Use fresh or frozen fruits to make your smoothie. Out of season, frozen fruits are a good choice, as they’re picked at the peak of ripeness and immediately frozen, sealing in the vitamins and minerals for maximum nutrition and maintaining textural integrity. Of course frozen fruits are incredibly convenient, but they also score high in terms of taste. Because you need less ice, you can achieve a more intense, purer flavor and yield a creamier smoothie.
Why not freeze your own fruit, especially if you prefer organic? Just buy fruit in bulk when in season (esp. when on sale), peel, cut, place in freezer bags and freeze.
Fruits to add to your smoothie include: Apples Apricot Avocado Banana Berries (e.g. strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, cranberries, cherries) Grapefruit Grape Guava Kiwi Mango Melon (e.g. watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew) Nectarines Oranges Papaya Peach Pears Pineapple Plums Pomegranate Strawberry
Smoothies are a great opportunity to get some greens into your diet without actually tasting them. The fruit in smoothies mask most of the flavor of the vegetables, such that it still tastes like a fruit smoothie (though slightly different color). Spinach is one of the most popular greens added to smoothies because it has a mild flavor (its taste is masked by fruit) and because it is easy to blend. Other mild greens include romaine lettuce and bok choy. Adding a few greens will massively boost the nutritional content of your smoothie.
As you experiment with ingredients and recipes, try some of the greens listed below: Spinach Kale Swiss chard Bok Choy Collard greens Spring greens Beet greens Dandelion greens Mustard greens Arugula Lettuce Romaine lettuce
Smoothie Step 2: Add liquid
Smoothies are all about balance. Balance of flavor, balance of texture. Consistency of your smoothie is as important as taste. To get the right consistency add between 1 and 2 cups of liquid for every 3 cups of fruit. Exactly how much you need depends on the type of fruit you’re using. Bananas and mangoes for example are thicker fruit, which means you’ll want to add more liquid. Watermelon, on the other hand, produces a lot of juice, so you’ll need to add less. In any case, if it’s too thick you can always add more liquid, and if you added too much liquid just add more ingredients that thicken your smoothie (see next step).
Nothing is irreversible when making a smoothie, you can always add a little more of this or a little more of that to get it just how you want. That’s what the info graphic (below) is all about. A cheat sheet! In fact, experimentation is the best way to find out how you like your smoothie!
Liquids to add to your smoothie include: Milk: Cows milk Almond milk Hazelnut milk Soy milk Rice milk Oat milk Hemp milk Coconut milk / water
Fruit juice (fresh squeezed/ pressed or store bought): Orange juice Apple juice Pear juice Grape juice Pomegranate juice
Various: Water Iced coffee Iced green / black tea
Smoothie Step 3: Thicken up
This step will give your smoothie body, texture and creaminess, and balance out any acidic taste from fruits such as oranges and berries. But it’s also an opportunity to boost the nutritional content of your smoothie. Thickening your smoothie is especially important if you’re working with watery fruit such as watermelon or pineapple, or haven’t used thick, balancing fruits such as avocado and banana.
Dairy: Yogurt Cottage cheese Kefir Frozen yogurt Ice cream (best used for dessert smoothie, treat or weight gain smoothie)
Various: Ice Coconut meat Chia seeds Psyllium seed husks (drink smoothie quickly or psyllium will swell making it difficult to drink) Oats Beans (tip: use white beans or chickpeas in fruit, vanilla or other light-colored smoothies and black beans in chocolate or dark smoothies)
If you don’t want to thicken your smoothie with any of the above ingredients or are only adding ice, work with fruits such as avocados, bananas and mangoes, that are naturally thicker or frozen fruits to achieve a thick, rich and creamy smoothie.
Smoothie Step 4: Flavor it
This is one of my favorite steps. It’s where you take really good smoothie and make it special.
Sweeteners Let’s start with sweeteners. Ideally, most of the smoothies sweetness should come from fruit. If you’re using sweet and ripe fruits such as banana and mango, you should need little sweetener. If you do need to sweeten your smoothie, you can use (brown) sugar, but there are many ways you can sweeten your smoothie and add nutritional value or at least limit calories. Honey Stevia Xylitol Maple syrup Agave nectar Dates Figs Salt
Just as any meal, a dash of salt can enhance the taste of your smoothie. To add extra nutritional value, use high quality sea salt such as Celtic sea salt, instead of table salt.
Spices/ Herbs Adding spices will take your smoothie to the next level, both in flavor and nutritionally. Mint Basil Lemongrass Lavender Cilantro/coriander (green smoothies) Parsley (green smoothies) Cinnamon (adds a layer of sweetness, without adding calories) Vanilla (extract) Almond extract Nutmeg Allspice Ginger Clove Cardamom Cayenne pepper Lemon juice Lime juice
Smoothie Step 5: Super foods
This is where you take your smoothie to the next level in terms of nutrition. There are a plethora of super foods you can add to smoothies to give it a massive nutritional boost.
Adding a tablespoon of healthy oil (e.g. fish oil and coconut oil) is an easy to way to turn a smoothie into more of a meal. Adding healthy fats help you absorb some of the nutrients, will make the smoothie more satisfying and help you feel fuller for longer. Instead of a tablespoon of oil, you can add some avocado, it’s full of healthy fat and will make your smoothie creamy.
Another awesome addition to your smoothie is protein. Like fats, protein transforms your smoothie from a snack into a meal. Protein takes longer to digest, stabilizes blood sugar, helps you feel fuller and keeps hunger at bay. Protein is important if you’re using smoothies as a meal replacement or as a post-exercise snack. You can add protein powder (e.g. whey protein, hemp protein), which come in all sorts of flavors, or use foods such as cottage cheese, yogurt or milk (see step 3 above) as your protein source.
As with the previous steps, the following is just a list of what you can add, it’s not meant to be overwhelming, but just give you an idea of the possibilities and encourage you to experiment a little.
Smoothie Step 6: Blend! Added all the ingredients? It’s time to blend! Start out on a low setting and work your way up to the top speed. It’ll take about 30 to 60 seconds – depending on ingredients – to blend. Pour, drink and enjoy!