Green Smoothies Four Ways

So far, 2021 has been the year of green smoothies for me. Now, are all of them green? No. Do all of them have greens in them? Yes.

I have scoured the web far and wide for the best green smoothie recipes. First I started with Pinterest. Good old reliable Pinterest. But what I found on Pinterest was a lot of the same ingredients in the smoothies and it wasn't giving me the variety that I was looking for. Then I just started googling. And I came across a book called Simple Green Smoothies. This was really a game changer.

Simple Green Smoothies has a book and a website where they have 100+ recipes for green smoothies and other healthy ideas. What I've been doing over the last few weeks and months is trying recipes from them and modifying them to fit my own tastes and what I am able to get in the stores that week.

Regarding the greens, I use mainly spinach in mine. I tried kale too but I found that that had more of an obvious "green" taste and did not blend as smoothly. 

The best method that I've found to make a smooth green smoothie is to start by blending your greens and your liquid. I mainly use water or coconut water. I've tried them with almond milk which gives a creamier taste and texture to it. I prefer the lighter texture of water but you can use whatever water or milk you prefer.

Simply blend for a few seconds so that all the leaves get broken up. Once you've gotten the greens smooth, then you can add in your fruit and "dry" ingredients. Dry ingredients could include peanut butter, cocoa powder, chia seeds, oats, or any other nuts or seeds like that.

I tried chia seeds in one of the smoothies but I didn't care for the texture that they added. I found it too gloopy and weird to drink, but to each their own!

One note on the sweetness, I don't typically use any added sweeteners in these. Depending on how ripe your bananas are and how sweet you like your smoothies, I've found that a 5 second squeeze of honey (about a tablespoon) works well.

My first green smoothie here is strawberry mango. Blend your spinach and coconut water, then blend banana, frozen strawberries, and frozen mango.

Next is chocolate peanut butter. Start with spinach and water. Then blend in banana, frozen mango, 1 heaping spoonful of peanut butter, and 1 tbsp of cocoa powder. You can substitute the mango for frozen pineapple, I just didn't have any.

Next up is strawberry lime. This is my go-to when I go to Tropical Smoothie, but I think that this version is slightly healthier. Again, spinach and water. Then add in banana, frozen strawberries, frozen mango, and a healthy splash of lime juice. This one is almost identical to the strawberry mango, but it has a great refreshing lime zing.

Finally is blueberry. Start with spinach and water, then add banana, frozen blueberries, and applesauce. I don't taste the applesauce but I think that it adds some bulk and different nutrients to the smoothie.

Recipes:

Strawberry Mango:

1 cup spinach

1 cup coconut water

1 banana

1/2 cup frozen mango

1/2 cup frozen strawberries

1 tbsp honey, optional

Chocolate Peanut Butter:

1 cup spinach

1 cup filtered water

1 banana

1/2 cup frozen mango

1 heaping spoonful peanut butter

1 tbsp cocoa powder

Strawberry Lime:

1 cup spinach

1 cup filtered water

1 banana

1/2 cup frozen mango

3/4 cup frozen strawberries

2 tbsp lime juice

Blueberry:

1 cup spinach

1 cup filtered water

1 banana

1/2 cup frozen blueberries

1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce

Blend spinach and water until smooth. Add fruit and dry ingredients and blend again until smooth.

Enjoy!