Acai Berry Recipes Inspired by Rachel Ray
I just saw the Rachel Ray acai berry show, and since Rachel Ray has such spectacular recipe ideas, I was a little disappointed that she didn’t try to incorporate acai berry juice into a fun recipe. Since then I have tried a number of acai berry juices, which are fine on their own, but I thought that it was time that I try to experiment and see if I could create some interesting acai berry recipes.
One of the best things I can think of to do with different juices is to make a chicken marinade. The best recipe I have is one I learned in Central America, and is a combination of citrus juices, garlic, white pepper, a little sea salt, and some chicken stock. Occasionally I add some soy sauce or Bragg, but with my acai berry version I’m going to leave that out.
I generally butterfly chicken breasts so I can reduce cooking time, lessening the chance that I will overcook and dry them out. I should also note that this citrus recipe works best if you bar-b-q or cook your chicken on an open grill. I use a pyrex dish to add all the ingredients to marinate the chicken. I would normally add the juice of 2 oranges, but for this recipe I’m adding juice from one orange, 1/2 cup of acai berry juice, juice of one lime, 4-8 cloves of garlic, 1/2 t white pepper, 1/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil, and a little ground sea salt. Well, after it I marinated overnight, and bar-b-q’ed the pollo, the consensus was that although the acai version was tasty, the original recipe was still the best marinade. Well, perhaps that’s for the best, acai berry is pretty expensive to have most of it burn off or drip down onto the coals.
Let’s think of something else that might be Rachel Ray acai berry recipe worthy. I thought of an acai berry frozen yogurt that was quick and simple to make, but this one turned out delicious! First, because I am going to add juice to the yogurt, we need to drain some liquid so it won’t form too many ice crystals once it’s frozen. Start by draining a pint of plain (low fat) yogurt with a colander and cheese cloth in the fridge for a day. Once it’s has drained, discard the liquid, and now whip in 1/2 a cup of acai berry juice. At this point it actually makes a wonderful spread or dip.
So once the yogurt and acai berry mixture has been mixed and whipped, put it in a Tupperware and freeze it for a minimum of 6 hours. Once it is frozen to your taste – some people prefer just a chilled version, others like really hard frozen yogurt – serve, and enjoy! This recipe so far is the favorite, and versatile as well. You can use it as a non-frozen bagel spread, or throw it in the freezer for a frozen version perfect for a hot summer day.
Finally, I tried my own version of the old standby, the fruit smoothie. Actually there are a lot of acai berry juice mixes that have a creamy consistency and are called ’smoothies’ on the label, but I like to make my smoothies fresh so I get the little bit of ice chips right in the smoothie. I mixed ice, banana, yogurt and acai berry juice in my blender, and blended until smooth. A trick I like to use is to freeze the banana before adding it, which makes the smoothy even creamier. In any event, as predicted, this was pretty delicious.
So as you can see, it’s not all that hard to find some interesting dishes to make with acai, so you can get the health benefits from this very popular new super food. As you can see, I was able to make a breakfast (the smoothie), snack and main dish all using acai berry. Maybe I should write in to Rachel Ray and see if she has any actual recipe ideas. Until then, I’ll just keep experimenting.