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This is the ultimate guide for how to make a smoothie using any ingredient you have in your kitchen. Your delicious, healthy smoothie is just 5 minutes away (and can be customized to add nutrient or flavor boosters – read on!)
save this recipe!My ideal day starts with a smoothie. Well, coffee. Then smoothie. But where I’ll happily follow a recipe for dinners and lunches, I don’t love sifting through recipes when I first wake up.
So if you’re anything like me, you’ll love this foolproof smoothie guide. We’re walking through the basics of how to make a healthy smoothie from scratch so you can understand how to blend up a tasty healthy breakfast with whatever you have on hand in your kitchen!
Reader rating
“I love this recipe! I’ve been looking for a “how to make your own smoothie” recipe with measurements. My favorite recipe includes frozen blueberries, one banana, milk, chia seeds, vanilla, and cocoa powder.” —Viola
Basic smoothie ingredients
The basic ingredients for making a smoothie are: a fruit, something creamy, and a liquid.
- Smoothie Fruits: While fresh fruit works well, I love using frozen fruit in smoothies to give them that frosty texture. Virtually any berry, stone fruit, tropical fruit, or citrus will work well.
- Creamy Base: Adding something creamy to the smoothie improves the texture and mouthfeel. While flavored or plain Greek yogurt work well, you can also use a banana for a vegan option. Feeling adventurous? Cottage cheese, kefir, and avocado also add a creamy element to smoothies.
- Smoothie Liquids: The options are endless when if comes to their liquid for a smoothie. Milk (cow or plant-based) is great, but to make a smoothie without milk you can use juice (orange, cranberry, pomegranate), or coconut water.
Smoothie Extras
Smoothies are flexible and adaptable to whatever you want to throw in! Once you have your base smoothie, you can add a whole number of delicious, nutritious extras.
Vegetables: Leafy greens – like spinach, kale, chard, and romaine – blend well into smoothies. But you can add a whole variety of vegetables, such as cooked sweet potato, cooked or raw beet, carrot, avocado, zucchini, cauliflower, pureed pumpkin, cooked butternut squash, and cucumber.
Oats: To pack a punch of filling fiber, add a spoonful of oats! They help to thicken the smoothie while making it more satiating.
Protein Powder: Another easy addition to boost the nutrition profile of your smoothie. Most flavors work well in smoothies (just be sure to pick a flavor that goes with the ingredients that you’re using).
Seeds: Chia, flax, hemp, and sunflower seeds (just to name a few) make great additions to smoothies. They don’t bring much flavor, so they can be blended into most smoothies to add a dose of healthy fats and protein.
Nut Butter: Similarly to seeds, adding a spoonful of nut butter brings a healthy fats and protein to your smoothie. Peanut butter, almond butter, sunflower butter (or even Nutella for a little indulgence!)
Sweeteners: Depending on the sweetness of the fruit you use, you may like to add sweeteners to your smoothie. A touch of honey, agave, sugar, or a pitted medjool date are all great!
Spices and Flavorings: Kick it up a flavorful notch by adding ingredients like fresh or ground ginger and turmeric, cinnamon, cloves, or nutmeg. You could also add extracts, like a touch of vanilla, almond, or orange.
How to Make A smoothie
Depending on the strength of your blender, the order in which you put your ingredients in the blender could influence the overall texture. Here’s how we like to layer ingredients into the blender:
- Liquids go first to make blending easier on the blades.
- Greens go in next, which will help them to pulverize smoothly.
- Soft ingredients, like fresh fruit and soft veggies, go next to help the blades start blending.
- Hard ingredients, like frozen fruit and firm veggies, go last.
Start the blender off slowly, then gradually increase the speed. Blend for 30 to 60 seconds until the smoothie is as smooth as possible. This is just an overview – jump to the recipe card for full instructions!
Sarah’s Smoothie Tip
Skip the ice! I prefer using frozen fruit to give smoothies a frosty texture while keeping them full of flavor. Ice, on the other hand, tends to water smoothies down. But if you don’t have frozen fruit on hand, by all means, use ice to thicken and chill your smoothie!
Top Smoothie IDeas
Smoothie Cubes (Evive Copycat)
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How To Freeze Fruit For Smoothies (Frozen Fruit Do’s & Don’ts!)
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Cheater’s Mango Lassi
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Quick 3-Ingredient Spinach Smoothie
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Epic Green Smoothie Bowl
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Orange Creamsicle Smoothie
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Choose-Your-Adventure Fruit Smoothie Recipe
Ingredients
Pick A Fruit
- 1 piece fruit, apple, pear, mango, etc.
- 1 cup fruit, chopped pineapple, berries, diced mango, etc.
Pick A Creamy Base
- ½ cup yogurt, kefir, or cottage cheese
- 1 banana
- 1 avocado
Liquid
- ½ to 1 cup milk, juice, or coconut water
Instructions
- Prep: For a frosty cold smoothie, make sure at least one ingredient is frozen beforehand (either the fruit or the banana).
- Assemble: Add all ingredients to your blender. Be sure to add frozen fruit last to go easy on your blender blades.
- Blend: Turn the blender on low speed, the gradually increase speed to high. Continue blending for 30 to 60 seconds, or until completely smooth. Serve immediately.
Notes
- 1 to 2 cups leafy greens (spinach, kale, chard, romaine)
- ¼ cup oats (rolled or instant)
- 1 to 2 Tbsp protein powder
- 1 to 2 Tbsp seeds (chia, flax, hemp, sunflower)
- 1 to 2 Tbsp nut butter (peanut, almond, sunflower)
- 1 to 2 tsp sweetener (honey, agave, maple syrup, medjool date)
- ¼ to ½ tsp spices and flavorings (fresh or ground ginger and turmeric, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, vanilla extract, almond extract, or orange extract)
Nutrition
Nutrition information calculated by Sarah Bond, degreed nutritionist.
did you make this?Leave a comment below and tag @liveeatlearn on social media! I love seeing what you’ve made!
You’re a saint! I’ve never thought about what order to put the ingredients in, and have always just winged the portions, but spent too much time trying to get them to blend, and of course ended up with too much leftover. Your recipe makes the best consistency and flavor, and it’s the perfect amount for two of us.
Thanks for making my day with your comment Hannah, I’m glad you found the recipe helpful!
I’ve tried to make a lot of smoothies over the past 27+ years with my husband and this is the first one that he said, “It’s delicious!” Made the first one just yesterday. I used a cup of frozen dragonfruit/starfruit/mango from Pitaya and using Sarah’s advice utilized one banana (fresh) for the sweet part – added 2% milk (about 1/2 cup), a bit of plant based chocolate protein powder (about 1/2 tablespoon maybe so it wasn’t too chocolately for us) and rolled oats. So satisfying, and also we felt good after drinking it – not bloated, over-sugared or like we had to force drinking it for the health of it without enjoying it. What a hit! Will be a regular and agree with the prior commentor – the portions are PERFECTLY crafted and the guidance on order of ingredients and blend speed/time make all the difference. Thanks again Sarah and Team!!