A Secret Ingredient for Making a One-Minute High Fiber and Protein Rich Breakfast Treat

It’s time for a pop quiz. (It’s the professor in me.)

Questions:

1. Why does Full Plate Living recommend starting your day with high fiber?
2. What food category has the highest amount of fiber?

And just to show you what a good professor I am, here are the answers.

1. Because you start your day feeling full, which means you eat less as the day goes on.
2. Beans and Legumes pack the highest fiber punch at about 8 grams per ½ cup serving.

Smoothies are conveniently portable. Because sometimes I may have 5 minutes to prepare a meal, but I don’t have 5 minutes to eat it, drinking a smoothie on my way out the door or after I get to my destination is extremely helpful.

It also helps on those days when I’m not hungry for breakfast, but know I need to eat, er, drink something.

But here’s the problem some people have with smoothies. They don’t keep you full enough long enough.

And working on that problem brought me to this conclusion: bean smoothies.

Beans in smoothies?! Amanda, aren’t you taking this health-nut business a little bit too far?

Believe me, I felt the same way when I first started investigating this unusual use for beans.

So let’s examine the facts.

• Beans without salt are nearly tasteless.
• Blended beans happen to have a very smooth texture. (Ever heard of bean dip?).
• Beans are an excellent, natural source of fiber. (I know we already talked about this earlier, but I’m a professor who likes making lists.)
• Beans are an excellent, natural source of inexpensive protein.
• Properly selected, the color of beans doesn’t interfere with the color of the smoothie. (For example, brown pinto beans can pass for chocolate milk when blended into a smoothie.)
• Beans freeze really well. So they go in a freezer bag with my other smoothie ingredients and can go straight into the blender in the mornings for a one-minute breakfast.

Why, yes! Adding beans to a smoothie does sound like a delicious and nutritious idea. You might think “delicious” is stretching it a tad. But once you try it, I promise you’ll readily agree. I was even surprised myself.

As it turns out, I’m not the only one who came up with this ingenious idea. Below are recipes in order of the type of legume featured to help you power-up your breakfast smoothie to the max!

21 Bean Smoothie Recipes

• Black Bean, Banana, Chocolate, Coffee Optional
• Black Bean, Chocolate, Strawberry
• White Bean, Peach
• White Bean, Oatmeal, Chocolate/Banana
• White Bean, Mango, Coconut, Mint
• White Bean, Pumpkin, Cinnamon
• White Bean, Vanilla, Maple Syrup (Option #5)
• White Bean, Kale, Orange, Pear, Kiwi
• White Bean, White Chocolate, Blueberry, Spinach
• White Bean, Spinach, Banana, Pineapple, Orange
• Navy Bean, Ginger, Banana, Flaked Cereal
• Navy Bean, Banana, Date Smoothie
• Mung Bean, Banana, Orange, Mango
• Split Pea, Spinach, Apple, Pear, Banana
• Kidney Bean, Walnuts, Flax, Spinach, Mango, Kiwi
• Chickpea/Garbanzo, Strawberry
• Chickpea/Garbanzo, Peanut Butter, Banana
• Pinto Bean, Chocolate, Banana, Dates, Coffee
• Adzuki Bean, Banana or Mango
• Adzuki Bean, Date, and Banana
• Edamame, Berries, Banana

Hidden Beans. Hidden Nutrition.

You won’t find beans in many of the smoothie delivery companies out there. I think that’s because people feel weird about the idea of beans in smoothies. They’re worried the smoothies will taste weird.

My husband didn’t believe this bean business was such a good idea when I told him about my latest kitchen experiment.

Then I told him he’d had bean smoothies as a breakfast drink the previous two days. I think he might have been in shock because all he said was, “I’m impressed.”

Maybe I shouldn’t have told him.

No one else has to know.

It’ll be our little secret.

Want more bean recipes? We have a list of 50!