Our Favorite Green Smoothie!

My kids LOVE green smoothies (and so do I).  When they were littler I would call them monster smoothies to give the purple-looking smoothie (I added blueberries and spinach so they were more purple than green) a more fun name!  I love that I can get a lot of spinach in there and a whole bunch of fruit for my older daughter who doesn't love fruit and milk and yogurt for my younger daughter who won't drink milk straight up anymore.  I usually add a splash of POM juice and between that and the fruit I don't even need to add any extra sweeteners for my kiddos to enjoy these.

Before I discovered and fell in love with my Ninja I used my good old food processor. They were a bit chunkier but they still got eaten!

These days this is what I put in our green smoothies:

A big handful or more fresh spinach (or a cube from the freezer)*

3/4 banana (or frozen banana)

1/2 cup berries of choice (fresh or frozen)

1 tsp chia seeds (optional)

1/3 cup plain nonfat greek yogurt

1/3 cup milk of choice, or water

a splash of POM juice or 1-2 scoops protein powder of choice (I usually do protein powder for mine and POM juice for the kids)

crushed ice (if not using any frozen berries, bananas or spinach)

Blend it all in a blender or food processor until the consistency you desire.  Depending on your tasters this could serve 1-2 people.  I sometimes make a second batch right after and if there are leftovers I freeze into popsicles.

They love drinking these through a straw (and it's less messy!)

My kids complain if they see me adding the chia seeds but never actually notice them in there. They have always known there is spinach in there so they don't complain about that.

I tried adding cocoa powder to make theirs chocolatey without using the protein powder but without added sweetener it was too bitter.  I will have to experiment with that.  Let me know if you have success adding cocoa powder to your smoothies!

[* When I have a giant bag of spinach I'm not going to get through before it gets yucky I blend it in the food processor with a little water to get the right consistency and then freeze in my silicone muffin mold.  Once frozen I pop them out and store in a freezer bag.  Perfect for the days I don't have any fresh spinach left.  And when I use these or my frozen bananas I just skip adding ice.]

I hope you enjoy these as much as we do!