Do you want to kick your healthy eating to the next level? Then you’ll seriously need to consider starting your day off with a green smoothie. It’s just so much better for your health than most of the other options out there. Read our complete guide to getting started with green smoothies.
Green Smoothie Recipe: The Basics
Green smoothies are delicious, healthy drinks that make an excellent breakfast, lunch or snack. They’re light in calories, packed with fiber, antioxidants and vitamins. Green smoothies have the potential to change your life, if you drink them instead of eating things like sugary breakfast cereals or pastries.
Try out this basic green smoothie recipe for a month and see how you feel after. I guarantee you’ll be feeling energetic and healthy!
The first thing you need to do is start off with a top-quality blender. I personally use a Vitamix but check out this list of top 5 blenders for help in choosing the best one for you.
- Program Settings: Five program settings (for Smoothies, Hot Soups, Dips & Spreads, Frozen Desserts,...
- Touchscreen Controls give the machine a sleek silhouette and are easily wiped clean.Electrical...
- You're in Control: Variable Speed Control and Pulse feature let you manually fine-tune the texture...
- Built-In Wireless Connectivity: The motor base is able to read the container size you’ve chosen...
- Programmable Timer: A built-in timer helps avoid over- or under-processing your custom recipes. Set...
#1: Liquid
Choose from among the following liquids: water, coconut water, almond/walnut/hemp/soy milk, dairy milk, liquid yogurt, etc.
I use about 1/3 almond or walnut milk and 2/3 water in order to reduce the calories, but still give my green smoothie a bit of richness. If you’re trying to gain weight, don’t use any water because you’ll want all those calories.
#2: Fruit
The sky is the limit! I always use banana, berries, apple and orange. For best results, use frozen ones. Quick tip: You can peel just about anything and put it in the freezer for use in smoothies: oranges, kiwis, peaches, etc. You can also freeze things like grapes or strawberries (remove the stems).
#3: Vegetables
Vegetables really pack a nutritional punch so be sure to include some of them in your basic green smoothie recipe. Some of my favourites that I always include are cucumber, carrot and beets (raw).
#4: Greens
Make your green smoothie green! My favourites smoothie greens include: spinach, kale, lettuce, cabbage, swiss chard, beet greens and dandelion greens. I sometimes use arugula as well, but that can be a little bit bitter if you’re not used to it.
Start small when you’re just getting used to green smoothies, but increase it over time. The greens are what really kick a regular smoothie into a nutritional powerhouse.
#5: Nuts, Seeds or Grains
Include some nuts, seeds or grains in your green smoothie recipe so it’ll give you some lasting power until your next meal. I like to put in: oatmeal, flax seeds, walnuts, almonds, hemp hearts, chia seeds, or pumpkin seeds. But, any kind of grain, nut, or seed will work! Just be sure to not add too many if you’re trying to lose weight. Want to gain weight? Go heavy on these ones!
#6: Herbs (optional)
I like to include some mint, basil or cilantro (check out: Storing Cilantro) to give it an interesting flavour. Try them out and see which ones you like best.
#7: Protein Powder or Green Powder (optional)
If you’re trying to incorporate more protein, or superfoods into your diet, consider adding some of these powders to it. Usually a scoop will do, but check with the manufacturer for their recommendations. Of course, these things usually alter the taste in a big way so be ready for that.
5 Delicious Green Smoothie Recipes
Don’t Forget about the Blender!
Green smoothies are way easier to make if you have a decent blender and now you have a basic green smoothie recipe! This is because instead of having little chunky bits in them, it’ll be well blended and smooth.
Plus, you can do things like throw entire carrots, and big chunks of ginger, not to mention whole beets, etc. in there. Compare this to the cheaper blenders where you literally have to cut everything up into small pieces so they don’t get all jammed up and you’ll certainly notice a huge difference.
Check out a Vitamix or Ninja for my top two choices for green smoothie blenders. They are strong, powerful and have a reasonably high capacity if you’re making a smoothie for more than one person and/or more than one day. At our house, we make 4 servings of smoothie and then 2 people eat them for 2 days. It’s a simple way to save some time in the morning.
Or, check out this handy comparison chart below:
Have your Say about Making Green Smoothies
Do you have any tips or tricks for making delicious green smoothies? Any ingredients that you never forget to add. Leave a comment below and let us know what you think. We’d love to hear from you.
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Last update on 2021-04-09 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
