In an upright blender, combine the non-dairy milk, pitted date, cashew butter, and coconut butter. Blend this mixture on high until completely smooth.
Open up the lid of the blender and to the non-dairy milk mixture, add the vanilla powder, vanilla extract, sea salt, and diced frozen pear. Blend this mixture on high until totally smooth. It will be thick!
Open up the lid of the blender one more time and add the cacao nibs. Blend on high for a few seconds until you have small cacao nib "chips" all through the smoothie. Pour the smoothie out into a glass, garnish the top with more cacao nibs and sea salt if you like, and enjoy!
Recipe Notes
I love freezing ripe pear as an alternative to banana in my smoothies! It's a much milder taste that works well in a lot of combinations. To do this, I just line a baking sheet with parchment paper and then chop up some ripe pear (peeled or not--whatever your preference), and lay it out in a single layer on the baking sheet. I place the baking sheet in the freezer and freeze until solid. Once solid, I transfer the frozen chopped pear to a reusable, sealed silicone bag.
If you don't have vanilla powder, just double up the vanilla extract to a ½ teaspoon.
Coconut butter is a product that contains both the flesh and oil of coconut. It's naturally sweet and super creamy. Artisana and CAP Beauty are both great brands that I love.
For a nut-free version, use oat or soy milk and replace the cashew butter with a raw sunflower seed butter or tahini.
Warm spices like ground ginger or cinnamon would also be great additions to this smoothie.
Creamy vanilla chip smoothie is naturally vegan, perfectly sweet, loaded with fragrant vanilla bean powder, cacao nibs, rich cashew and coconut butters, and is thickened with frozen pear instead of banana!