Nikki Azzara, the CEO of Slender Seven, along with the boys from Swizzler, are headed back to Wake Forest this upcoming weekend. Join us at Spoon WFU in welcoming Slender Seven and Swizzler back to campus with a kickoff party at Last Resort this Thursday, March 20th for gourmet hot dogs and guilt-free cookie dough. (We’ll get to the guilt-free part later).
Nikki’s here to talk about Slender Seven and how college kids can stay healthy on campus, sell cookie dough samples, and distribute pre-ordered cookie dough and merchandise.
2014 Wake Forest University graduate Nikki Azzara’s life, and new business Slender Seven, are guided by one fundamental principle – cook simply, eat healthy, and feel happy.
Nikki’s love for cooking and enjoying delicious food extends back as far as she can remember, alongside her love for exercise and health. According to Nikki, people often assume (incorrectly) that health benefits and taste are mutually exclusive. Nikki combined her passions to establish Slender Seven during the fall of her senior year at Wake Forest to combat this misconception that is especially strong among the college age group.
Photo courtesy of Nikki Azzara
Slender Seven began as an online cookbook of Nikki’s personal, hand-crafted recipes, each containing seven ingredients or less, all gluten-free friendly, and together guided by her motto, “cook simply, eat healthy, and feel happy.”
Nikki’s recipes, like her no-bake sweet & salty squares, sweetened with agave and dates, and her gluten-free sesame (spaghetti squash) noodles, are full of complex and tasty flavors, but made from seven or less wholesome and nutritious ingredients. Nikki’s recipes are “not gourmet” and her instructions are simple and easy enough for even beginner chefs and busy college students with limited kitchen space.
Photo courtesy of Nikki Azzara
Nikki stresses that Slender Seven is not a diet, but rather a lifestyle brand that promotes living a clean, healthy, and happy life with the help of her wholesome recipes. Slender Seven offers people a sustainable route to a lifestyle of health and wellness that isn’t about cutting calories or eliminating the foods you love. Instead, the recipes on the site offer healthy alternatives to and upgrades of classic dishes, without sacrificing any of the flavor.
Photo courtesy of Nikki Azzara
Since its creation in 2013, Slender Seven has become more than just an online source for healthy recipes. Follow Slender Seven on Instagram for daily healthy inspiration or download the Slender Seven iPhone app to search recipes, store your favorite dishes, and generate shopping lists with ease. From breakfast to dinner to everything in between, the Slender Seven app has you covered.
Having people over to watch the big game? Try the snack or dip sections. Last minute date night? Choose from the meat, seafood, or vegetarians entrée sections. This app is your one stop shop for healthy, flavorful, and filling meals made from seven ingredients or less.
Photo courtesy of Nikki Azzara
Nikki’s most recent and most exciting project, however, is her healthy and all-natural Slender Seven brand cookie dough, the company’s first product available for sale. The cookie dough comes in two delicious flavors, Choco-Chick and Choco-Fudge that are both gluten and flour free, vegan (dairy free), soy free, peanut free, egg free, low in sugar, organic, and made with only seven ingredients.
Photo courtesy of Nikki Azzara
The main ingredient in the Choco-Chick variety, Slender Seven’s take on classic chocolate chip cookie dough, is chick peas. Sounds insane, right? But the dough is actually completely delicious, healthy, and best of all, 100% edible raw. That’s right, you can enjoy this cookie dough without any baking and without any guilt for only 110 calories per serving.
The Choco-Fudge dough is made with organic black beans and also completely safe to eat raw, or baked into moist, soft cookies. The hardest decision here is not whether or not to order the dough, but which flavor to order it in.
Nikki cooks the dough at Union Kitchen in Washington, DC, a culinary incubator for food startups like our friends over at Swizzler, and it is available for delivery through her website. Nikki hopes to soon expand her business by selling Slender Seven cookie dough in major organic retailers like Whole Foods.
Photo courtesy of Nikki Azzara
Nikki proves that a quick, simple, healthy, and delicious meal is only seven ingredients away.
Looking for other ways to make healthy eating easy? Check these out: