’t hurt matters any (Please, Mom, just one scoop on the top?) but even with that indulgent addition, I’m thrilled to get these super-nutritious berries into the systems of my kiddos.

I set out to create the perfect aronia berry smoothie recipe, and have spent a couple of weeks making daily lunchtime smoothies, and after all that I see that you really can’t go wrong, where aronia berry smoothies go.

I’ll share my current favorite recipe with you, however, to get you started. If you have some aronia berries in your freezer to use, hooray! If not, you can substitute blueberries. Or any favorite berry that you have on hand, really.

You can’t beat the color of an aronia berry smoothie, however.

Here’s my current favorite aronia berry smoothie recipe . . .

. . . and by the way, this will make enough tangy, icy, creamy smoothies for 4 people, including one rather spoiled prince.

Aronia Berry Smoothie: fit for a prince!

It takes just minutes to make a nutrient-rich aronia berry smoothie that even a prince will get hooked on! Creamy, tangy, rich and satisfying!

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 10 minutes mins

Ingredients

  

• 2 Tb chia seeds, soaked in 1/2 cup water for 15 minutes
• 2 frozen bananas
• 1 cup aronia berries, frozen
• 1 cup plain Greek yogurt
• 1 Tb raw honey (or more, to taste)
• 1 cup milk or coconut milk
• 1 Tb coconut cream (optional)
• 1 cup ice cubes
• 1/2 cup ice water (or more, to pourable consistency)
• 1/2 cup ice cream or whipped cream (optional)

Instructions

 

• Put all ingredients except ice cream into a blender and blend until creamy, adding more water if needed to make pourable consistency. Top with scoop of ice cream or dollop of whipped cream.

There ya go! One nice thing about little Mack’s newfound love of aronia berries, is that he will help pick the berries, and I think we might have one more picking left.

Here are a couple more aronia berry-related posts for you:

• Amalia’s fabulous Aronia berry cream scones recipe
• Fermented aronia berry chutney: ooh, it’s tangy and delicious!

Pin it for Later!

Thanks for popping in to this little corner of the interwebs, my friend. Hey–slow down a bit. Take a nap. Enjoy your little princes and princesses in your neighborhood. Be good to yourself and to your dear ones.

*hugs*

• ← Too Many Tomatoes? Round-up of Recipes from my Kitchen
• Long Live Summer! Cherry Tomato and Quinoa salad →