In recent years, acai berries have grown in popularity as a superfood, as they are rich in antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, and fiber. The most popular way to eat acai berries is in a puréed form as the base for a healthy frozen treat called an acai bowl.
Acai bowls are typically made up of blended acai berries topped with other fruits, nuts, seeds, or even peanut butter.
In 2020, Costco first started carrying Organic Acai Bowls from a company called Tattooed Chef. Today, I’ll dive into a review of these bowls, including pricing, nutrition information, prep, and more.
Costco also carries several other acai products from a company called Sambazon. These products include Sambazon’s Acai Juice and Frozen Acai Superfruit Packets. At certain Costco locations, you can also find Organic Premium Acai Sorbet from a company called Acai Roots as well as an acai bowl from Dole.
The Costco food court was also known to serve an acai bowl in the past. However, this item was removed from the menu in 2020 and has yet to return in all locations. It’s unclear whether or not the item has been discontinued altogether, so some Costco locations might still be serving acai bowls at the food court in 2023. Check with your local Costco location to find out. (But beware… this Business Insider reporter called Costco’s acai bowl “the worst item at the food court.”)
Contents
Tattooed Chef Organic Acai Bowls
The Tattooed Chef Organic Acai Bowls at Costco can be found in the frozen section and are currently priced at $13.49 for a box of six bowls. This price is pretty unbeatable at just $2.25 per bowl.
Each acai bowl comes individually packaged and includes a separate pouch of granola and coconut flakes as a topping.
Tattooed Chef is a California-based company specializing in packaged and prepared plant-based meals ranging from pizzas to burritos to vegetable stir frys. For more information about Tattooed Chef, click here.
Ingredients
Each Tattooed Chef Acai Bowl contains acai puree, bananas, strawberries, blueberries, coconut milk, a vitamin and mineral blend, sea salt, sunflower lecithin, locust bean gum, and gellan gum, while the topping includes oats, tapioca syrup, sugar, sunflower oil, chia seeds, flax seeds, brown rice syrup, brown rice flour, sprouted quinoa flour, amaranth flakes, sprouted millet flour, quinoa flakes, natural vanilla flavor, molasses, rice flour, Vitamin E, and dried coconut.
All ingredients are certified organic except those that do not qualify for organic certification. In addition to being organic, these acai bowls are also vegan.
Gluten Free?
When it comes to the gluten free question, things get a bit more complicated…
Unfortunately, Tattooed Chef has come under fire multiple times for labeling products as gluten free when they’re not. These acai bowls are labeled as gluten free, but they contain oats which are often contaminated with gluten due to production practices.
Manufacturers that take special measures to ensure their oats are gluten free tend to list them as “gluten free oats,” which Tattooed Chef does not do. Personally, if I had a gluten allergy or intolerance, I would not trust the granola topping on these acai bowls. However, if you don’t add the topping, the rest of the bowl is gluten free. Similarly, not adding the topping makes these bowls Whole30 compliant.
Nutrition
Each bowl (with the topping included) contains just 180 calories. These calories are made up of 8 grams of fat (including 4.5 grams of saturated fat from the coconut flakes), 15 mg of sodium, 29 grams of carbs, 6 grams of fiber, 12 grams of sugar, and 3 grams of protein. They also contain small percentages of calcium, iron, and potassium.
If you don’t add the topping to your acai bowl, you can cut out most of the fat, a third of the sodium, a third of the carbs, and a quarter of the sugar (including all of the added sugar). You’ll also cut out 80 calories, making this a very low impact snack.
(Just keep in mind that foods low in calories also tend to not be very filling!)
Preparing My Acai Bowl
Following the directions on the box, I took my acai bowl out of the freezer about 45 minutes before I planned to eat it. Unfortunately, I found that it was still almost entirely frozen by the time 45 minutes had passed.
Ultimately, I ended up having to let my acai bowl sit out at room temperature for about three hours before it was fully thawed. Maybe my kitchen is just particularly cold, but I don’t think that was the problem.
In the future, I will probably take my acai bowl out of the freezer and transfer it into the refrigerator the night before I plan on eating it.
Once it was ready to eat, I removed the plastic film from the top of the bowl, opened up the topping packet, and poured it over the bowl. I also decided to cut up a banana and add that to the top as well.
I decided to keep my acai bowl in the original plastic bowl it comes in, but you could of course transfer it to a real dish if you want to.
The Taste Test
Here’s my Tattooed Chef Organic Acai Bowl topped with fresh banana (not included) and the granola and coconut flake topping. Yum!
Believe it or not, this was the first acai bowl I had ever eaten, so I didn’t have much to compare it to. That said, I thought it was great!
It’s packed with whole blueberries and big chunks of strawberry, and the acai puree itself is flavorful, rich, and not too sweet. With the bananas and granola topping, I found it to be a super satisfying and refreshing snack in the middle of the day.
One of these acai bowls would be especially delicious on a hot summer day or after finishing a workout. Overall, I would absolutely buy these again.
For the price, quality, and taste, these organic acai bowls are definitely one of my new favorite Costco finds.
