Spiced Sweet Potato Juice

I know. This sounds so weird.  Spiced Sweet Potato Juice?!

But it is SO delicious. Creamy, sweet, nutty, spicy. I can't express to you just how much I love this stuff. It's like dessert, but it's a fresh-pressed juice, and it's my new favorite breakfast treat.

I got the idea while reading one of my favorite food blogs, The Little Red House. If you haven't checked it out, go and do it now! It's a gorgeous site with simple recipes and stunning photographs. Lovely lovely.

She regularly posts recipes for homemade fruit and vegetable juices, and a recent recipe for a Sweet Potato Pear juice caught my eye.

Before this, I'd never realized that it was TOTALLY OK to both drink and eat raw sweet potatoes.

Seriously!

While I've yet to try the raw sweet potato sticks, I was excited to give the juice a try. I personally like to avoid fruit juice, so I skipped the pear and instead added fresh ginger, a bit of vanilla extract, and increased the almond milk.

I suppose this is more like a smoothie or a flavored nut milk, than a juice. Maybe a mix of both? Call it what you will, but it's fantastic.

You definitely need a juicer for this (a blender will not work)--I was surprised by how much juice I got out of one large sweet potato.

Then you simply mix the fresh sweet potato and ginger juices with the almond milk, chia seeds, ground cinnamon, and vanilla. The sweet potato provided enough sweetness for me, but if you'd like, you can also add a teaspoon of something like maple syrup, honey, or rice malt syrup too.

The natural starches in the potato make this a really creamy drink, and the chia seeds also thicken it up a bit. I love this for breakfast those mornings when I just really don't want any food, but still need...something.

Have you ever had raw sweet potato before? Let me know if you try this, and what you think. I suspect you'll be totally smitten like I was!

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Spiced Sweet Potato Juice
Serves 1

Ingredients
1 large raw sweet potato (about 10-14oz), washed but not peeled
1 2-inch piece of fresh ginger
1 cup almond milk (homemade or storebought)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon chia seeds
Optional: your favorite sweetener like maple syrup, honey, etc. (I don't add any additional sweetener, but you may wish to.)

Directions
Juice the raw sweet potato (unpeeled) and the ginger. Pour the fresh juice into a large mason jar or a blender. Add the almond milk, vanilla, cinnamon, and chia seeds. Cover the jar and shake vigorously for 30 seconds. (Or process in blender to mix well.)

Pour into a large glass.

Optional: sweeten with honey, maple syrup, or your choice of sweetener, to taste.