You + Chia = Vegan Bliss

In case you haven’t noticed, the chia phenomenon has overtaken restaurants, smoothie bars, açaí bowls, and yogurt, and can now be found at many grocery stores. However, this seemingly new trend isn’t new at all. In fact, the ancient Aztecs were aware of chia’s benefits long before our modern-day obsession. Yes, chia seeds are healthy, but we love them more for the fact that they’re delicious on their own or mixed into pudding and yogurt. Here are eight of our favorite ways to get this yummy seed into our daily lives.

1. Mamma Chia
Home of the organic chia products, Mamma Chia makes energy drinks, granola, chia squeezables, and plain chia to add to an array of foods. We love adding these seeds atop ZenSoy chocolate pudding, but we can also recommend mixing the chia into a container of Trader Joe’s Coconut Whipped Topping for a decadent dessert.

2. Real Food with Dana
Blogger/health enthusiast Dana Monsees’ recipe for an açaí bowl usies Sambazon frozen packets for a healthy, quick pick-me-up. Sambazon is an organic, superfruit frozen packet, which comes in Original, Pure Unsweetened, Super Greens, and Performance Protein flavors. Add your own shredded coconut, chopped walnuts, bananas, strawberries, or blueberries before sprinkling in Nutiva chia seeds.

3. Me My Smoothies and Life
Blogger Anna Lindberg makes vibrant smoothies loaded with essential vitamins and nutrients that recharge and refresh your soul. Our smoothie pick is the Chia Power, which calls for natural coconut water, frozen cherries and bananas, beet powder, and chia seeds. Blend it together and pour into a Mason jar. You can thank us later.

4. Veganosity
If you’re in the mood for a healthy baked treat with chia seeds, you can’t go wrong with vegan corn-and-blueberry muffins from Veganosity. All you’ll need is flour, cornmeal, baking powder, cane sugar, orange juice, blueberries, and (of course) chia to begin your morning the right way.

5. Oh She Glows
Angela Liddon, author and blogger at Oh She Glows, offers a vegan chia-bread recipe that is gluten-free and comes with nine grams of protein in each serving. You can make your own chia bread using not only chia seeds but pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, and oats for the perfect slice. Top it off with peanut butter or avocado, and don’t forget the truRoots chia seeds.

6. Health Warrior
If you’re too busy to cook but still want to enjoy the benefits of chia, grab one of the 11 flavors (Acai Berry, Apple Cinnamon, Banana Nut, Beauty Begins Within, Caramel Sea Salt, Chocolate Peanut Butter, Coconut, Dark Chocolate Cherry, Mango, and Vanilla Almond) of Health Warrior’s chia-filled energy bar. Even better? Each bar comes with only 100 calories, which means you won’t feel guilty after eating it, and it will give you that energy burst before or after the gym.

7. Bionaturae
Jam out with Bionaturae fruit spreads in blackberry, Sicilian Orange, apricot, peach, bilberry, Sour Cherry, Wild Cherry, and raspberry flavors. These jams go perfect on a whole-grain toast sprinkled with chia seeds. We recommend Dave’s Killer Bread and Navitas Organic chia seeds as the perfect breakfast or between-meal combination.

Christa Alexis loves to sprinkle chia on top of smoothies, puddings, and salads.