Chocolate, Banana, and Peanut Butter all work together to make an indulgent, but not-too-sweet smoothie. This works for breakfast, lunch, or even dessert. The Kid is a big fan of this version, which uses a couple of standard ingredients in our house. Your version can certainly vary, using what you have on hand. Here is our CBPB Smoothie.

Chocolate Milk

Easily the best version in using Oberweis Chocolate Milk. We’ve been getting home delivery of Oberweis premium dairy products for about a year. Far and away the most popular item in our house is the glass half-gallon bottle of Chocolate Milk. It can be difficult to have enough of this super-creamy, chocolately milk left to make this CBPB Smoothie. Fortunately, there are some alternatives, although there is a bit of a compromise in overall creaminess and sweetness.

We’ve made the CBPB Smoothie with chocolate almond milk, which is pretty generally available in grocery stores. The Kid is good with chocolate almond milk, and will happily drink it, but the Others will turn up their noses. The CBPB Smoothie with the almond milk does well with all three kids, if they aren’t told that alternative milk is used. There’s usually an almond milk or oat milk in the house, but the chocolate is usually a specific purchase.

There is a backup plan for not having any prepared chocolate milk in the fridge: Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup. All three kids will use it on ice cream, (leaving the secret, premium toppings for us) and it will work in the mixer with any sort of milk to make the CBPB Smoothie.

Peanut Butter

One of our local grocery chains makes a fresh-ground peanut butter on site. I like it even more than the ‘natural’ jarred peanut butter. It’s almost a ‘whipped’ texture, and doesn’t have the separated oil and the messing around to stir everything back together. For a CBPB Smoothie, a tablespoon of this fresh-ground peanut butter is a great add, although most kinds will work. The honey-roasted peanut butter adds additional sweetness the Kid loves.

Bananas

You’ve probably heard that all bananas in grocery stores are the same species. Turns out, organic bananas are actually a different variety. I find they are sweeter and have more flavor, worth the couple of additional cents per pound. CBPB Smoothies are a good way to use that last banana or two that you didn’t get around to eating. We generally will peel those last bananas, put in a freezer bag, and throw in the freezer. Those peeled, frozen bananas work really well in a CBPB Smoothie, adding both flavor and pectin, helping to keep the smoothie from separating.

Smoothie Composition

A basic Smoothie would be: 1) cup of liquid (chocolate milk), 2) added fruit (banana), 3) optional add (peanut butter), with a cup of ice. Our Vitamix blender has a specific, 50-second smoothie setting, which we’ll run twice if we’re making a bigger batch.

Variations

There’s a bunch of different ways to whip up a CBPB Smoothie. Almond milk instead of cow’s milk. Chocolate syrup instead of prepared chocolate milk. Adding some vanilla or plain yogurt to thicken, especially when using nut-based milk. Frozen bananas over fresh can reduce the amount of ice a bit. Different styles, and flavors, of peanut butter. Generally, we find the chocolate milk, especially with vanilla yogurt, is sweet enough on its own. A dash of agave syrup or even maple syrup is an easy add if that’s to your taste.

This recipe is part of our Healthy Snack Week

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