Instant Pot Healthy, Creamy Fruit Dip

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Brace yourself.  If you have yet to experience cashew cream, get ready to have your world rocked!  This Healthy, Creamy Fruit Dip is so luxuriously smooth and will turn the same ol‘ breakfast, lunch box, and snack into rockstar status meals!  Vanilla, Chocolate, and Pumpkin Spice recipes included here! 

This post is sponsored by Crispy Green

For school lunch around here, my kids pick school lunch one day a week and the other 4 days they pack their own.  Well, I should say my 8-year-old packs her lunch, my 6-year-olds assist in packing their lunch.  I can't quite seem to get through to them that 6 string cheese and a package of pepperonis are not, and never will be, a well-balanced lunch.

When my daughter was in 1st grade she started out feeling so confident in what she packed.  Her confidence soon waned when she said her friends teased her for having “brown bread” or homemade yogurt, not in a tube, etc.

At one point she turned on me and said, “Why do you have to be different than the other moms.  Why can't you just be like everyone else!”

While I get that her comments were a bit dramatic, it still broke my heart to see her confidence in her lunch packing abilities, be so quickly and easily dashed.  I soon realized that trying to force my food opinions on her was not going to serve her well for the rest of her life.  “Moderation in all things” became a mantra I had to recite often as I purchased the occasional Nutella Go or Yoplait yogurt (even though I had a giant tub of glorious homemade yogurt in the fridge).

I've learned that developing a love and passion for wholesome foods is a journey.  It's an acquired taste that, for some, can be quite difficult to become accustomed to.  However, once the connection is made between quality food and how amazing it makes you feel, it'll light a fire in anyone's soul to excitedly pursue this journey.

I am my father's daughter and my tendency to bounce from one extreme to another is a trait those close to me know very well.  Having kids is a hard, fast lesson to the fact that living life in the extreme is draining and no one wants to be on that stressful train with you.

Balance.  Moderation.  Living in the moment.  Why is it so dang hard to live by those principles!?  But I'm trying, learning, and growing every step of the rocky way.

So now I am a mama on a mission to figure out how to feed my kids wholesome, healthy foods that won't leave them feeling deprived or ashamed of their lunch box food.  And have I ever scored big points on this one!

Sweet, Creamy Fruit Dip plus Crispy Green Freeze Dried Fruit = high fives all around with my kiddos!

WHY YOU WILL LOVE SWEET CASHEW CREAM FRUIT DIP

• So creamy, rich, and perfectly sweet.  Heavenly status for sure
• Tastes amazing on just about anything – pancakes, yogurt, fruit, spoons, etc
• A little stirred into a cup of Crio Bru is basically life changing
• It's a fraction of the amount of sugar compared to straight syrup or honey and gets an extra protein boost from the cashews
• It freezes great!  So I can make a big batch and store extras in the fridge

WHY YOU WILL LOVE CRISPY GREEN FREEZE DRIED FRUIT

• Kids get just as excited to tear into these brightly colored packages as they do a package of “fruit” snacks
• They are so convenient and easy to grab and go for kiddos (and adults – I love the Mango!)
• They are a sweet, new, and crispy way for my kids to enjoy fruit
• My kids' friends think I'm the best mom ever for packing these (allow me just one vain reason, kay?!)
• For those with dietary restrictions, freeze-dried fruit is gluten free, dairy free, vegan, and nut free
• They are packaged in single serving bags so I don't have to open a huge can of freeze-dried fruit and cry when they start losing their crunchy freshness before I get through it all

I'm a huge fan of eating freeze-dried fruit as is, but there is something magical that happens when it's dipped in this luscious cashew cream fruit dip.  It softens the fruit ever so slightly and it's almost a cotton candy melting moment when you bite into it.  Seriously, it's just ridiculous how fun this is to eat.

HOW TO MAKE INSTANT POT CREAMY FRUIT DIP

1. Throw a cup of RAW, UNSALTED cashews into the Instant Pot
2. Add water and pressure cook for 1 minute
3. Drain, rinse, drain, then add to a blender with almond milk and maple syrup
4. Blend until completely smooth.  Taste and add more sweetener, if needed.
5. Pour into a syrup dispenser or mason jar
6. Done!  That's all it took for the best dip/syrup/topping I've ever had!

TIPS FOR MAKING THE SMOOTHEST CASHEW CREAM

• Use raw, unsalted cashews – don't use roasted, salted cashews, save those for delicious snacking
• Use a high-speed blender for ultimate smoothness.  However, the Instant Pot softens them enough that most blenders can handle this
• Stop the blender and scrape it down a couple times to make sure it doesn't miss any small pieces of cashew
• I use almond milk as my liquid for blending because I think it makes the final product even silkier.  Water can be used instead, if desired

Just in case I didn't get my message across earlier, MAKE THIS SWEET, SILKY, HEAVENLY CASHEW CREAM FRUIT DIP!  It'll add such a healthy richness to your life that you never even realized your were missing!  And the fact that my daughter's friends asked her to bring them some crunchy fruit and vanilla dip is just the cherry on top of it all!

VARIATIONS

Included in the recipe below are 3 variations I created: Vanilla, Chocolate, and Pumpkin Spice, but there are so many other possibilities from sweet to savory.

To name a few: Peanut butter, lemon, orange, cheesy, Mexican spiced, balsamic cream (for a great salad dressing!), etc etc

MORE WAYS TO ENJOY SWEET CASHEW CREAM

• Over these AMAZING pancakes
• Drizzled on Maple Cinnamon Oatmeal
• As a dip for Instant Pot Pancake Muffins

TOOLS/INGREDIENTS USED TO MAKE SWEET CASHEW CREAM

• Instant Pot
• High Speed Blender
• Crispy Green Freeze Dried Fruit
• Syrup Dispenser (technically a salad dressing dispenser but it works great for syrup)
• Pourable Mason Jar Lids

Instant Pot Healthy, Creamy Fruit Dip

Print Recipe

Sweet, silky cashew cream fruit dip can be enjoyed in so many more ways than fruit.  Try it on pancakes, waffles, yogurt, ice cream, etc.

• Author: Marci
• Prep Time: 1 minute
• Cook Time: 1 minute
• Total Time: 10 minutes
• Yield: 2 cups 1x
• Category: Sauce
• Method: Pressure Cooker
• Cuisine: American

Ingredients

Scale 1x2x3x

Vanilla Fruit Dip

• 1 cup raw cashews
• 2 cups water
• 3/4 cups unsweetened almond milk or water
• 2 – 4 tablespoons pure maple syrup
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• pinch of salt

Chocolate Fruit Dip

• same ingredients as Vanilla Fruit Dip plus:
• 2 tablespoons cacao or cocoa powder
• 2 – 3 tablespoons water or almond milk to thin, if desired

Pumpkin Spice Fruit Dip

• same ingredients as Vanilla Fruit Dip plus:
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon (preferably Vietnamese cinnamon)
• 1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

Instructions

For the Vanilla Fruit Dip

1. Add cashews and 2 cups water to the pressure cooker pot.  Secure the lid and turn pressure release knob to a sealed position.
2. Cook at high pressure for 1 minute.
3. When cooking is complete, use a quick release.
4. Drain cashews.  Rinse with fresh water; drain cashews again.
5. To a high-speed blender, add the cashews, almond milk or water, maple syrup, vanilla extract, and salt.  Blend on high speed until smooth, about 1 ½ – 2 minutes, scraping the blender halfway through.
6. Pour cashew cream into a mason jar with a pourable lid.  A squeeze bottle or other syrup dispenser will also work.   Store in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.  Leftovers can also be frozen.  
7. Shake well before serving.

For the Chocolate Fruit Dip

1. Add cocoa powder to the blender, when blending the cashews in step 5 and continue with above instructions.  The cocoa powder makes it a bit thicker so add extra water or almond milk to thin if desired.

For the Pumpkin Spice Fruit Dip

1. Add cinnamon and pumpkin pie spice to the blender, when blending the cashews in step 5 and continue with above instructions.

Notes

• Use raw, unsalted cashews.  Do not use roasted, salted cashews
• Use as a dip for fruit and graham crackers or as a topping for pancakes, waffles, oatmeal, and yogurt
• Stir it into Crio Bru, YUM!
• Freezes nicely.  May need to add an extra splash of milk to thin it out once it has thawed

Keywords: instant pot recipe, cashew cream, fruit dip

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