Strawberry Chocolate Clean, Powerful Breakfast Smoothie

With the weather warming up, I am getting more glued to my breakfast smoothies.
I absolutely love having smoothies for breakfast ever since I got the idea to add beans to them. I always felt like breakfast smoothies could never hold me over until lunch UNTIL I started adding cooked beans to them. Usually my smoothies are gluten free, dairy free, refined sugar free, everything free except wonderful sources of nutrition and energy.

Chocolate and Strawberry are a match made in heaven, and I get so excited when I get these flavors for breakfast in a perfectly clean, healthy style of eating. For this recipe I am using some of my cacao powder for the chocolate, but use cocoa powder if that's what you have.

Smoothies are incredible opportunities to sneak wonderful superfoods into your diet. This time I am adding some ground flax seeds. I have been putting ground flax seeds in everything lately simply because I bought some and you need to use them up within a week. Flax seeds are a great source of fiber, omega 3 fatty acids, and antioxidants. Consuming these healthy fats are beneficial to your skin and hair, reducing dryness and flakiness.

When it comes to smoothies, I NEVER add ice because you can add the fruit frozen so you don't have to water down your smoothie with ice. Both my bananas and strawberries are frozen this time.

For the beans in this recipe, I am using a combination of black beans and kidney beans. The beans have a very minimal flavor themselves. For me they simply serve the purpose of providing protein and fiber, keeping me full until lunch.

The combination of the flax seeds and beans in this recipe add up to a lot of fiber. Fiber is essential to your digestive health, really flushing out all that waste and toxins it carries.

Here are the ingredients...

3/4 cup of any milk of your choice. I have almond milk this week. 

1/4 cup of coconut cream for healthy fats, and a slight coconut flavor

3/4 cup of frozen strawberries

3/4 cup of chopped banana for creaminess and sweetness

3/4 cups of kidney beans or black beans or both

3 tbls ground flax seeds for all their colorful nutrition

1 tbls cacao powder

Throw it all into your blender and blend away! Remember that blending for a longer amount of time than you expect maximizes the smooth, creamy texture of a smoothie. 

And here is it! Gluten free, dairy free, protein packed chocolate-strawberry smoothie for your breakfast.