Dragon Fruit Smoothie Bowl

This Dragon Fruit Smoothie Bowl recipe uses pitaya, or dragon fruit, for a delicious bowl that packs health benefits.

This one’s a stunner. When I was roaming around the fresh markets and streets of Thailand, dragon fruit was at each corner. It’s one of the most beautiful and eye-catching fruits with it’s hot pink color and green spikes, but what else makes this fruit fantastic besides the beauty?

You’ll have to experience that answer first hand when making this Dragon Fruit Smoothie Bowl that’s loaded with fiber, antioxidants, healthy fats, and protein (lots of options here!). Warning, don’t wear white when making this recipe…of course, I learned the hard way.

This is no exaggeration, but I ate fresh dragon fruit every single morning while traveling around Thailand since it was so abundant and delicious. It was also a fleeting experience, so I took advantage of every single bite I could get of fresh dragon fruit.

Finding it fresh and affordable here in the U.S. is very difficult and near impossible. Thank goodness for flash frozen pink dragon fruit or else this recipe wouldn’t make it from Thailand to my kitchen…or yours!

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What is dragon fruit?

Dragon fruit is naturally grown in Central America and Asia. It’s in the cactus family which makes complete sense when looking at its spikes and unique characteristics. Dragon fruit can also be referred to as pitaya (pit-ah-ya) and the flesh of the fruit comes in both red/pink and white.

The pink variety is shown here and is the most popular in “bowls” for its beautiful color. The flesh of the fruit reminds me of a cross between kiwi fruit and watermelon because it’s very water-rich, juicy, crunchy, and spongy all at once. Just visually looking at it, I had high expectations this would be a very sweet tropical fruit, but on the contrary, it was very mild and only slightly sweet.

Nutritionally speaking, fruit across the board is a great source of fiber that we all need to consume every single day for healthy digestion, metabolism, and making sure we’re getting rid of metabolites, excess water, and others our body doesn’t need. Dragon fruit particularly has high amounts of vitamin C – that alone makes it on the list of my top “beauty foods“!

Vitamin C is so important in keeping free radicals at bay while keeping our skin healthy by protecting and boosting collagen and serves as an overall antioxidant for the body. In addition to vitamin C, dragon fruit also contains vitamin A, B vitamins, and magnesium.

This smoothie bowl contains the frozen puree of dragon fruit, frozen banana rich in potassium, frozen raspberries giving another kick of color and fiber while being low in sugar, and coconut milk with a boost of healthy saturated fats. I also included optional ingredients like a protein powder to keep this macronutrient balanced, bee pollen for added nutrition, maca for added minerals, superfood powders, and medicinal mushroom powders for added antioxidants.

All of these powder ingredients are completely optional, but I typically have them on hand and love popping them in smoothie bowls!

Try These Toppings:

• Maple Banana Nut Granola
• Citrus Caraway Granola
• Cacao Nibs
• Shredded Coconut
• Fresh sliced figs, bananas, or dragon fruit
• Goji berries
• Dried jackfruit (pictured)

Here’s a picture of fresh dragon fruit I had while in Thailand. You can see I wasn’t being dramatic about their external appearance – spikes, hot pink, and green!

I’ve easily found pureed and frozen dragon fruit at local health food stores like Whole Foods, or you could purchase it online here.

If you can’t get your hands on frozen or fresh dragon fruit another option is to get similar nutrient content by using freeze-dried dragon fruit like this one, although the texture will be a bit different. If you use the freeze-dried option I recommend adding extra ice and 1 cup of raspberries to make it a bit sweeter, more fiber-rich, and more beautiful!

I hope you all enjoy this recipe! Share below what toppings you’d use for this recipe! And if you make it for yourself at home, be sure to share on Instagram with #nutritionstripped.