The High-Protein Throwback Ingredient I Add to Every Smoothie
Any time I blend up a smoothie, I want a drink with a blissfully creamy texture that’s just as (if not more) delicious than the pricey juice place around the corner. And when it serves as my morning meal, I need it to keep me from crashing before lunch rolls around.
That means, in order to make my drink meal-worthy, I need to pack in the protein. Until earlier this year I only had a few protein-packed go-tos (mostly Greek yogurt). Then I began doing research for a cookbook, which will be coming out this December, called The Probiotic Kitchen, and I discovered a gut-friendly, high-protein ingredient that totally changed my smoothie game: cultured cottage cheese.
Cultured Cottage Cheese Is the Secret to a Filling, Gut-Friendly Smoothie
Yep! That old-fashioned curds-and-whey cheese, loved by grandmothers (and hated on by everyone in the ’80s as a diet food), cottage cheese is an ingenious smoothie ingredient. If you’re on the fence about cottage cheese but want to give it a chance, smoothies are the perfect gateway. After it’s whirled through the blender, the chunky (potentially off-putting) curds quickly disappear. In fact, cottage cheese adds a wonderful rich creaminess to smoothies, in additional to a wholesome wallop of protein.
Cultured cottage cheese looks and tastes just like the classic version, although it’s made with “live and active cultures.” So it also delivers some good-for-your-gut bacteria in addition to all that protein and creamy taste.
As a rule of thumb, add about 1/2 cup of cultured cottage cheese per smoothie serving. You can also substitute an equal amount of cultured cottage cheese in smoothie recipes that call for yogurt. This will, of course, also work with traditional cottage cheese, although you miss out on the gut-friendly benefits.
Try Adding Cultured Cottage Cheese to These Smoothies
More About The Probiotic Kitchen
The Probiotic Kitchen cookbook features over 100 easy, everyday recipes that start with widely available, naturally probiotic-rich foods, like cultured cottage cheese, kefir, kraut, miso, yogurt, and more. It will show you how to use familiar gut-friendly ingredients in new ways and perhaps introduce you to a few new ones. The book is available in bookstores on December 17, and currently available for pre-order on Amazon.