A chocolate zucchini smoothie with fresh zucchini, layered with a creamy vanilla smoothie, topped with chocolate. Creamy like a milk shake, dairy free, vegan and gluten-free, and a no banana smoothie.
This chocolate zucchini smoothie is super easy to make, with simple ingredients, and hidden zucchini. It's one of the most chocolate-y, energy-boosting smoothies I have ever made! A patchwork of chocolate protein, cinnamon-dusted vanilla cream and topped with mood boosting chocolate.
You'll Love This
To make this awesome healthy smoothie, you'll actually make two smoothies, a vanilla and chocolate.
You'll actually make two smoothies, a chocolate smoothie and a creamy vanilla smoothie.
To make the chocolate smoothie, combine cocoa powder, milk, maple syrup, coffee, chopped frozen zucchini and hemp hearts in a blender and process until creamy.
To make the creamy vanilla smoothie, soak raw cashews in water overnight, rinse and blend with maple syrup, vanilla and cinnamon. That's your vanilla smoothie!
Pour the two in a glass and top with chocolate!

Toppings
Topped with any chocolate bar or any of my healthy simple chocolate treats. Here are some glorious possibilities at hand:
2. Black Pepper Chocolate Truffles
3. 3-Ingredient Chocolate Crunch Bars
4. Dark Chocolate Zucchini Cake (what, no! not a cake, haha)
If not these recipes, plop in your favorite chocolate something-or-other and you have the perfect chocolate-y dessert for breakfast or a replenishing post-workout snack. A reader once told me she got superpowers after drinking this!😍
One ingredient behind the nutrition in this chocolate smoothie recipe is the zucchini.
Why Add Zucchini to a Smoothie?
Well, one reason is to thicken it! Other smoothie thickeners of course are bananas (which also sweeten), tofu, yogurt and thick fruits such as mango and banana (also sweeteners).
But sometimes you want a thickener that doesn't add its flavor and that is zucchini! Perfect when you are going for chocolate or more delicate flavors such as passion-fruit and lavender and more.
Zucchini, also known as "courgette", also contributes nutrition, including fiber, vitamins B6, riboflavin, folate, C, and K, potassium and manganese.
To this smoothie, I added the zucchini raw and frozen, but steaming it first and freezing is fine too. The interesting characteristic of zucchini is the nutrition level does not drop much after cooking
One aspect of zucchini is it is on the "dirty" list with the ewg.org which means it typically the skin absorbs too much insecticide to be healthy when grown NOT organic.
So you either peel a non-organic zucchini, or you buy an organic zucchini and keep the skin on.
I hope you love this simple protein smoothie.
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📖 Recipe

Chocolate Zucchini Smoothie
Ingredients
Chocolate Smoothie
- ¼ cup cocoa powder
- 1 ¼ cup dairy free milk
- 2 tablespoon maple syrup
- ¼ cup slushy coffee (freeze to slush in ice cube trays)
- ½ frozen zucchini (organic, chopped, frozen)
- 1 tablespoon hemp hearts optional
Cinnamon Cashew Cream
- 1 cup cashews (unsalted and unroasted, soaked overnight in water, rinsed)
- ¼ cup water
- 1 tablespoon maple syrup
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 tsps cinnamon
Optional Toppings
- 1 cup chocolate chips
Instructions
Prep
- Put cashews in a measuring cup, fill the cup with clean water and refrigerate overnight. Next day, rinse cashews, and they are ready to use.
- Put coffee, preferably concentrated or strong, in ice cube tray, and freeze for 1-2 hours. If you freeze overnight, let them sit out the next day to thaw until slushy for the recipe. You don't need them to be brick-hard.
- Peel zucchini, chop in chunks and freeze overnight. OR Don't peel the zucchini to retain the fiber and nutrients that come in the peel, and chop and freeze. HOWEVER, if you keep the peel, you must buy organic because zucchini is considered to absorb high level of pesticides when not grown organic as per EWG.org dirty and clean produce lists. Also, keeping the peel might mean you'll have green flecks in your chocolate smoothie, but so what, right?
Make Cream Smoothie
- Blend soaked cashews, maple syrup, vanilla and cinnamon into a creamy smoothie.
Combine
- Melt ¾ cup of the chocolate chips in microwave fro 1 minute. Spread patches of melted chocolate on sides of 2 jars.
- Pour cream smoothie into one side of jar, and the chocolate smoothie into the other.
- Top with remainder of chips. Drink within 24 hours.
223barnraising
Best chocolate milkshake I have EVER had. Not vegan. Eat dairy all the time. This is WAY better than haagen dazs mayan chocolate shake that I thought no one could touch.
Dee Dine
That is the best news ever! Exactly what I am trying to achieve! Thank you for sharing your opinion! Dee xx
Barney Soho
Made this and currently have super powers. Thanks for sharing your brilliance!
Dee Dine
Hahaha, thank you Barney!
Sarah
Can I leave off the maple syrup in both smoothies and the sauce to make it sugar free?
Dee Dine
Hi Sarah, I would leave it on the chocolate smoothie and chocolate sauce because they have no other sweet source. The cashew cream doesn't need it, the cashews will carry it. Dee xx
Serena Stewart
I made only the chocolate and didn't even add the toppings and it was to DIE for! I can't believe it's healthy.
Dee Dine
So happy you liked the chocolate, that part is my favorite too! Dee xx