I am entirely baffled by the smoothie business.
There are websites wholly devoted to making smoothies. Companies that will ship you perfectly proportioned frozen ingredients for a not-so-healthy cost. And $300 blenders that let you can crush ice in an instant.
I can’t understand how a whole industry has been created to use up ripe fruit to make a quick snack. I know. I’m in the wrong business.
There is nothing special about blending up frozen fruits and vegetables. You don’t even need a specific recipe.
Smoothies are the perfect place to learn how to experiment in the kitchen. You can combine fruits together and find out what you like best.
I am convinced that if freezers and blenders existed 200 years ago, no one would bother preserving fruit any other way besides the freezer.
Smoothies are an easy way to make a healthy treat and to get more vitamins into your diet.
Save your ripe fruit and save money, make them yourself, and make them to your own taste.
So, let’s go over the basics.
The Blender
I have a $30 Oster blender that I have been using for many, many years. You don’t need an expensive blender. Because the Oster has worked so well, I have never tried any of the other brands. If you have a hand-held immersion blender and don’t want to own another appliance, this works too.
The “Recipe”
I use the word recipe loosely. My smoothie “recipe” is a concoction of leftovers. You will get to choose what fruit and liquid that you like from what you have in your kitchen. Keep reading for ideas on all the components.
- 2 cups of frozen fruit*
- 1 cup liquid or yogurt**
- 2–3 teaspoons sugar, or another sweetener, to your taste***
Fill a 16-ounce cup with frozen fruit and then add it to the blender. Then measure the liquid and add it into the blender with sugar or other sweeteners. Pulse until the fruit breaks up, then blend until smooth.
Notes:
*When measuring the frozen fruit, you’re going to have lots of space between the chunks. The space is fine.
**For the liquid, you can use milk or your favorite milk substitute, juice, or water. Any plain or flavored yogurt will work.
*** You can use honey, maple syrup, agave nectar, white sugar, or brown sugar. The amount of sugar depends on the fruit’s sweetness and the liquid or yogurt and your preference.
Bananas
I love bananas, but when you add one to a smoothie, the banana overpowers the other ingredients, especially if the other ingredients aren’t sweet and ripe. Be careful with bananas. Bananas can be useful if you add greens to your smoothie. They mask the vegetables’ flavor.
The Fruit
Bags of frozen fruit are inexpensive. Have them on hand. Mix and match or just go with one favorite fruit.
I make smoothies specifically to use up fruit that I have stored in the freezer.
Fresh fruit is best when eaten out of hand. But, it’s hard to predict how many peaches or apples you will eat before the fruit starts to spoil. After a few days, on the counter, cut up any fruit that you can’t use and store it in a container in your freezer. This way, it is ready to go into your blender.
I leave the peel on apples, peaches, plums, and nectarines. The blender makes quick work of them. Peel oranges and bananas before freezing.
Greens
A couple of handfuls of salad greens or spinach is a perfectly acceptable addition to a smoothie. There isn’t enough to alter the taste. The color will change to some shade of green, so consider your audience.
Freezing greens is also the best way to use up lettuce that you can’t eat fresh. Freeze greens in a plastic bag before they go bad. Once they are frozen, you can crush them to save space. Add the frozen greens to your smoothie with the fruit.
Special Additions
I don’t intentionally squeeze in particular nutrients like ground flax seeds or protein powder, nuts or nut butters, but you can certainly add those in. They aren’t the main components. A few tablespoons will change the taste and texture slightly, but they won’t change the outcome. You still have a smoothie.
You can do it.
You can design your own smoothie recipe to use whatever you have on hand. Choose your favorite, freeze leftover fruit and blend it up.
Smoothies are simple.
Two Recipes
I have two more specific recipes to get you started. The first is my basic template with strawberries only. I am sharing this because it shows how simple a smoothie can be. It also focuses the flavor on one specific fruit, so all you taste are strawberries.
Strawberries are my favorite fruit, and I buy them by the flat when they are in season. Because I can’t actually eat the whole box before they spoil, I started freezing the extra, and this recipe is the result.
The second, Pumpkin Pie Smoothie, I wanted to share because using canned pumpkin in a smoothie is a little unexpected. This flavor combination might convince you to skip the pie have smoothies instead.
Straight-Up Strawberry Smoothie
- 1 cup of water
- 3 teaspoons sugar
- 2 cups frozen strawberries
Mix the water and sugar together in the blender and pulse until mostly dissolved. Add the strawberries to the blender. Blend until smooth.
Pumpkin Pie Smoothie
- ½ can of pumpkin puree, about ¾ cup
- 1 cup plain or vanilla yogurt, milk or milk substitute
- ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract (if not using vanilla yogurt or vanilla flavored milk substitute)
- 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice or a combination of ground cinnamon and ground cloves
- 2–3 teaspoons sugar
Blend all together in the blender.