Serving Ideas
The Super Veggie and Nutty Pudding are complete on their own, but they're also a blank canvas. Below: how our kitchen actually makes each meal, then ten combos ZenMeals customers use to dress them up, from thirty-second additions to a small weekend project.
How the Super Veggie is made
In our kitchen in Kreis 6, broccoli and cauliflower are chopped first and left to rest for about 40 minutes before they hit any heat. Resting chopped broccoli before cooking helps its beneficial compounds form — it's the same step Blueprint's own recipe calls for. Garlic gets a similar rest on a shorter clock, crushed and left to sit about 10 minutes for the same reason.
Everything then goes into a steamer together: the vegetables, shiitake mushrooms, ginger, and garlic, for 7 to 9 minutes, just until tender. We steam rather than boil on purpose. Boiling leaches the active compounds out into the water; steaming keeps them in the food.
Black lentils cook separately, boiled 18 to 20 minutes until al dente, then drained and rinsed. Everything comes together with cumin, apple cider vinegar, and lime. Hemp seeds and extra virgin olive oil go on last, raw, never cooked, since there's no reason to expose them to heat they don't need.
How the Nutty Pudding is made
Nuts are ground fresh right before they go into the blender, not before. Pre-ground nuts sitting in storage start to oxidize, which dulls flavour along with some of the benefit, so we grind to order instead.
We use natural cocoa, not Dutch-processed, since the alkalizing step in Dutch processing strips out some of cocoa's natural compounds along with the bitterness. And instead of dairy milk, the base is macadamia nut milk: research has found that pairing blueberries with dairy milk measurably reduces their antioxidant benefit, so we keep dairy out of the blend. Everything blends for a few minutes until smooth, then berries go on top, whole, not blended in.
Serafini M, et al. "Antioxidant activity of blueberry fruit is impaired by association with milk." Free Radic Biol Med. 2009. PubMed 19135520
Super Veggie combos
The Kreis 6 Classic — chilli and salt
A spoonful of your favourite chilli sauce, sriracha, sambal, harissa, whatever's in the fridge door, plus a pinch of good finishing salt. The heat cuts through the earthiness of the lentils and mushrooms, and the salt sharpens everything else without touching the nutrition.
The Double Legume — hummus
Hummus and Super Veggie are both built on legumes, so a spoonful stirred through doesn't fight the recipe, it doubles down on it. Extra creaminess, a tahini note that plays well with the cumin, and a bit more protein for almost no effort.
The Green Fat Bomb — guacamole
Avocado's fat profile pairs naturally with the olive oil already in the bowl, and the lime in guacamole echoes the lime in the dressing. It's the fastest way to make the bowl feel indulgent instead of virtuous.
The Morning Anchor — a soft or fried egg
Cracking an egg on top turns the Super Veggie from a plant-forward bowl into a genuinely hearty meal, with the yolk working as an instant sauce once you break it. Fried in a little olive oil or soft-boiled and halved, both work.
The Crunch Factor — toasted seeds
The bowl already has hemp seeds, but a handful of toasted pumpkin or sunflower seeds on top adds a texture reheated vegetables can't give you on their own. Toast them dry in a pan for two minutes while your bowl reheats.
Nutty Pudding combos
The Recovery Shake — protein powder
A scoop of neutral or chocolate protein powder turns the cocoa-and-berry base into something closer to a full recovery shake. Stir it in cold rather than blending hot; the pudding is meant to be eaten chilled.
The Berry Reset — fresh fruit
Sliced banana, extra berries, or a few pomegranate seeds add colour and extra fibre without any added sugar. It's the simplest upgrade on this list, and probably the best return for the effort.
The Crunch Layer — extra nuts
A small handful of crushed walnuts or macadamia on top adds a texture the smooth base doesn't have by itself. Go easy if you're watching total calories; nuts are calorie-dense by nature.
The Café Dust — cinnamon and cocoa
Ceylon cinnamon is already in the base. A light extra dusting on top, plus a bit more raw cocoa, makes the pudding look and taste like it came from a café counter. Ten seconds of effort, zero added sugar.
Level up: mineral and performance add-ins
These four go a step further than a flavour tweak. They're aimed at people already tracking minerals, fat sources, protein quality, or sugar intake.
The Mineral Reset — Pink Himalayan salt
Swap your everyday salt for Pink Himalayan or Utah salt on either bowl. It's natural and unprocessed, and alongside sodium it provides small amounts of potassium, calcium, and trace minerals that refined table salt has been stripped of.
The Fat-Burner — MCT oil powder
A spoonful of MCT oil powder stirred into either bowl is a fast-digesting fat source associated with a modest, short-term bump in fat oxidation, plus a natural source of exogenous ketones, without the oily texture liquid MCT oil leaves behind.
The Muscle Stack — pea and hemp protein
Stir a scoop of pure pea and hemp protein into the Nutty Pudding instead of a generic blend. Head-to-head trials find pea protein performs about as well as whey for building muscle [1][2], and pea protein skips the lactose that dairy-derived whey naturally contains. Hemp protein brings its own well-rounded amino acid profile and antioxidant compounds; researchers are also studying hemp-derived peptides for their effect on blood pressure [3].
1. Nieman DC, et al. "Effects of Whey and Pea Protein Supplementation on Post-Eccentric Exercise Muscle Damage: A Randomized Trial." Nutrients. 2020. PubMed 32784847
2. Banaszek A, et al. "The Effects of Whey vs. Pea Protein on Physical Adaptations Following 8-Weeks of High-Intensity Functional Training (HIFT): A Pilot Study." Sports. 2019. PubMed 30621129
3. Chen H, et al. "Emerging natural hemp seed proteins and their functions for nutraceutical applications." Food Sci Hum Wellness. 2023. ScienceDirect
The Zero-Sugar Finish — monk fruit
A touch of monk fruit is used as a zero-calorie sweetener with minimal effect on blood sugar, an easy way to make the Nutty Pudding taste a little more like dessert without added sugar.
A note on customizing
None of these additions change what makes ZenMeals meals work: whole ingredients, minimal processing, and a nutrient profile you can check on our nutrition information page. Add what you like, just keep in mind that toppings you add yourself aren't reflected in our published nutrition estimates, so adjust your own tracking if that matters to you.
Building a full day around two meals
Most subscribers treat the Super Veggie and Nutty Pudding as two of three daily meals and fill in the third themselves, commonly breakfast, since the Nutty Pudding already works cold if you'd rather save it for lunch instead. A pattern that works well: something quick and protein-forward in the morning, Super Veggie for lunch to avoid the midafternoon slump, and Nutty Pudding as a dessert-shaped dinner finisher or afternoon pick-me-up, depending on your day.
If you're meal-prepping for the week, both dishes hold up well to being staged for a few days rather than eaten immediately (see exact shelf-life numbers on nutrition information). Batching your ZenMeals deliveries around a Sunday planning session works about as well as eating them the day they arrive.
Order the Super Veggie and Nutty Pudding to start building your own combination, see delivery details on how it works, or dig into the evidence behind the base recipes on research. If you've got a combo idea we should feature here, tell us, or check our FAQ for more on customization.