Vegan, Reduced-fat, Peanut Butter-banana Smoothie!

My gym has this amazing smoothie called “The Chunky Monkey”. Basically, it’s a few scoops of vanilla frozen yogurt, skim milk and a HEFTY portion of peanut butter. I would say at least 1/4 cup. As I was leaving the gym today, I was thinking about how much I would really like one — because it’s been a while, but I didn’t want to blow the calories and fat.

I decided to try to make a slimmed down version… so I went to my local Shaw’s market (which has a pretty nice natural section) and picked up some things I thought would work. The end result was JUST as good, with a BIG difference in calories and fat!!!

Vegan, PB & Banana Smoothie

1 banana
1/2 cup So Delicious Soy Creamy Vanilla (non-dairy frozen dessert)
8 oz Blue Diamond Almond Breeze vanilla almond milk
2 heaping tbsp of Better’n Peanut Butter

Put all ingredients in blender and blend until smooth!

 

The shake was creamy, sweet, had a good vanilla flavor and didn’t taste “off” at all. The So Delicious tasted exactly like frozen vanilla soy milk, but even creamier. The almond milk is light and sweet and the Peanut Butter was the biggest surprise at all (as I’d never had it before). At 85% less fat and 40% less calories, this is a must-try product. When eaten alone, it’s definitely sweeter and “looser” than regular peanut butter. It’s made with de-fatted peanut flour and natural peanut butter, so it has that PB taste — but with a little something different from the flour. In the smoothie, you couldn’t tell at all.

All in all, if I had used regular soy milk, regular peanut butter and fat free frozen yogurt, here are the nutritional differences:

My slimmed down version has 70 less calories and 2 more grams of fiber but lacks in protein by 11 g. However, it has 12 gramsless fat… not bad! Plus… it’s vegan, dairy free and gluten free, so it’s special-diet friendly! This is the nutritional info BEFORE THE BANANA though. The banana adds an additional 200 calories, 1 g of fat, 6 grams of fiber and 2 grams of protein to each shake. So, this is not necessarily a low-cal smoothie… but it IS packed full of fiber and protein.