How to Make a Chocolate Milkshake (Super Creamy!)

How to Make a Chocolate Milkshake

In the realm of popular drinks, milkshakes are pretty high up. The first type of milkshake that comes to my mind is one of those thick (vanilla and chocolate) Wendy’s frosty shakes, the type that makes you want to chug the entire drink while chowing down on a salty burger. The type that feels like it’s loaded with a combo of vanilla ice cream and six tablespoons of chocolate syrup. With maybe an extra scoop of chocolate ice cream!

While the indulgence of a sugary milkshake is a special treat, it’s incredible easy (and healthy, even!) to make your own version at home. When I imagine a hot summer day, this thick chocolate shake is the perfect treat to quench the thirst! But let’s be honest … chocolate is not just for summer days. It’s year-round! It’s not just my sweet tooth saying this. Dark chocolate is known to have antioxidants and helps us to be happier!

Vegan Milkshake Base

Vegan milkshake recipes (and veganism in general) is becoming more and more popular with social media content creators sharing healthy, plant-based and easy recipes to make the foods you love. Now for healthy milkshakes, there are many recipes out there that do use whole milk ice cubes as the secret ingredient (rather than ice cream). This maintains the frosty element, while keeping the smoothie thick. Just like frozen fruit can make sorbet, but room temperature fruit becomes watery if blended. Some vegan milkshakes even use a vegan ice cream base, such as a coconut milk base (or frozen coconut milk ice cubes for super thick smoothies with a slight coconut flavour). However, you don’t need to freeze your milk or buy ice cream for this one – we’re using my favourite potassium packed breakfast fruit instead as a milkshake base – the humble banana!

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

Dessert for Breakfast: If you enjoy dessert-like flavours for breakfast, this is it. You get a load of healthy carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals too! The BEST chocolate milkshake, and I’m definitely throwing an emphasis on BEST.
Pack it To-Go: In a rush? Keep the bananas pre-chopped and frozen the night before, and throw them in the blender when ready to go. You can bring it along to school or work!
Whole Foods Ingredients: This smoothie has a full serving of fruit, incorporates raw, healthy and simple ingredients! You can even make your own oat milk at home from rolled oats if you really want it to be all-natural, rather than a pre-packaged oat milk too.
Protein: Peanuts have the highest protein per tablespoon as compared to other nut butters (around 4 grams per tablespoon). Combined with the 8 grams of protein from just the peanut butter alone, plus the other ingredients brings this recipe to ~10 grams protein! Not too bad for a brownie in milkshake form, huh?
Reeses Pieces: Let’s not forget the chocolate peanut butter lovers. If you’re into Reeses Pieces desserts, I got you! You can substitute the peanut butter for almond butter instead (if you like a more neutral flavour) as well.

Substitutions: Milk & Bananas Base

Oat Milk: Oat milk is my absolute favourite non-dairy milk. You can substitute this with cashew milk (a close second in terms of the neutral flavour in a smoothie), almond milk, soy milk or other. Most of the other milks either have a thinner consistency or lend a weird aftertaste, so I stick with oat milk. You can use a bit less milk if you’d like, to make the smoothie even thicker. Although there is a point where the trade-off comes between a good type of thick versus “this is not even drink-able” thick.

Bananas: Frozen bananas give the creaminess this milkshake needs. Frozen cauliflower works well in smoothies from what I’ve heard, but I can’t vouch for it. Frozen avocado is another option, but it also has an aftertaste.

Substitutions: Sweet, Nutty, Chocolate Flavours

Cacao Powder: Raw cacao powder is not processed like typical baking cocoa powder is. If you cannot find raw cacao powder (it should be at health food stores), unsweetened cocoa powder can be substituted instead. From a health benefits standpoint, cacao will be better, but taste wise it shouldn’t make a huge difference.

Peanut Butter: For best results, look for only the creamy, natural peanut butter. This is peanut butter where the only ingredient is peanuts, as listed on the back of the box. Crunchy peanut butter will have little peanuts floating around in the smoothie. If it is a non-natural peanut butter (such as Jif or Skippy, the typical PB many of us have grown up eating), it has added oils, sugars and salt. You may want to omit the pinch of salt in this case, since the PB is already salted.

Dates: Medjool dates are the sweetener in this case. Refined sugar free and packed with nutrition, dates are a powerhouse I can’t get enough of! Medjool are specifically very soft and caramel-like. They can be found in Middle Eastern grocery stores, or in larger chain superstores as well. If you can’t find these, try to substitute any liquid sweetener – about 2 tablespoons to start.

For example, agave, coconut syrup, date syrup, brown rice syrup or another sweetener. I’m not sure how these would taste, and they all have varying levels of sweetness when acting as a substitute. Plus, the health benefits are not there are much as it is for a raw date.

Notes

Make sure you chop the banana into slices before freezing it. Otherwise, you’ll have to peel a frozen banana and then slice it up, which will take a long time.
Use a high-speed blender to get that super creamy texture, else you may be left with small date chunks after blending.
Optional: Add dark chocolate shavings, chocolate sauce, mini chocolate chips, whipped cream, caramel sauce, peanuts or other toppings for a layered treat!