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:

Double Mint Chocolate Keto Smoothie

July 12, 2020

by elviira

Ingredients

3/4 cup = 180 ml ice-cold brewed peppermint tea
2 tablespoons (1 oz = 30 g) coconut manna
1 tablespoon raw cacao powder
1 scoop (about 20 g) vanilla-flavored whey protein OR vanilla-flavored egg white protein OR vanilla-flavored rice protein
10-20 drops peppermint cookie stevia

Instructions

Place all ingredients into a powerful blender and blend until smooth.
Serve immediately.

How to get variation to the recipe

Even the peppermint cookie stevia should be relatively easy to order (like said, I also get it delivered here in Finland), it’s not absolutely necessary to achieve the delicious minty flavor in this smoothie. Instead of peppermint cookie stevia, you can use regular stevia — or your other favorite sweetener, like powdered erythritol or monk fruit — and add a drop or two peppermint oil. I don’t particularly recommend peppermint flavorings, as they often contain food additives and other nasty chemicals. Peppermint oil is a natural option, and you really need just a drop or two to get all that powerful, refreshing mint flavor.

Feel free to add 2 tablespoons dark chocolate shavings or grated dark chocolate (with minimum 85% cocoa solids) to your smoothie to get that delicious Mint Chocolate Chip Keto Smoothie that I was trying to get in the first place. Yep, with adding grated chocolate, you’ll get those delicious chocolate chips to perfect the smoothie!

Instead of coconut manna, you can use heavy cream or coconut cream. Even creamed coconut might work, though the texture is not that smooth like in coconut manna. Well, if you have a really powerful blender, you can try fresh coconut flesh if you happen to have some at hand.

For a thicker smoothie, add 1 cup (240 ml) crushed ice to the blender with the other ingredients.

General prattling

We finally finalized the Ketokamu soup packages for our cauliflower and broccoli soups and they got printed. Yay! The soups will be launched in September, so there is still some time for that, but now we have the packages at least. And we actually cannot start selling the soups before we are granted the organic certificate that we have applied. It will still take some time, and there will be a considerable bureaucracy related to that. They will check every single thing to make sure we are eligible to get the organic certificate.

I popped in our summer house for a couple of days – mainly to pick up my son, who was spending time there with my parents. The weather is cooler now, and the water in the lake is not that warm like it was during the heatwave a few weeks ago. Also, our big sauna building on the shore is under renovation. I’m really waiting that it will be ready so that we can heat it and enjoy its relaxing atmosphere. It’s a large and old sauna that you heat with burning wood — a very Finnish thing! But the best is that there are just a few steps to the shore from the sauna, so you can swim in the lake even when the water is cooler because you can get yourself warmed immediately in the sauna.

Actually, the sauna on the shore is not the only sauna we have: in the summer house, we naturally have its own small sauna. It’s also pretty atmospheric!

It also uses wood for heating. The heat is so much softer and enjoyable than in an electric stove sauna (that we have in our home, for example). I actually just found out that Tampere, the city where I live in Finland, has been officially declared the “Sauna Capital of the World.” Well, didn’t know that before!

Notice the sausage cooking on the stove:

The wild strawberries in the forest and in our yard are ripe now. They are something extraordinary: tiny, but full of flavor. So delicious!

Today, I did more chocolate experiments with my melanger. We are planning to bring Keto Hazelnut Crunch Chocolate Bars and Keto Raspberry and Cocoa Nibs Chocolate Bars to the market. I made some calculations on how much hazelnut, cocoa nibs, and raspberries we can use so that the carb count doesn’t rise too high. Well, cocoa nibs and hazelnuts are very low in carbs, but freeze-dried raspberries are relatively high, so you cannot add too much those.

Since the weather is cooler now, the chocolate solidified pretty fast. That made the making of chocolate quite challenging. Here are my chocolate bar experiments: