Banana Breakfast Bowl {paleo, Whole30, AIP, vegan}

For a healthy comfort food breakfast, try this 5-ingredient banana breakfast bowl made with a base of delicata squash!

It’s perfect for switching up your morning routine!

This warm and delicious breakfast bowl can be made ahead of time and even frozen to make your morning routine a breeze!

And for an extra protein punch, add some protein powder! Read below to find out which protein powders can be used for specific diets.

What is a Breakfast Bowl?

A breakfast bowl is simply a breakfast meal that is served in a bowl!

There are TONS of different breakfast bowl ideas out there.

This breakfast bowl might not be what you would typically think of when you hear the term “breakfast bowl.”

Most people might think of savory egg and hash breakfast bowls.

Some people might think of a smoothie breakfast bowl.

But this breakfast bowl doesn’t really fit into either of those categories.

Instead, this is more of a sweet breakfast bowl that has a texture closer to an oatmeal or porridge!

And what I love about breakfast bowls is that they are easy to customize to your tastes and the ingredients you have on hand!

How to Make a Breakfast Bowl

As I just mentioned, breakfast bowls are meant to follow a loose guideline so that they are hassle-free and easy to customize to your taste.

Take a scrambled egg breakfast bowl.

You basically start with scrambled eggs and layer on whatever flavors you want.

So for a Mexican breakfast bowl you could add cheese, sour cream, salsa, and avocado chunks.

Voilà!

You have a Mexican breakfast bowl!

The same rule applies here!

The recipe below is for the “base” of your breakfast bowl and then the idea is that you would add whatever toppings you want to change up the flavors of the breakfast bowl!

This also means that you can use the same banana breakfast bowl base a few days in a row but change up the toppings each day so that the breakfast bowl has new flavors and you don’t feel like you are in a breakfast rut!

How to Make the Banana Breakfast Bowl Base

What I love about this recipe is that once you have the squash roasted (keep reading for roasting directions), this banana breakfast bowl is super easy to make!

Are you ready for how easy this is?

Melt the coconut butter and the coconut oil (or regular butter) in a small saucepan.

Now put all of the ingredients in a blender.

Blend the ingredients until smooth.

Pour into bowls.

And then the fun part comes, add whatever toppings you want to your breakfast bowl and enjoy!!

I have a ton of different flavor and topping suggestions below!

The toppings are where you get to make this banana breakfast bowl your own!

And it’s also a great way to make one breakfast dish for your whole family and let people customize it to their own taste!

What is Delicata Squash?

The base of this breakfast bowl is made of bananas and delicata squash.

Now I’m sure everyone knows what bananas are, but you might not have heard of delicata squash before!

So if that is you, let me introduce you to this versatile winter squash!

Delicata squash is a small oblong-shaped squash that is typically yellow with green stripes.

You can usually find delicata squash at stores such as Whole Foods or at farmers markets in the fall.

What Does Delicata Squash Taste Like?

Delicata squash has a very mild flavor and is slightly sweet!

I would say it is most similar in taste to an acorn squash if you are trying to compare it to a more commonly known squash.

Due to its mild flavor, it’s a perfect base to add other flavors to since it doesn’t have an overpowering taste itself!

However, it can be hard to find delicata squash sometimes, so if you need to substitute the squash, try either acorn squash or cauliflower instead!

Is Delicata Squash Healthy?

The nutritional content of delicata squash is similar to butternut squash and has many health benefits.

You can check out this delicata squash article from Dr. Axe for a full list of benefits and the nutritional content of delicata squash, or you can read my quick summary here!

This little squash packs a good punch of vitamin A and vitamin C.

As you might know, vitamin A is important for healthy eyes and vitamin C is important for out immune system and keeping sickness at bay!

Other notable nutrients include manganese, potassium, and magnesium.

How to Roast Delicata Squash

Delicata squash is super easy to roast in the oven!

Preheat your oven (or I prefer to use my toaster oven so that I don’t heat up my large oven for a small delicate squash) to 350 degrees.

Use a brush to scrub the skin of the squash with water (this is especially important if you plan to eat the skin).

Place the squash directly on the oven rack or on a baking sheet.

Bake for 45 minutes or until a fork easily pierces through the skin.

Remove from the oven and let the squash cool on the counter for about ten minutes or until you can handle touching it.

Now it’s ready to be used in this recipe!

Can I Eat Delicata Squash Skin?

Unlike all of the other winter squashes, what makes the delicata squash unique is that you CAN eat the skin!

Now if that totally weirds you out, feel free to scoop the squash out of the skin.

However, if you are feeling more adventurous, you might want to try leaving the skin on and pureeing it in the blender with the other ingredients!

Whether you use the skin or not is totally up to you!!

What Protein Powder Can I Use for Banana Breakfast Bowls?

Depending on which diet you are following, there are different protein powder options available!

I talk about protein powders in more detail in my recipe for banana bread protein bites, so I will just list a quick summary here for each diet!

If you eat a whole foods diet and are mostly concerned with eating organic, responsibly sourced foods, check out Tera’s Whey or CERTIFIED truly grass-fed Garden of Life sport protein powder.  These are the two protein powders that our family uses the most.

For Whole 30 compliant protein powder (and yes they exist!), make sure you use a protein powder that is either 100% egg white, 100% grass-fed collagen peptides, or 100% pea protein that contains no added sweeteners.

For anyone on the AIP diet, you will want to use an unflavored collagen or gelatin powder. Our family personally uses the Great Lakes collagen. Since I use a vanilla flavored protein powder in this recipe, just add a 1/4 teaspoon of vanilla powder to add that vanilla flavor back in! NOTE: it is NOT recommended to use vanilla extract since this will not be baked (which would cook off the alcohol).

For those on a paleo diet, besides the options listed for the Whole 30 and AIP diets, you could also use an egg white protein powder that does include added sweeteners or even a PaleoPro protein powder which is a beef and egg protein.

If you are on a vegan diet, two good vegan protein powder options are Orgain organic plant based protein or Vega protein & greens powder.

So if you want an added punch of protein to keep you fuller longer, try one of these protein powders in your banana breakfast bowl!

Banana Breakfast Bowl Toppings

As I mentioned above, I love how easy it is to change the flavors of your breakfast bowl depending on the toppings you use!

In my pictures, you can see that I used sliced bananas and toasted coconut as my toppings.

But there are SO MANY more options!

Check out these other tasty topping ideas!

Banana Breakfast Bowl Topping Ideas

Fruit

• Strawberries
• Raspberries
• Blueberries
• Peaches
• Cherries
• Pineapple
• Kiwi
• Pumpkin Puree
• Dates
• Raisins
• Craisins

Nuts and Seeds

• Walnuts (probably the most common nut paired with bananas)
• Pecans
• Hazelnuts
• Almonds
• Cashews
• Pistachios
• Nut-Butter (most common choices being almond or cashew butter)
• Chia Seeds

Sweeteners

• Applesauce
• Maple Syrup
• Honey
• Molasses
• Lakanto Sugar
• Golden Lakanto Sugar

Other Toppings

• Peanuts
• Peanut Butter
• Chocolate Chips
• Chocolate Sauce
• Cacao Nibs
• Granola
• Other spices such as cardamom, nutmeg, or allspice

Like I said, there are so many options that you never have to eat the same flavor breakfast bowl in a week (or probably even a month if you got creative with it).

And if that list is too overwhelming to choose from, keep reading!

Banana Breakfast Bowl Flavor Variations

I know it can be hard to figure out which combinations of other toppings might be good together from the lengthy list above, so I tried to take some of the guess work out of the recipe with these flavor variations!

Keep in mind that some will use the banana breakfast bowl base recipe as written and some have slight modifications so that other flavors shine through!

Strawberry Banana Breakfast Bowl

Add a cup of fresh or frozen strawberries to the blender cup before blending.

Alternatively, or in addition to the strawberries in the base recipe, top your banana breakfast bowl with fresh sliced strawberries.

Peaches ‘n Cream Breakfast Bowl

Swap out the 1/4 cup of coconut oil or butter for 1/4 cup of coconut cream or heavy cream in the base recipe.

Top your breakfast bowl with peach slices.

You can use fresh, frozen, or canned peaches.

And if you are using canned peaches, don’t toss the juice!

Add the juice from the can of peaches in the base recipe before blending.

Nut-Butter Banana Breakfast Bowl

Add 2 Tablespoons to 1/4 cup (depending on how strong of a flavor you want) of a nut-butter of your choosing before blending the base.

Alternatively you can just drizzle nut-butter on top of the breakfast bowl when serving.

You could also use a seed-butter like sunflower seed butter too!

Chocolate Covered Banana Breakfast Bowl

Leave out the cinnamon in the base recipe.

For a chocolate topping, melt 1/4 cup of chocolate chips in 1 Tablespoon of butter or coconut oil.

Top the banana breakfast bowl with sliced bananas and drizzle on the melted chocolate sauce.

Tropical Breakfast Bowl

Add 1/2 cup of fresh or frozen pineapple to the base when blending.

Top with additional pineapple chunks, sliced kiwi, and/or toasted shredded coconut.

Blueberry Muffin Breakfast Bowl

Make a crumb topping by mixing together 1 Tablespoon or a sweetener of your choice with 1 Tablespoon of coconut flour and 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon.

Roughly chop and mix in 1 Tablespoon of butter or coconut butter so that the mixture turns into crumbs.

Top each banana breakfast bowl with a 1/4 cup of blueberries and a quarter of the crumb topping.

Very Berry Breakfast Bowl

Either mix in or top the banana breakfast bowls with easy berry compote!

Additionally, you can add some fresh berries on top as well for added texture.

PB&J Breakfast Bowl

Top your banana breakfast bowl with 1/4 cup of your choice of berries (I recommend strawberries or raspberries) and drizzle on 1 Tablespoon of peanut butter or another nut or seed butter.

Alternatively, you can top with the berry compote and peanut butter (or another nut or seed butter).

Pumpkin Pie Breakfast Bowl

Instead of 2 bananas, substitute one banana for 1/2 cup of pumpkin puree.

In addition to the teaspoon of cinnamon, add 1/8 teaspoon of cloves and nutmeg.

Or you can substitute the teaspoon of cinnamon for 1-1/2 teaspoons of pumpkin pie spice.

Chunky Monkey Breakfast Bowl

A classic chunky monkey flavor includes banana, peanut butter, and chocolate flavors!

Leave out the cinnamon from the base recipe.

To add the chocolate flavor, you have a few options.

First, you can switch the vanilla protein powder to a chocolate protein powder in the base recipe.

Second, you could drizzle on some chocolate sauce (for chocolate sauce directions, see above for the chocolate covered banana flavor).

Or third, you could sprinkle on chocolate chips!

And to finish it off, top your breakfast bowl with a drizzle of peanut butter, nut butter, or seed butter.

Caramel Banana Breakfast Bowl

I recently discovered that dates puréed with full fat coconut milk make an excellent caramel substitute!

To achieve a caramel flavor in your breakfast bowl, simply add 6 dates when you are blending up the banana breakfast bowl base.

Or you can blend up the 6 dates with 1/3 cup of full fat coconut milk until puréed and drizzle it on top of the bowls.

Samoa Breakfast Bowl

Start with the caramel breakfast bowl above and add toasted coconut.

For the chocolate topping, you can either sprinkle on chocolate chips or make a chocolate sauce to drizzle on top (see the chocolate covered banana bowl for chocolate sauce directions).

 

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