Learn how to make a smoothie! We’re showing you how to layer your smoothies in the blender, smoothie ingredients, plus a list of healthy smoothie recipes! You’ll know how to make smoothies at home with fresh organic ingredients.
We’re excited to share how to make healthy smoothies, ingredient options plus how to make the ultimate smoothie by layering ingredients properly. Think we missed something on how to make smoothies? Let us know so we can add it to this post. 🙂
Are Smoothies Healthy?
Yes, and no. Everyone knows how to make a smoothie, just throw ingredients into a blender, right? Not so much.. The smoothie ingredients need to be healthy too! People tend to think that smoothies are a healthy food and that they’re going to help them lose weight. We see smoothies 3 ways. 1. as a treat/dessert. 2. as a healthy meal option (when layered correctly). 3. unhealthy drink.
You can go to the mall and get a smoothie with fruit juice concentrates, yogurt, sherbert, and then fresh fruit. The healthiest part is the yogurt and fruit and all of the ingredients contain sugar.
The fact is that you can quickly add so much sugar to a smoothie that it would be equal to or even more sugar than a soda. When you’re making your homemade smoothie recipe you need to think about the ingredients you’re putting into the blender. There’s sugar in fruit, so we usually do not recommend adding in additional sugars unless you need that sweetness and your fruit isn’t sweet. We will occasionally add honey for the health benefits as we like to eat a teaspoon of honey each day, but that’s the only instance for us.
There are tons of ways to make a smoothie, but we’re excited to show you how to make a smoothie that is perfect for you!
How to make a smoothie 101
how to make healthy smoothies:
- Don’t overfill the blender. Make just enough for you and you’ll be satisfied. Sometimes we make too much and can overdrink/overeat.
- Limit the added sweeteners. Fruit adds natural sweetness, remember that yogurt, milk, and juices, even fresh squeezed, contain lots of sugar.
- Try to use the whole fruit instead of juice. If you’re using juice as a liquid we recommend trying a whole orange (peeled) and a little bit of water instead of orange juice, apple + a little water instead of apple juice. You’re getting sugar + fiber + more nutrients when doing it this way.
- Add greens! Spinach Smoothies, Kale Smoothies, get those greens in there. You can add a handful of either spinach, kale, even chard. (Try our Kale Pineapple Smoothie!)
- Add more veggies! Steam some cauliflower, sweet potatoes, zucchini, then freeze. This makes for creamy vegetable smoothies.
healthy smoothie additions:
- Hemp Hearts
- Rolled Oats (best to soak before adding)
- Chia seeds
- Flax Seeds (grind fresh)
- Peanut Butter
- Almond Butter
- Bee Pollen
- Cacao Powder
- Camu Powder
- Shredded Coconut
- Ginger
- Turmeric
- Maca Powder
- Spirulina
- Maca powder
- Goji Berries
adding flavor sweetness to smoothies + flavor!
These add flavor and sweetness and can even rescue a smoothie that tastes like dirt, gross!
- Dates (try our caramel apple dip made with dates)
- Cinnamon
- Honey
- Maple Syrup
- Vanilla Extract
- Honey
- Stevia
- Agave
adding protein to smoothies:
Protein is more than just scooping out some powder for smoothies from a container. Hemp hearts, yogurt, even veggies also add protein.
- Almonds
- Walnuts
- Hazelnuts
- Cashews (soaked cashews are great for smoothies!)
- Nut Butters
dairy and liquids for smoothies:
Wondering what liquid to put in smoothies? You can use plant-based or dairy depending on your dietary needs.
- Water
- Coconut Water
- Almond Milk
- Cashew Milk
- Oat Milk
- Rice Milk
- Cow Milk grass-fed)
- Kefir
- Greek Yogurt
- Soy Milk
- Coconut Milk
adding probiotics to your smoothie
Natural sources of probiotics are the best way to get probiotics daily. You can take a daily probiotic supplement as well if you’re not getting enough probiotics daily. Our favorite way to get probiotics is by adding Kefir or Greek Yogurt to our smoothies. We go for full-fat yogurt and kefir, dairy milk too. More on why here.
When choosing a yogurt and kefir brand make sure that you’re really researching which will be best for you. For us, we want the most out of our purchase and that’s why we use Nancy’s yogurt, they have been providing essential probiotics since 1970, there are even more reasons why we chose this brand, the biggest reason? It has really improved our gut health and it’s much easier for our daughter to enjoy a smoothie instead of a probiotic supplement that contains other ingredients to make it palatable.
If you cannot find Nancy’s Greek yogurt go for the regular yogurt and strain it with a cheesecloth. Don’t through away the whey, instead add it to your smoothie, the whey also has probiotics! You can regularly find their yogurt on Amazon Fresh. Greek yogurt has less sugar, more protein, and a thicker consistency.
how do you load smoothie ingredients into your blender?
The way you layer your smoothie ingredients really makes a difference on how to make a smoothie and how not to make a smoothie.
- Liquids
- Sweeteners (if you’re using honey, agave, maple syrup, etc.
- Fresh Fruits and Vegetables
- Leafy Greens
- Frozen Fruits
- Nuts and Seeds
- Powders
- Ice
Why do we add the liquids first and the frozen later? You would think that the frozen fruit by the blade would be a good idea, right? Well, the thing is, once you add in the liquid it would pour onto the frozen fruit or ice. Once the liquids hit the frozen produce it will create a solid mass. This will result in a smoothie that is hard to blend.
Smoothie Packs
You can easily make your own smoothie packets. If you go to the supermarket you’ll see lots of prepacked smoothie options. It’s easy to make smoothie packets at home, why pay extra? We highly recommend and LOVE our stasher bags. Our favorite way how to make smoothies when you just want to dump and go.
You can reuse them over and over. They’re easy to clean and you can freeze all of your smoothie ingredients right inside your stasher bags. Have fruit and veggies that getting a bit overripe?? Save them for your smoothies and store them in the freezer, chopped up and ready to go in your stasher bag. You can even cook in the stasher bags, they’re extremely versatile. We even use them for bringing snacks, use them as you would a disposable sandwich bag.
We’ve tried a few different reusable silicone bags, stasher is our top pick.
Healthy Smoothie Recipes
- Kale Pineapple Smoothie
- Strawberry Banana Breakfast Smoothie
- Strawberry Banana Smoothie
- Banana Smoothie with Yogurt
- Strawberry Banana Smoothie with Yogurt | Courtney’s Sweets
- Dragon Fruit Smoothie | Courtney’s Sweets
- Broccoli Detox Smoothie | Berry & Maple
- Green Beet Root Smoothie | Fuss Free Flavours
- Strawberry Beet Smoothie | Veggie Inspired
- Mango Carrot & Ginger Smoothie | Culinary Ginger
Be sure to pin so you’ll always know how to make smoothies
We hope you enjoyed our post on How to Make a Smoothie! Let us know if there’s something you’d like in our post!
Excellent post. I always try to have no more than one portion of fruit in a smoothie – there are too many recipes out there for supposedly “healthy” smoothies that are laden with so much fruit.
Thanks! We love smoothies, but agree, they don’t mean just fruit!