5,376 Healthy Smoothie Recipes

I have a healthy protein smoothie for breakfast every morning and often get asked how I make it. It’s super easy!

Here are the ingredients. For each line I’ve put the ones that I use most commonly first.

Base

• 1-2 scoops of protein powder
  • I usually use one scoop of this and one of this or this
  • I think plant-based protein powders are probably a bit healthier, but milk-based ones taste better, so I split the difference by doing one scoop of each
  • I usually combine the two in an extra empty protein tub so I only have to scoop from one thing every morning
• 3 tbsps of rolled oats or whole flax seed
• 3/4 cup of frozen bananas, blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, cranberries, or apples
• Two spoonfuls (~3-4 tbsps) of almond or peanut butter
  • I like Justin’s honey almond butter and Jif Natural peanut butter
• Handful of spinach or kale
• Unsweetened vanilla almond or coconut milk
  • I don’t drink normal milk, and other plant-based milks like oat or soy don’t taste as good to me
  • Fill to 28 oz

Optional

• Almond, vanilla, or peppermint extract
• Cinnamon, nutmeg, or pumpkin pie spice
• Cacao nibs or goji berries

Notes

To me a good smoothie has three key factors: taste (what ingredients you put in), temperature, and consistency. I personally think smoothies that are quite cold and have a consistency somewhere between milk and a milkshake taste the best. You might have to play around with the exact ratios of everything, especially the amount of frozen fruit, to get it perfect.

I buy the frozen fruits once every few weeks. For bananas or apples I buy them fresh and any I don’t eat I cut up and freeze. I also buy a tub of spinach once every week or two and freeze it in a ziploc bag before it starts getting old. The rest of the ingredients I just keep on hand and pull out whatever I’m feeling like any given morning.

The most common way I mess up the smoothie is by adding too many different ingredients, or too much of some of the ingredients. When I’m pulling out ingredients I’ll often think some specific thing is really healthy (e.g. oats), or that that peanut butter looks really yummy, and that I should add double. This almost always results in a thick smoothie sludge that is much less pleasant to drink. This can also happen if you add to much frozen fruit, which will make it too cold and/or thick. Keep things simple and it will taste great.

I have an awesome Blendtec which I love so much. It seems to blend things (especially oats) much better than my old Vitamix. I also like that it has a wider base which makes it much easier to clean. I bought some ear protectors and keep them in the cabinet above my blender because the ~3 HP engine is quite loud and one minute of this every day for the rest of my life seems likely to lead to premature hearing loss.

Some Favorite Recipes

Vanilla Strawberry

Base ingredients with almond butter, strawberries as the fruit and a big dash of vanilla extract.

Mint Chocolate Chip

Base ingredients with almond butter, banana as the fruit, cacao nibs, and a small dash of peppermint extract (be careful not to overdo it).

Peanut Butter Blueberry

Base ingredients with peanut butter, blueberries as the fruit, cinnamon, and almond extract.

If you try every iteration of the ingredients listed above there are at least 5,376 different combinations – meaning you could have a different smoothie every day for ~15 years and not repeat.

Enjoy 😋