Welcome friends to the smoothie revolution. We’re here to ignite your tastebuds and inspire you with gorgeous smoothie recipes to help you easily get more of the great stuff – aka fruit and vegetables – into your day.
Well Show You:
• How to make a smoothie perfectly and easily at home, read on
• Expert tips and tricks
• Delicious step-by-step go-to recipes to help get more vitamin, mineral and fiber packed fruit and vegetables into your day
• Advice on what sort of blender to buy – don’t worry it doesn’t need to be expensive
• The lowdown on smoothie boosters – from wheatgrass to chia seeds
The Good Smoothie Guide, dah-dum, roll drum please, is at your service. Life can be a super hectic and finding time to eat well is hard. We’ve created this guide to show you how to make a fruit smoothie a quick and easy way to bring a dose of goodness into your day.
Smoothies are vitamin bombs and rock our world for so many reasons, not only are they delicious, it’s pretty hard to mess up a smoothie: throw in a bunch of ingredients in a blender and push go.
A Boost Of Goodness
Nutritionists recommend we humans need eat at least two serves of fruit a day and five or more servings of vegetables. One serving of fruit is about equal to a medium apple, a banana, orange or two kiwi. One cup of raw sliced vegetables or spinach leaves equals one serving of vegetables. We know that’s not always easy, but it’s vital.
Fruits and berries provide us with glucose, our brain’s fuel, fiber, vitamins and minerals. Plus they contain phytochemicals which help protect our body’s cells from damage caused by pollutants and ageing.
Vegetables are packed with vitamins, minerals, fiber and antioxidants – the key nutrients they provide include vitamin C, folate, beta carotene, potassium, fiber, carbohydrate and water.
Smoothies are one delicious and easy way to get some of those much needed fruit and veggies into your body. Much better than jucing, with a smoothie you get to keep all the fiber in your drink. That means your drink is more filling and you use far fewer fruit and veggies.
Plus:
1. It take less than 10 minutes to make a smoothie from start to finish
2. They’re super tasty
3. There’s no cooking and not much washing up
4. Almost everyone, kids included, love smoothies
Do you need any more reason to join the revolution? Wake up every day and blend your way to a glass of goodness. How can you say no to that. Read on and well show you how to make a fruit smoothie, plus everything else you need to know.
7 Tips For Making The Best Ever Smoothie
1. Frosty cold smoothies are the best – use one or two frozen fruits or a handful or two of ice cubes. A chilled glass is even better.
2. Use ripe fruit it has the most flavour, toss underipe fruit into your smoothie and you’re heading for underwhelming.
3. Experiment with new tastes – a handful of parsley, a tablespoon of seeds or nuts, a new fruit you’ve never tried before.
4. But don’t add a zillion ingredients – it’s not supposed to be hard – make it easy and simple.
5. Cut up your ingredients if you don’t have a top-of-the-line blender, make sure you give it a helping hand.
6. Freeze your fruit and veg for year round favours. Make sure you peel and chop them into small chunks first –ever tried to peel a frozen banana? Great ones to freeze are grapes, spinach, kiwi, berries, bananas, but you can freeze anything almost.
7. Bananas are smoothie rock stars besides thickening your drink and making it creamy, bananas are an awesome base, they go well with practically everything because they have a neutral taste. We love you bananas.
How To Pick The Best Blender For You
You can make a smoothie with pretty much any blender and you definitely don’t have to spend a fortune on a top-of-the-line model if you don’t want to.
We have reviewed 7 of the most popular blenders – in all price ranges – to help you work out what’s the best blender for your lifestyle and budget.
Stock The Cupboards – What You’ll Need
You don’t need a lot to make a smoothie. You need a blender of course, more than later, and after that all you’ll need is a recipe idea and your ingredients.
For ingredients you will need something liquid – every smoothie needs a liquid base – and fruit and/or vegetables. If you want you can add something frozen – optional but we truly believe smoothies taste so much better cold – and some extras for flavor or nutritional punch, optional too.
Liquid:
- Water, milk, plain low-fat yoghurt, coconut milk, nut milk, soy milk, dairy milk, herbal tea, and many other liquids work well in smoothie. Avoid processed fruit juice, which is high in added sugar
Fruit and/or vegetables:
- Some favourites are bananas, berries, mango, peaches, plums, chopped apple, melon, avocado, pear, pineapple, avocados, tomatos, spinach, kale, beetroot.
Something frozen:
- Options include ice, frozen fruit.
Extras for more flavour and nutrition:
- Options include wheat grass, barley grass, spirulina, chia seeds, flax seeds, ginger, grated coconut, chopped nuts, pitted and soaked dates (soak for at least an hour), goji berries, oatmeal (will fill you up for longer), cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla, peanut butter.
We don’t believe there is a perfect ratio for liquid to fruit to the frozen stuff, it all depends on what types of fruit and vegetables and extras you are using, what is frozen what’s not, and your own taste.
How To Make A Fruit Smoothie – It’s Super Simple
1. Add the liquid first. It will sit around the blades and get your smoothie swirling and mixing properly. Never add thick or sticky things first.
2. Next add any semi-solid ingredients you are using like yoghurt, and soft fruits. Then comes the other goodness-filled fruit and vegetables.
3. In last goes the frozen fruit and the ice.
4. Now you’re ready to blend. Hit power/start/go whatever your button is called. Don’t forget the lid.
5. Start off on a low speed for five or so seconds, so everything can gets dragged down to the blade and all that deliciousness moving about, and then gradually turn up the speed. Also don’t ever stick a spoon or spatula in your blender when it’s on.
Exactly how long it takes will really depend on how powerful your blender is. Watch it to see – you should be able to judge with your eye when everything is chopped up and lusciously smooth-looking.
You can stop it and look if you are not sure. Roughly it should take about 30 seconds or so. A lower-end blender might take several minutes to get the right consistency.
Of course, if you have a pre-programmed smoothie cycle on your blender the work and decisions are already made for you. Hit the smoothie cycle, and the hard work is done for you. Perfect if you a multi-tasker and have a million other things on your mind as you whip up your smoothie.
Clean the blender straight away in warm water. Don’t leave it sitting as it will be so much hard to clean later. And that’s no fun.
Now are ready to pour and enjoy. Drink it straight away if possible. If you want to get fancy you can even add a garnish – a spring of mint, a slice of lime or berry or two.
If you’re in a hurry, pop it in a portable cup and take it with you as you head out to face the world. If you have to you can store a smoothie for a day or so in the fridge in an airtight container to limits oxidation which breaks down the nutrients. Some smoothies will separate more than others it’s depends on the ingredients – make sure you shake it up before serving.
And if you made to much, fear not smoothie lover, share it with friends – they will love you for it – or pour it into a popsicle tray and freeze it. It’s going to taste great later.
What Not To Put In Your Smoothie
Stay healthy and ditch the sugar, chocolate and ice cream – you’re not making a milkshake. You also don’t need store-bought fruit juice or concentrate, cream, sorbet or canned fruit in syrup.
Use soy, almond, rice or coconut milk, fruit or veggie juice, aloe or just water. Use maple syrup, brown rice syrup, honey, agave, or fruit itself, as sweetener.
We also think you don’t really need sugar substitutes like maple syrup, agave, honey – fruit is sweet enough all by itself.
The Secret To How To Make A Fruit Smoothie You Adore
Everyone has different tastes, we don’t all love the same books, the same movies, or the same foods – and it’s a good thing too. It’s the same with smoothies. Maybe you are a fruity-kind-of-dude or maybe you like your smoothie with more zip. Here’s a few tips on ingredients to help create a smoothie designed just for your tastebuds:
1. For a creamy smoothie include avocado, bananas, mango, peach and/or pear.
2. For a more watery smoothie use fruits with a lot of juice/water content – like oranges, limes, mandarins, grapes, melon and kiwi.
3. For a chunkier and thicker smoothie, depending on how long you blend it for, use more ice and frozen fruit. But remember too much ice and you will have a sorbet on your hands.
4. For a lighter smoothie blend it for longer to allow more air in – this will vary depending of course on what ingredients you use.
5. For a smoother smoothie add yoghurt – that’s almost a tongue twister.
6. If you are new to green smoothies and a bit unsure try baby greens first, they usually have a milder flavour than mature greens, same with cucumber, spinach and zucchini they are gentler in flavour.
Are you inspired yet? Rumour has it the classic ‘Banana Strawberry Smoothie’ is the all time favourite, but don’t stop at that. The combinations are endless what about a ‘Avocad0 Apple Smoothie’, or a ‘Mango Green Smoothie?
Check out our recipes , getting blending your way to a delicious glass of goodness. Join the smoothie revolution and enjoy!
Stick Around And Join Our Community
Like what you have been reading? Now that you have the lowdown on how to make a fruit smoothie, we would love it if you joined our Good Smoothie Guide community. Every month we sent our awesome members our latest delicious new smoothie recipe and we also give away one of our favourite healthy living recipe books.
Join our community, it’s free. We promise we will never share your email address and we’ll never spam you.