Making sure to get all the super nutrients in greens and seeds every day is a one of the best habits anyone can develop for their health, especially during the cold and flu season. But we don’t necessarily crave cold drinks in the winter and it can be such a pain to get everything out IF you’ve managed to save yourself enough time.

After more than 13 years since discovering green smoothies, I’ve finally developed a system that ensures our smoothies happen *almost* every day. We maybe miss 1 or 2 days a month, maybe a few more if we are traveling. I believe it’s been a huge factor in keeping our illnesses to a minimum throughout the winter months! 

  1. Choose Your Container

Because of our massive consumption of Adam’s peanut butter, I’ve collected a lot of glass jars –they are perfect, roughly quart-size with straight sides.  I will fill these about three quarters full with a variety of Costco frozen fruit. I have tried putting all of the smoothie ingredients, greens included in ziploc bags, but they often ended up a frozen mess and it was hard to get everything out.  Eventually I tried these Adam’s peanut butter jars.  The straight sides and wide mouth make it so easy to put things in and pour them out. They are cold coming out of the freezer but make it the process so much faster.

2. Choose a Good Fruit Combo

It’s great to know what the naturally sweet fruits are (pineapple, mango, bananas are my favorite, these cherries are very sweet too) and the fruits that are not as sweet such as most kinds of berries.  Berries are delicious on their own but they generally are not sweet enough to make a good green smoothie.  We all know it’s a good idea to eat the rainbow, and I realized photographing my favorite blends that a good mix of colors generally creates my favorite combos.  Here are some favorites:

I will fill up to eight jars 3/4 full of frozen fruit and keep them in the freezer (I have a large freezer in my garage that helps with this).  Then each night before bed, I will stick one in the refrigerator.  This way the fruit has thawed and blends up quickly. If your greens, bananas and fruit are frozen it’s hard to get everything to blend, even with a high-powered blender.

3. Make Sure Your Greens, etc. Are Always Ready

I like to keep my greens and bananas in the freezer so they are always fresh. It can be hard to have bananas perfectly ripe, leafy greens that haven’t turned to mush, etc. So I buy about 6 bags of bananas when I make my big monthly Costco trip and almost always get comments from the cashier. I leave them on the counter until they are starting to get black spots, then peel them, break them into 1-2 inch pieces and freeze them in gallon freezer bags. I also buy about 4 bags of the organic power greens mix and transfer this to freezer bags as well.  I have a big freezer in my garage so this keeps me from going to Costco all the time which we all know gets way too expensive.

So, I dump the contents of the jar in the blender along with the water, greens bananas and seeds into my Blendtec Wildside jar.  The Wildside jar can be filled to 36 oz, if yours is smaller you may need to start with half of this recipe. Blend and enjoy! Especially during the winter, you can blend for 2 minutes or more to thin the smoothie out and warm it up, so it’s more room temperature. Cold smoothies when it’s cold outside aren’t always super appealing! Add more banana or other sweet fruit if more sweetness is needed.  This makes around 5 cups of smoothie which we divide up between the 6 of us.

We add Complement to make sure we are getting our Vitamins B12, D and DHA/EPA (ultra important for brain function). The whole process takes less than 5 minutes! Use MYPLANTSTRONGFAMILY to receive 10% off your order here! Don’t make the same mistake I did and put it off!

Print Recipe

Favorite Green Smoothie Template

Prep Time

5 minutes

Servings

cups

Ingredients

• 3 cups Frozen Fruit, thawed overnight see tips for choosing good combinations
• 2 cups water preferably filtered
• 2-3 TBSP chia, flax and/or hemp seeds
• 1-2 bananas or equivalent frozen banana pieces. Add more for sweeter smoothie
• 3 cups power mixed greens or other greens.

Prep Time 5 minutes Servings cups Ingredients 3 cups Frozen Fruit, thawed overnight see tips for choosing good combinations 2 cups water preferably filtered 2-3 TBSP chia, flax and/or hemp seeds 1-2 bananas or equivalent frozen banana pieces. Add more for sweeter smoothie 3 cups power mixed greens or other greens.

Instructions

1. Add all ingredients to blender and blend on high until smooth.