Smoothies are one of the best ways to make sure you are getting all of your daily nutrients. With a smoothie, you can get several servings of fruits and vegetables any time of the day, even breakfast. You can make your spinach taste like carrot cake, and you can make your mid-day serving of protein taste like candy.
Sometimes the ease of a good smoothie is simply having the right ingredients on hand all the time, and being able to play around with them and figure out what you really love to sip on. Don’t get stuck on one thing, but allow yourself to find multiple combinations that will keep you coming back to the blender every day. To start, ensure your kitchen has these six things:
1. A Variety of Frozen Fruits
Bananas, strawberries, and mango can make handfuls of spinach taste like a dream while only adding to the healthy nature of smoothies. There is no limit to the variety of fruits you can add to a smoothie. Keep frozen pineapple, raspberries, blueberries, and cherries around and mix everything you have.
Keep it tropical with banana, pineapple, and mango depending on your daily tastes and dietary needs. Remember that fruit has a lot of vitamins, but also a lot of sugar and carbohydrates, so depending on your needs, you may want to cut down on the fruit or enjoy this only in the morning hours or right after a workout.
Do you need some ideas? Take a look at our collection of fruit and berry smoothies.
2. Milk Alternatives
Every smoothie requires liquid, but plain water or milk can fall bland. Alternative milk products such as cashew, almond, or coconut will add a depth of creaminess to your smoothie, improving texture and flavor, while hiding the greens from your tongue.
3. Greens
That brings us to the powerhouse of the smoothies. Since this wonderful beverage allows you to get more fruits and vegetables than you could ever plan on otherwise, make sure you have the greens to add. Spinach, kale, chard, or even powdered greens are great choices for this. Each one has a little bit of a different flavor, but all of them will provide you with the amazing power of superfood, with enhanced energy and overall feeling of goodness.
Add some new greens to your weekly shopping list because you’ll need to have these on hand in order to drop them into your smoothie. Celery, cucumber, broccoli, and many other vegetables can also be great additions.
If you need some smoothie inspiration, check out our green smoothie recipes.
4. Nut and Seed Butters and Other Healthy Fats
A spoonful of peanut butter, almond butter, or even sunflower seed butter will boost the healthy fat content of your smoothie, helping to keep you full longer. These three nut butters have very different flavors, so taste them separately and think about what you’re adding to them.
You may prefer almond butter over peanut butter with strawberries and bananas. You might prefer something less flavorful with a tropical smoothie. Chia seeds, hemp seeds, and flax meal can also boost the healthy fats in your smoothie and will not add as much flavor as a nut butter will.
5. Mix-Ins
Cocoa powder, honey, and coconut are healthy ways to add a big flavor punch to your smoothie. Just a little bit goes a long way and will help you to customize your smoothies in a bold way. Coconut, carrot, and pineapple can make your smoothie taste like a cupcake. Cocoa powder and banana with almond milk is a chocolate lover’s heaven.
6. Protein Powder
Most people don’t love the taste or texture of protein powder, but having this in your pantry will allow you to get a complete meal into one glass when you need it. There are endless flavors of protein powder, so choose something that sounds good and goes with lots of other flavors.
Play around with different ingredient combinations to find what you like, but keep an open mind. While you’re testing your smoothie creations, make small batches at first, so you can easily tweak them.
If you make too much, just freeze the leftover to thaw out for the next day, or pour it into popsicle molds. In time, you will find exactly what you like. When you do, consider making your own smoothie mixes in plastic zipper bags so all you’ll have to do is drop it in the blender and push start.
Photo by Jan Sedivy on Unsplash
