So today marks my first week of doing Huel shakes for lunch and an occasional pick-me-up or snack. The basic shake recipe is 3 scoops of water, 14-18 oz. of water, and a couple ice cubes.
My biggest issue is the texture, but anything that can help the flavor isn’t a bad thing either. So this is what I’ve been doing so far. I’ve got three recipes I’ve come up with for different days.
My key ingredient for these is a bit of banana to make it creamier rather than grainy. This does add sugar, but since huel has such a low GI, I don’t mind having something with a little extra sugar right off the bat. Frozen bananas have a slightly different texture, and I’ve found that they do make it slightly creamier than regular banana. So I peel and halve bananas and freeze them for the week. Plastic baggies are just the right size for four half bananas. I also froze a few berries for my lighter mixes.
Workday Lunch - Primary ingredient: vanilla huel. Added ingredients: Banana, cold press coffee, almond extract. Can make the night before (which will probably help the grainy texture soak out a bit), but I usually make them first thing in the morning, along with my breakfast. This one ends up still being vegan.
It’s made to be a simple, straightforward, tasty, filling meal with a coffee pick-me-up mixed in. However, trying it with unflavored huel makes any bitterness in the coffee REALLY come through, and A) I’m normally a coffee lover (I never put sugar in coffee, just milk) and B) I use cold press coffee, which is less bitter than normal coffee. So I definitely recommend using the vanilla huel for this one.
When I make it, first I put 10 oz of cold press coffee and two scoops of huel into the shaker, and shake. In a blender or food processor, I break the banana half into halves again and put them in with six ounces of water and a scoop of huel. I blend until all the banana chunks are gone. Then I take the top off the shaker and DO NOT remove the little screen, and pour the banana mixture into the shaker. Then I take the screen out, wash any banana gunk stuck on it off (that’s why I left the screen on. No matter how much you blend, something will get through and get stuck in the screen when you’re trying to drink it later), and pour a dash of almond extract in to add a bit of an amaretto-ish flavor before putting the screen back in, putting the top back on, and shaking the two mixtures together. Then I let it sit in the fridge until it’s time to leave for work. Before I leave for work, I add ice cubes to top it off, then put it in a thermal lunch bag with a few ice packs (and some carrots and/or celery to snack on, but that’s just me.)
This ends up being around 500 calories.
Light weekend lunch / afternoon snack - Primary ingredient: vanilla or unflavored huel. Added ingredients: banana, berries, vanilla extract. I generally prefer blackberries, but of course, then you end up with the pips mixed in. So if you prefer no (or just smaller) pips, then I’d recommend grapes or strawberries. This one ends up being still vegan as well.
It’s made to be a snack of variable size with a bit of a sugar rush at first and a nice fruit flavor. No caffeine in this one. Either kind of huel works, but of course the vanilla will taste a little nicer.
I don’t even know if I need to put this as a recipe, it’s pretty simple and close to the one in the booklet that comes with your first order. I do six ounces of water and either a half a banana or a handful of fruit per scoop of huel and blend, then put in the shaker, mix together if you had to do separate batches for each scoop, and add ice to let it sit for a bit to soften the grainy texture. Add a bit of vanilla extract to taste if you want. This also works well with the unflavored huel, since the fruit adds sugar. If you just want a little snack, then do a quarter of a banana and only three or four berries with one scoop. Keep in mind that if you’re counting calories (like me!) a banana has just over a hundred, and berries have quite a bit of sugar as well. So I did this as a light lunch, one scoop blended with half a banana, one scoop blended with six or seven blackberries. It ended up being very purple in color, and I found over the few times that I tried it that if you A) Freeze the blackberries and B) don’t over-blend them, the pips are usually still suspended in a little blob of berry, so instead of getting hard pips in your teeth, you get delicious little squishy packets of fruit instead.
It was a lot lighter than the three scoop meal, but ended up being a right around 450 calories due to the extra fructose.
Weekend lunch - Primary ingredient: vanilla or unflavored huel. Added ingredients: banana, berries, fruit yogurt. Obviously, with the addition of yogurt, it is still vegetarian, but not vegan.
This is just a slightly fuller-bodied variant of the light weekend lunch mix, and it also has no caffeine.
Much like the light weekend lunch, blend half a frozen banana and six or seven berries with two scoops of huel and twelve ounces of water. If you’re using a small food processor like mine, you’ll have to do it in two batches. Then pour into shaker, spoon the yogurt in (I used Activia black cherry because that’s what I had on hand), shake it up, then add ice and let it sit until you’re ready for it. You can still add a flavor extract if you’d like to, but I found that it didn’t really need it.
With the yogurt added, this will end up being a little over 450 calories (if you use a larger amount of yogurt or more fruit, it might get up to 550, and a lot of that will be fructose).
Not bad for only a week’s worth of experimentation. I wish I’d been able to weigh myself before the week started, my belt seemed to go to the notch I’ve been using a little easier today. Obviously nothing huge, but anything noticeable is a good sign.
*edited to fix calorie amounts. I misremembered how much was in each scoop, it’s actually 150 per scoop, not 166. For some reason I got the 500 calories from my normal lunch stuck in my head as the normal amount for a 3 scoop shake.
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