Raw Noni Recipe … David Avocado Noni Wolfe Stew

If you have ever wondered what to do with a noni fruit, this raw noni recipe is your answer… and it comes with a story.

This recipe is a dedication. I named it the David Avocado Noni Wolfe Stew because two of David Wolfe’s middle names are literally Avocado and Noni, and both of those ingredients are front and center here. It felt right. But before we get into the raw noni recipe itself, let me share a bit of the backstory because I think it adds something real to the dish.

How David Wolfe Got Me Into Raw Food

The first raw food book I ever read was Nature’s First Law: The Raw Food Diet by Arlin, Dini, and Wolfe. Worth noting that multiple sources have pointed out it was largely plagiarized, word for word without permission, from the classic “Raw Eating” by Arshavir Ter Hovannessian. That said, reading it cracked open a door for me. The central message was “cooked food is poison,” repeated at the end of every chapter, which landed hard. I already believed raw food was superior to cooked, but I had never seriously considered going 100% raw. I just hadn’t met anyone who had done it.

The problem was I finished the book more confused than when I started. There was no clear roadmap, no simple application, and a lot of the mainstream raw food world at the time was tangled up in superfoods, supplements, enzymes, and expensive elixirs. I half-stepped it for a while, eating fruit until dinner and then having a cooked whole food dinner in the evenings.

Then I met Dr. Douglas Graham at a vegan festival in Vancouver and everything clicked. Within the first lecture I sat in on, the simplicity of the low fat raw vegan diet just made sense on every level. Science backed, species appropriate, radiating common sense. I went to every talk Doug gave that day, stayed after to talk with him, and went 100% raw the next morning. Game over.

Once I found that clarity I will be honest, I felt a real frustration toward parts of the raw food world that seemed to thrive on confusion. The more complex and mysterious things appeared, the more room there was to sell the next supplement, the rarest superfood, the most ancient remedy, always at a premium price, always available through brand X. I felt that people genuinely seeking better health were being taken advantage of, and that lit a fire in me to spread the simple approach because I was watching it actually work.

I held onto that frustration longer than it served me. Eventually I did the work of letting it go, genuinely, not just as a concept. I went back to people I had wronged or judged, asked for forgiveness, cleared the slate, and made a real commitment to lead with love rather than react from anger. Everyone moves to their own rhythm, everyone acts from their own level of awareness, and that includes the Wolfe-type figures who first cracked the door open for me.

So this raw noni recipe is a genuine thank you. Without that first book, I never would have found Dr. Graham. Without Dr. Graham, none of this. David Wolfe, this stew is for you.

About Noni … The Star of This Raw Noni Recipe

Noni goes by some colorful names. The starvation fruit. The vomit fruit. Neither of those is exactly a ringing endorsement, but hear me out. Noni is known to be anti-inflammatory and has traditional use as a pain reliever. The flavor is genuinely intense, somewhere between blue cheese, hot pepper, a whisper of garlic, and… well, something funky that is hard to describe. The first bite I took I nearly spit it out. By the third time I ate one it had become one of my favorite fruits.

Most people juice noni by letting very ripe fruit sit in a covered jar for several days until it self-juices. I prefer to eat it fresh and very ripe, ideally left to sit under the tree in the sun for a few extra days. At the Farm of Life in Costa Rica there were 12 noni trees and I checked every one of them each morning for ripe fruit. Little presents from the noni gods. If you are in the tropics and you see a noni, do not walk past it. Give it a proper chance.

Noni is optional in this raw noni recipe if you genuinely cannot source it. The stew is still incredible without it. But with it, there is nothing else quite like it.

Raw Noni Recipe … David Avocado Noni Wolfe Stew

Ingredients

For the blended base:

2 lbs / 900g ripe tomatoes (about two thirds blended, one third chunked)

1 handful / 30g salt-free sun dried tomatoes

2 Medjool dates

1 bunch green onions

For the stew body:

1 lb / 450g ripe noni (optional but highly encouraged)

1 large avocado

1 small head napa cabbage, chopped

2 bunches bok choy, chopped

1 bunch dark leafy greens of your choice (spinach, kale, mustard greens, mixed wild greens)

1 radish, diced (optional, totally random, totally good)

Large handful fresh cilantro or herb of your choice

This is a Banana Commander sized serving 

It will comfortably feed 2 to 4 regular humans with big appetites.

Instructions

Step 1 … Build the blended base

Take roughly two thirds of your tomatoes and add them to your blender along with the sun dried tomatoes, Medjool dates, and green onions. Blend until smooth. This is your stew base. Quality tomatoes make or break this dish, so use the ripest most flavourful ones you can find. Save the remaining tomatoes to add as big chunky pieces directly into the stew bowl.

Step 2 … Prep the greens and vegetables

Chop the napa cabbage, bok choy, and dark leafy greens into rough pieces. No need to be precious here, chunky is the whole point. Save the stem ends and any bums from your vegetables and blend them into your base rather than composting them, nothing goes to waste when you have a Vitamix.

Step 3 … Prep the noni

If you have fresh very ripe noni, cut it into large cubes. Do not stress about the seeds, swallowing them is fine. The noni goes directly into the stew bowl as a chunky element, not blended. You want big pieces of that funky blue-cheese-hot-pepper flavour in every few bites. Trust the process.

Step 4 … Prep the avocado

Cut the avocado in half, score the flesh into cubes and scoop out. Set aside and add last so the cubes stay intact rather than going to mush. A slightly firmer avocado works better here than an ultra ripe one for this reason.

Step 5 … Assemble the stew

Pour your blended tomato base into a large bowl. Add all the chopped greens, the chunked fresh tomatoes, noni cubes, radish if using, and cilantro. Now here is the key step… use your Vitamix tamper or a large spoon to gently fold and press everything together rather than blending. If using a Vitamix, set the speed to about 4 and use short pulses with the tamper, you want stew not green soup. You are looking for everything to be well incorporated but still beautifully chunky.

Step 6 … Add the avocado and serve

Fold the avocado cubes in last, gently, so they keep their shape. Serve immediately in your biggest bowl. Lick the spoon. Do not apologize for the size of the serving.

A Note on Fat and 80/10/10

For the low fat raw vegan folks, and I am absolutely one of you, one avocado in a stew this size is well within the 80/10/10 framework. This is not a high fat meal, it is a balanced whole food raw meal with a beautiful creamy element. If you are smaller or less active, use half an avocado, or simply do not have a dish like this every single day. But there is nothing to stress about here. This sits comfortably in the framework as written and does not require any compensating or adjusting around it. Eat the stew, enjoy every bite, keep having fruit and greens as your foundation, and trust the process!

This raw noni recipe is technically from my book Cravings Busters: Sweet & Savoury Stews book, designed to bridge the gap for people coming from cooked food. The richness, the depth of flavor, the sheer volume… it hits every satisfaction note while being 100% raw, whole, and vegan!

If you make this raw noni recipe I want to hear about it. Drop a comment below, share a photo, let me know if you tracked down a noni or went without. Either way this stew is going to treat you well.

David Wolfe, wherever you are… enjoy your stew.