Pumpkin Acai Bowls with Cranberry Crunch
The Christmas cop has arrived in our house. It happens every year. I get a little excited to break out the snowmen and twinkly lights and he’s all “honor the bird” and won’t let me touch the xmas supplies until we’re eating day-after-Thanksgiving sandwiches. Humbug.
Even though I have to hold off on all Christmas excitement and Michael Buble holiday music, I don’t mind taking my time with the Thanksgiving-esque flavors. Like pumpkin. It’s not going away anytime soon.
I decided to pumpkin-ify one of my favorite foods: the acai bowl.
I wasn’t quite sure if the flavors would work, but it does. It definitely works.
When I poured it out of the blender to have a little taste, my inner Goddess did a backflip and grabbed her spoon. (PS Speaking of inner goddesses, HAVE YOU SEEN THE 50 SHADES OF GREY TRAILER? I thought the books were terrible, but I have to say the temperature in the room increased 30 degrees while watching the trailer. One of the very few instances where movie > book, and I haven’t even seen the movie yet.)
While the smoothie base is delicious, what takes it over the top is this cranberry crunch. Lightly sweetened with honey, it’s a crispy topping to add a little extra holiday flair.
This would be a fun Thanksgiving breakfast option, or a perfect snack when you’re looking for a treat in between sneaking sparkly snowmen out of the garage….
Let me know if you give it a try! <3
Pumpkin acai bowl with cranberry crunch
A holiday twist on the class acai bowl! This is gluten-free, vegan and extremely fast to put together.
- Prep Time: 10
- Cook Time: 20
- Total Time: 30
Ingredients
For cranberry crunch
- 1/2 cup raw slivered almonds
- 1/2 cup raw pumpkin seeds
- 1/2 cup raw sunflower seeds
- 1/2 cup dried unsweetened cranberries
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 tablespoon coconut oil (liquid)
- pinch of nutmeg
- pinch of sea salt
For one acai bowl
- 1 frozen acai pack serving
- 1/3–1/2 cup cooked pure pumpkin puree (depending on how pumpkin-y you want it)
- Scant 1/4 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
- 1/2 cup milk of choice
- Optional: Stevia, honey or maple syrup to sweeten
Instructions
- 1. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees and grease a standard cookie sheet with olive or coconut oil.
- 2. In a large bowl, combine all crunch ingredients and stir well.
- 3. Spread the crunch ingredients onto the cookie sheet in an even layer. Bake for 18-20 minutes, until fragrant and toasted, flipping once halfway through. Let cool completely before storing in a covered container. You can also stir in some chocolate chips after cooling if you’d like!
- 4. To make your acai bowl, add the acai pack, milk, pumpkin, pumpkin pie spice and optional sweetener to a blender. Blend on high until smooth.
- 5. To serve, pour the acai base into a bowl and top with the cranberry crumble.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 6
xoxo
Gina
43 Comments
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I’ve never tried those acai packs but I am determined to find some and FINALLY try an acai bowl that everyone raves about! They look so delicious!
1) Looks amazing!
2) Your photographing skills are fab these days, can you do a post on food photography?!
thank you!! i took a lesson while we were in tucson, and it helped SO much. before i didn’t know how to use my camera and all of the settings. i still don’t shoot in manual (i use AV mode) but it’s nice to know what the different features do. my lesson was from jacquelynn buck in tucson, and she wrote a guest post with some tips here: http://fitnessista.com/2014/04/quick-tips-for-better-photographs/
Looks really good, and different! Can’t go wrong with cranberry and pumpkin this time of year, at least not for me. Fun sweet option for breakfast or snack!
This looks awesome! I have never tried the acai packs, but I see them in stores all the time.
Haha. I love it! “Honor the bird.” I’ll have to use that one. I have to say, I agree with your husband. Maybe I’ve just become a Christmas grinch because I can’t stand how commercialized the holiday has become.
This recipe looks delicious! Acai bowls are hard to come by in the Northeast, but I managed to try one at B. Good and loved it. Where do you get your acai packs? I’m not sure that I’ve seen then at Whole Foods (though I haven’t looked very hard).
Acai bowls are my jam!! I love the holiday flavor twist of this one. Sounds delicious…your pictures have me drooling!
The cranberry crunch sounds so yummy! I bet that would be great in pumpkin yogurt too! I need to try acai and those packs sound great! Thanks for sharing
it definitely would!
I love Christmas but I’m in no rush to get past Thanksgiving. This sounds yummy!
This looks like fall in a bowl!! I’m going to put acai packs on the grocery list this week!
Heck ill be celebrating Christmas. On November the 1st, right after Halloween! It’s such a short season, Christmas, you know? It need to be longer.
I would never think to combine pumpkin and acai! Can’t wait to try it out!
I’ve never actually had San acai bowl before since its not really a thing where I live but I keep seeing them online and wanting to try one.
they’re so so good 🙂
I wonder if this is a military pilot thing, because my pilot is also all about honoring the bird! No lights up in this house until the day after turkey day!
hahah it must be!
YUM! I’ve never had an acai bowl, but these look INCREDIBLE!
I love crunchy granola on top of my smoothies/acai bowls. This one looks so festive and pretty!
I love acai bowls. I did consider tossing in some pumpkin the last time I made one, but cringed a bit inside thinking it would taste weird. Guess I should have rolled with it.
it actually goes quite nicely 🙂 xoxo
You come up with the best smoothie combos!! I am still obsessed with your recent persimmon and goji berry smoothie. Can’t wait to give this one a try- with the extra crunch on top!!
i’m so glad you liked that one! let me know if you try this one 🙂
I am seriously loving all of these fruity / pumpkin combinations I’ve been seeing lately! They add such an awesome twist to an already delicious favourite.
I will never understand why people try to hold off on Christmas. It’s the “most wonderful time of the year” so why are we only celebrating it for a few days?! No. Michael Buble is my BFF right now and I have zero shame.
I just started buying those acai packets for smoothie bowl bases…. love the idea of adding pumpkin, sounds amazing and definitely making asap 🙂
Believe it or not, I’ve never had an acai bowl. Any suggestions on where to get the best ones when I’m down in San Diego next week?
My husband is a Christmas cop too. I convinced him that once we have snow on the ground, the Christmas stuff goes up. I’m in Minnesota, so we got our first big snow two weeks ago. All the snowmen and woodland animals!!! Come on over and have some hot cocoa with me and listen to Christmas music in our winter wonderland.
I’ve got to find those Acai packs. They look so yummy! I’ve found the juice maybe I could just use that with some ice cubes?
Looks SO good!
I’ve been wanting to try those Acai packs. Maybe this is the excuse I need!
Yum! This looks sooo satisfying with all those textures going on!
Lol…”honor the bird” made me laugh! You should honor it by putting up the Christmas tree and putting turkeys and pumpkins on it until the day after Thanksgiving! Win Win!
I have to agree with you on 50 Shades…did NOT like the books AT ALL (how in the world did they make it to publishing?!)…but the movie definitely looks like a must-see! At least the trailer makes it look that way anyway!
Yum this looks tasty. Where do you find the acai packs, in the frozen section?
wow we would save so much money with this recipe! I honestly didnt think acai bowls were easy to make, but wow, they are!
I have yet to get on the whole Acai bandwagon, but it’s on my list for this winter when I go home! When I do, I’ll be sure to try this pumpkin-ified version 🙂
I love those acai packs. I think you can basically do no wrong with them + a blender. I’ll have to try pumpkin though because I never would have expected it to work. 🙂
I also didn’t like 50 Shades, but forced myself to stick with a few chapters to give it a chance. Such a waste of time. The preview definitely looks a lot better than the book was!
I have never had an acai bowl, but this sounds really good and i love the idea of having it fir a healthy breakfast on Thanksgiving!
Looks delish! How can you go wrong with pumpkin anything?? Happy happy fall!
OMG, the Christmas decorating urges! I am so eager to start getting out all the fun snow-and-sparkle-sprinkled stuff. It’s a long wait until next Friday. But I did order the kids some new holiday ornaments for this year and started a board on Pinterest, so that quelled the beast for a little while.
haha maybe i’ll work on my pinterest board and it will make me feel like i decorated 😉
I still haven’t tried an acai bowl! But I do have an open can of pumpkin in my kitchen at all times…
Completely hooked on this! I’ve made it for dinner twice this week. Who says breakfast for dinner shouldn’t be a weekly thing? I digress…. 🙂