Double Mint Chocolate Keto Smoothie

Did you know that different tea varieties are an easy way to get variety also to your keto smoothies? This recipe uses peppermint tea as a base for a delicious, creamy mint chocolate keto smoothie that makes a full, light meal — or perfect, refreshing summertime breakfast.

How to prepare the Double Mint Chocolate Keto Smoothie

As you might guess from the title, this recipe calls for two different types of mint. The first mint-flavored substance is obviously the peppermint tea. The second one, though, is peppermint cookie stevia. That particular stevia is surprisingly easy to get delivered worldwide — at least from online stores like iHerb, where I order mine here in Finland. However, if you really cannot get this special stevia (or if it’s discontinued at some point as it often happens with these kinds of unique products…), don’t despair: I’ll give tips for substitutions at the end of this post.

Coconut manna is basically pureed coconut flesh. It’s sold in health food stores, but you can also order it online. This recipe uses coconut manna to thicken the smoothie and to make the taste rich and creamy.

For a delicious chocolate flavor, this recipe uses raw cacao powder. In this post a couple of weeks ago, I was listing some benefits of raw cacao powder, so you might want to read that if you are interested.

But without further ado, let’s take a look at how to make this super simple but satisfying recipe:

Pour 3/4 cup (180 ml) cold, brewed peppermint tea into a blender.

Add 2 tablespoons coconut manna…

…1 tablespoon raw cacao powder…

…1 scoop vanilla-flavored whey protein OR vanilla-flavored egg white protein OR vanilla-flavored rice protein. I prefer grass-fed whey protein. However, if you want a dairy-free smoothie, use either egg white protein or rice protein. For a keto-vegan smoothie, use rice protein.

Finally, add 10-20 drops (or to taste) peppermint cookie stevia.

Blend until smooth. Use preferably a powerful blender to get a smooth result. I just love my Blendtec! (No, this is no sponsored post! I’ve had this machine for over six years and still love it.)

Serve immediately.

Enjoy!

Yum!

How I came up with this Keto Smoothie

For long, I’ve wanted to try how tea works as a base for a keto smoothie. I’ve made some green smoothies with tea, but now I was aiming at a creamy smoothie. For a keto diet, teas are excellent in the sense that they don’t contain practically any calories or carbs. Therefore, you can enjoy, for example, of fruity flavors with fruit and herbal teas on a keto diet when the actual fruits are an absolute no-no because they are so carby. I’ve used fruity teas in my recipes before, for example, in this popular Keto Iced Tea Popsicle recipe. I usually have some version of those popsicles in my freezer. My son adores them! (And me too!)

For this keto smoothie recipe, however, instead of fruity taste, I was aiming at something with mint. And, not just any mint: I craved for the decadent combo of mint and chocolate.

But how to get a delicious mint chocolate smoothie from peppermint tea that would be creamy as well? After a while, I realized that creamy stuff could be heavy cream.

For chocolate, I could choose either dark chocolate or cacao powder. As I was intrigued by a thought of Mint Chocolate Chip Keto Smoothie, I decided to use dark chocolate, assuming it gets chopped into tiny, delicious chocolate chips in the blender while blending.

As I wanted to make a complete meal from my smoothie, I decided to add protein powder. I have lovely vanilla-flavored grass-fed whey protein powder. That would be a perfect fit for my smoothie, I concluded.

And because I thought the sweetness of the whey protein and chocolate is not enough, I wanted to add some sweetener as well. After checking my pantry, I grabbed a bottle of peppermint cookie stevia — and the idea of Double Mint Chocolate Chip Keto Smoothie was born.

So, I was ready to conduct my first experiment. For that, I blended together 1 cup (240 ml) ice-cold peppermint tea, 1 tablespoon heavy cream, 1 oz (30 g) roughly chopped very dark chocolate (85 %), 1 scoop vanilla-flavored grass-fed whey protein, and 10 drops peppermint cookie stevia.

To my disappointment, the taste was really thin and bland. First of all, I needed more heavy cream — and maybe less peppermint tea. Secondly, the chocolate didn’t get chopped into delicious tiny chips. Nope. There were big chunks of chocolate and tiny, sand-like particles of chocolate — and everything in between but no real chocolate chips. The sweetness was just right, though, actually, the smoothie could have been a tad sweeter.

So, my chocolate chip smoothie experiment had failed. Well, it wasn’t a total disaster, and it was sort of fun to fish those chocolate chunks from the smoothie and munch them one by one. But, I wanted to try out some other ideas, like simply using cacao powder instead of chocolate for a smoother texture.

I actually was thinking of using crushed ice to thicken the smoothie, but then got the idea to use coconut manna instead of heavy cream. Coconut manna is a great natural thickener. Actually, we are using coconut manna in our Ketokamu vegetable soups to thicken them. Also, this tomato soup recipe uses coconut manna to create a thick, creamy, and rich texture.

For my next experiment, I reduced the amount of peppermint tea and used 3/4 cup (180 ml) instead of one full cup (240 ml), and added two tablespoons of coconut manna, 1 tablespoon raw cacao powder, 1 scoop vanilla-flavored grass-fed whey protein, and 20 drops peppermint cookie stevia — so doubled the amount of stevia.

I used the smoothie program in my blender to blend everything together. To my big surprise, my powerful blender left part of the coconut manna into tiny chips instead of blending them properly. Well, in my first smoothie experiment, I was aiming at tiny, delicious chocolate chips but failed — however, in this experiment, I ended up with delicious coconut manna chips!

As I wanted to have a smooth smoothie, I did my next experiment using the whole juice program in my blender. Now, the result was completely smooth and homogeneous — and super-delicious! The mint from both the tea and stevia balanced out the richness of chocolate and coconut manna’s creaminess. Moreover, the sweetness was just right for my taste buds, which really needed 20 drops of peppermint cookie stevia.

I’ve made this smoothie many times during this week — and I still love it! Just try it, I bet you fall in love with this refreshing yet rich keto drink!

Here’s the recipe for you to enjoy: