I’ve been seeing pins with photos of beautiful smoothie bowls all over Pinterest. They seem to come in a huge variety of flavors and colors, not to mention there seem to be zillions of toppings. I do love a good smoothie, but I haven’t made one in a long time, and I’m not sure why. Maybe I got tired of them? Perhaps a smoothie in a bowl will get me back into smoothies. This Pumpkin Pie Smoothie Bowl sounds delicious and perfect for the Fall season. Let’s give it a try and see if it tastes as good as it looks!
This pumpkin pie smoothie bowl is a healthy and easy fall breakfast recipe! It’s a vegan and dairy-free smoothie made with pumpkin puree, dates, almond butter, banana, and plant-based milk. You’ll love this creamy fall dessert smoothie!
The Ingredients
My pre-shopping ingredient check was pretty unsurprising, and I had the spices, vanilla, and pumpkin seeds in my pantry. I had to shop for the rest and found everything at my usual grocery store. I did have to search for the Medjool dates, but I found them conveniently placed (hidden) underneath the banana display in the produce department.
Toppings sound optional and flexible, but I stuck with what the recipe suggested since I like them all. I used my pumpkin seeds and bought pecans and granola. I chose Cascadian Farms French Vanilla Almond Granola, and it was delicious on its own.
The Process
I technically started this recipe the night before I planned to actually make it. The bananas needed to be frozen, so I peeled two, cut them into small pieces, and popped them into the freezer. I appreciated the author’s tip to peel them before freezing. I learned the hard way that frozen bananas are impossible to peel.
When I was ready to actually make my smoothie bowl, I gathered the ingredients and took the bananas out of the freezer. I found they had frozen together into a big chunk of cold bananas, so I broke them apart before I added them to the blender.
Once I had the bananas separated and everything else measured out, it was time to get “cooking”. This recipe doesn’t need any actual cooking, so all I had to do was toss everything but the toppings into the blender and push a button.
Tip: You can substitute 3/4 teaspoon of ready-made pumpkin spice for the cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice to speed up making this smoothie bowl. I could very faintly taste cloves when I did that, but it was still a geat smoothie bowl.
I have a powerful blender, so it handled the frozen bananas pretty well. However, I did find I had to stop and scrape down the sides a few times with a spatula. This usually happens when I blend a small amount of something quite thick, but I think the problem was that I added the frozen bananas last.
My next step was to pour the pumpkin pie smoothie mixture into a bowl. Well, not pour. More like I removed the blades and used a spatula to scrape the mixture into the bowl. It was so thick that pouring would have taken forever. The mixture was thick, but a few swipes of my spatula smoothed it right down.
I chose one of my pasta bowls because they are big and shallow. It gave me lots of room to add the toppings. I added granola, pumpkin seeds, and pecans to one side of the bowl and banana slices to the other (1 whole banana). It works in smaller bowls, but the same amount of toppings completely covers the smoothie base.
Timing
This recipe lists a total time of 5 minutes. My Pumpkin Pie Smoothie Bowl took a bit longer since I had to stop the blender to scrape down the sides a few times. Here’s how it went:
- 7 minutes to measure the ingredients and blend
- 5 minutes to our into the bowl and add toppings
- 12 minutes total
I have tried this recipe a few more times, and sometimes it mixes up faster than others. Putting the oat milk in right after adding the bananas and dates seems to help. That gets the total time down to 8-9 minutes for me.
