Nuts are unquestionably among the most amazing foods in the world. Why? They contain easily digestible vegetable proteins, useful fats, essential amino-acids, and a good bunch of vitamins and minerals.
For this smoothie I decided to go with one of my favorite nuts: hazelnuts 🌰. When included in a regular diet, hazelnuts help keep your heart and blood vessels healthy and strong.
By the way, did you know that the ancient Romans considered hazelnuts a symbol for fertility and giving it to someone was supposed to bring prosperity to the recipient? I learned this from the book Nature and Its Symbols (A Guide to Imagery) and won’t go more in-depth than just saying that I found it very interesting 😁
In today’s smoothie recipe, I have combined hazelnuts with banana and yogurt; a mix that is simple, yet delicious. This smoothie is a perfect breakfast or, for instance, a post-workout recovery snack. Personally, I find it very tasty so I don’t even need any particular reason… other than indulgence 🙂
Hazelnut Banana Yogurt Smoothie
Ingredients
- 1 banana
- 0,5 cups yogurt (low-fat)
- 10 grams hazelnuts
Instructions
- Cut the banana into chunks.
- If you want, you can lightly fry the hazelnuts in a dry frying pan on low heat for max 2 minutes. Roasting will give the hazelnuts a brighter nutty taste and aroma.
- Pour the yogurt and banana into the blender. Process for 1 minute.
- Pour the yogurt-banana blend into a glass, and rinse the blender bowl and wipe it dry with a clean towel or napkin.
- Pour the hazelnuts into the blender and grind them for 10 to 20 seconds until they are crushed into medium-sized crumbs.
- Sprinkle the smoothies with the hazelnut crumbs.
- Serve the ready smoothies to the table. Bon appetit!
Why this Hazelnut Banana Yogurt Smoothie is good for you:
- Hazelnuts are so called brain food, ie. they contain elements that are useful for our cognitive functions. Perhaps even more importantly, hazelnuts help people fight heart disease and reduce cholesterol. Hazelnuts are particularly good for people who have diabetes and suffer from high cholesterol, since hazelnuts lower your cholesterol and contain manganese, which helps you fight diabetes. Hazelnuts also includes rather much of the inflammation-reducing Vitamin E.
- In a big study, the results showed that eating of probiotic yogurt was linked to better blood pressure, overall diet and healthier metabolic profiles. Yogurt is great for the microflora in our gut and may help people with colon cancer, constipation and diarrhea, to name a few. Another study showed a link between consumption of probiotic yogurt and weight loss, as well as greater fat loss.
- Bananas are a great source of potassium, magnesium and dietary fiber.
I hope you will like your hazelnut banana yogurt smoothie as much as I did mine 😉
