Why smoothie bowls are the latest food trend you should know about

If you’re still drinking your smoothies out of a glass, you’re doing it wrong.

Smoothies spooned out of a bowl — also known as smoothie bowls — are sweeping social media and turning up in endless iterations on menus at restaurants and juice bars across the country. If you’re looking for creative ways to get more energy-packed breakfasts for your group, here are 5 reasons why you should consider switching the straw for the spoon.

Endless Options

Just like smoothies that are poured into a glass, smoothie bowls are made up of blended fruits, vegetables, juices or milks. In a bowl, smoothies can be made thicker and showered with delicious, creative toppings. The base incorporates thickeners like blended avocado and frozen banana, and toppings can be anything from assorted sliced fruit, nuts, a few seeds and maybe some drizzled honey, for good measure. Popular combos include granola and berries, or chia seeds, nuts and sliced bananas. The options are endless. And a growing number of restaurants like Pure Green Catering, in New York, let customers customize.

Healthy and Nutrient-dense

Breakfast is arguably the most important meal of the day, and smoothie bowls are a great way to keep employees powered up through a morning meeting. Packed with a number of fruit and vegetable combos, smoothie bowls can be incredibly nutrient and protein-dense, especially if they include superfoods like acai, kale and nut butters. Just be careful to avoid too many fruits or extra sweeteners, as these could easily become sugar bombs. Popular spots like the Juice Press, which delivers throughout Boston, New York, D.C., New Jersey and Connecticut, focus on protein-dense smoothies made with Acai, blueberry and coconut water to bring the sweetness.  

Fun and Customizable

Options are always a win for catered meals, because they allow employees to customize their individual dishes with things that fit their taste and dietary needs. Setting up a smoothie bowl bar that includes a couple of base options with an arrangement of toppings can make eating breakfast interactive and fun.

Creative Catering

Restaurants are going wild on the smoothie bowl trend, which means there are plenty of options to fit all your catering needs. Rush Bowls in Denver dedicates a whole section of their menu to acai, that tangy superfood berry that is a cross between a grape and a blueberry. Their popular Beach Bowl blends acai with mango, banana and guava juice topped with granola and honey. At Verve Bowls in Seattle, dragonfruit is the showstopper. Their Pitaya Bowl Bar includes everything needed to build a dragon fruit bowl including assorted fruits and crunchy toppings.  Meanwhile, Vitality Bowls out of Newark has a wide tropical selection, with exotic ingredients like West Indian cherries, soursop, and goji berries.