Smoothie Making Tips and Tricks
Smoothies: great for breakfast, as a snack, or even for dessert! Better yet, smoothies can be a really healthy alternative to sugary drinks and snacks. Although going out and buying smoothies is easy and convenient, you really can’t customize them or control what’s going into your drink the same way you can when making them at home. Besides, making smoothies at home is easier than you might think, and coming up with different combinations to keep things interesting is a lot of fun! Keep reading for the basic “do’s and don’ts” that will guarantee every smoothie you make is delicious as well as an easy bonus recipe to get you started!
Take Advantage of What’s Around You
If you live on campus, the cafeteria is a great place to get started, which also helps you use up your meal plan. Getting spinach and kale from the salad bar (where the price is weight-based) is a lot cheaper than buying a bag of greens from the grocery store, which will probably go bad before you can use it all anyways. You can also often find fruits like bananas, pears, and mangos, as well as things you can use as a base for your smoothie like milk and yogurt. If you don’t have a meal plan, or if you also frequent the grocery store, make sure to keep an eye out for sales and stock up when you can!
Don’t Be Afraid To Try Out Different “Bases”
Most people start out their smoothies with milk, but there are many different options that you should consider based on the type of smoothie you’re going to be making. For a creamier smoothie, try almond, soy, or even rice milk. Greek yogurt is also a great option, especially if the fruit you’re going to be adding is ripe or sweet. For tropical smoothies, give orange juice or (my personal favorite) coconut water a shot!
Don’t Use Ice
If there’s one thing you take away from this, I hope it’s to stop adding ice to your smoothies. Fun crunchiness aside, ice waters down your smoothie and takes up space that you could be using to pack in more nutritious ingredients. Instead, freeze your fruit! Of course you can buy bags of frozen fruit at the grocery store, and this is a great way to get fruits that are out of season. That being said, freezing the produce you buy fresh is a great way to take advance of sales and keep yourself from wasting food. A lot of people throw out overripe fruit that can actually still be used for cooking, or in a smoothie. Ripe fruit that you wouldn’t eat as a snack (especially if you’re picky like me) is great for smoothies!
Add Greens
It’s well known that kale and spinach are really good for you, but they’re not always the easiest foods to incorporate into your diet. Smoothies are one great way to remedy this problem. That’s one of the best things about smoothies: you can pack more fruits and greens in one drink than you’d normally eat during your typical day. Even if you’ve tried spinach or kale before and didn’t like the taste, don’t let that stop you! As long as you blend them thoroughly, the taste will be masked by everything else you add.
Consider Some Additional Add-Ins
Here’s where a lot of the creativity comes in and where making a smoothie becomes more like traditional cooking! Chia and flax seeds, like spinach and kale, can add a lot of nutrients to your smoothies without detracting from the taste. Chia seeds can aid in thickening a smoothie as well. Most people never think to add avocado to their smoothies, but the fruit adds an amazing rich and creamy texture to your smoothies! They’re a great alternative to yogurt if you’re vegan or don’t eat dairy, and also similar to chia seeds as they can thicken up a smoothie in a pinch. Protein powders are also a tasty and nutritious addition; just be careful not to add too much or you may end up with a chalky taste. If you’re strictly looking to amp up a smoothie’s flavor, try powdered peanut butter, cocoa powder, a splash of lemon juice, spices like cinnamon or nutmeg, or herbs like basil and mint.
Blend Ingredients in the Correct Order
This step is where everything comes together and also where people usually mess up. Prior to what you may think, you shouldn’t just stuff everything into your blender and let it go until it all comes together. This is where you’ll end up with strands of spinach and rock-hard chunks of frozen fruit. It’s not exactly the easiest thing to quickly drink while you’re on the go, or right before/after a workout. The most foolproof formula for a smoothie is this: thoroughly blend your liquid plus anything unfrozen or powdered first, then add and blend your frozen fruit! It’s easy and doesn’t add all that much extra work to the process.
Recipe
So here’s one way of applying everything mentioned above. This is a simple and easy recipe with things you probably already have in your kitchen, and anything you don’t have you can leave out or substitute with something else:
Ingredients
1 cup Milk (I used original unsweetened almond milk)
2 Bananas (frozen)
1 Pear
1 cup Spinach and Kale
1 Avocado
1 tbsp Flax Seeds
1 scoop Protein Powder
You shouldn’t take the amounts of the ingredients above as a hard and set rule. Feel free to play around with the proportions! Peaches (freezing optional) are also a great addition to this recipe.
Instructions
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Add your milk of choice, greens, pears, flax seeds, and protein powder to the blender.
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Blend until everything is fully broken down.
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Add in your frozen bananas, peaches, and avocado.
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Blend until fully incorporated.
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Check taste and texture, adding more milk to thin it out or more frozen bananas or avocados to thicken it up!
When you’re done it should look something like this:
Photo credit: Olivia White
You’ll end up with enough smoothie to fill up a cup of about 20 oz
One final tip: to make cleaning up easier, fill your blender up with hot water and a little bit of dish soap. Blend for a couple of seconds, then rinse.
Best of luck!
Olivia