AIP Mango Paradise Breakfast Bowl
This bright breakfast bowl is a nutritionally dense morning treat offering a burst of vitamins and fiber to help you begin a great day. This is the orange bowl in my rainbow breakfast bowl series, and for good reason.
What you’ll need
The ingredients you will need are:
1 mango
1 frozen banana
1 carrot (boiled until soft, then cooled)
turmeric
the juice of one orange or grapefruit
a cup of coconut milk
Mango Season
It is mango season in the jungle and to be honest it is the best mango season we have had since I arrived here over four years ago. Due to a very specific climactic transition from severe drought and wildfires to immediate hurricane season, the mangos came in beautifully, having harvested all of the rainfall from last year to produce their fruits, and completely free of gusanos, the little fruit worms that in other years have gotten to many of the fruits before we do, when the rainy season arrives early.
That said, we eat about 5-6 mangos a day and try to use them in as many recipes as we can. It becomes a challenge this time of year to make something that doesn’t include mango. Since they abound in selvatic perfection this year, I’ve been incorporating them into my breakfast bowls. When I don’t have time to prepare a breakfast bowl, I just eat a few fresh picked from the tree and go about my morning.
How to prepare:
To get started, you will want to freeze the banana and boil the carrot. This can be done the night before for the easiest possible morning prep. The frozen banana will provide the perfect texture for your breakfast bowl, and its important to boil the carrot soft ahead of time to avoid adding a hot carrot to the mix. Next, you will juice your orange or grapefruit, I like to use handheld juicers like this one for simplicity. Note that since grapefruits are bigger, they tend to yield more juice than an orange. That said, if you are adding grapefruit to your bowl, it may end up a bit more aguado or “runny”. If you prefer the texture of your bowl to be thicker, more like a smoothie, you’ll have to sip away some of that grapefruit juice before you add it to the blender, or simply leave the bowl longer to set in the freezer before you add your toppings.
We will add the banana, mango (peeled and diced), softened carrot, cup of coconut milk, and slice of peeled turmeric to the blender. Then pour in the orange or grapefruit juice that you prepared. You’ll want to blend this on high so that the texture of the carrot breaks down as much as possible. Once you have a creamy bright orange blend, go ahead and pour into your favorite bowl and top however you’d like.
Topping Your Breakfast Bowl
My recommended toppings are toasted shredded coconut, other fruits like maybe apple, pear, or papaya, if you are eating AIP and have successfully reintroduced nuts and seeds back into your diet, they are a great addition also. I topped mine with toasted shredded coconut and sliced fresh starfruit, which has just come into season in the jungle for the year. Toasted ginger would also be a great addition and bring a spark of spice to the other flavors of this bowl.
To increase the nutritional density of this bowl, you could also add an avocado to the mix (may change the color slightly), a second mango, a second carrot, or a second banana. You could also a add a spoonful of maca for a little energy boost. The most important thing is that you feel good and energized from your food, so go ahead and get creative.
Enjoy!
Once blended, I like to put my breakfast bowls to refrigerate for a few minutes before topping. It lets the blend settle and comes out cold and refreshing. You can use this time to slice up the fruits you want to put on top or toast your shredded coconut. Paired with a steaming green tea, you are ready to start your morning off right and drift away to your own mango paradise.
