This sweet and refreshing, healthy Green Smoothie recipe is about to be the star of your morning routine. It’s nutrient-packed with nutritious ingredients like spinach and chia seeds, but you can’t even taste the veggies because it’s blended with coconut milk, creamy banana, fresh oranges, and tropical pineapple which add natural sweetness.
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With two busy kids, we are often looking for ways to have a quick, yet healthy, breakfast (sometimes even on the go!). Some of our favorites include Overnight Oats, Steel Cut Oats, and our Smoothie Bowl recipe. If you are a fan of easy-to-make breakfasts without added sugar, that are actually filling, you have got to try my husband Vadim’s Green Smoothies!
Green Smoothie Recipe
My husband, Vadim, is the smoothie master. He introduced me to this green smoothie. There are plenty of recipes for green smoothies, but this is our favorite. I tried his creation and immediately asked him to write down the recipe because it was love at first sip. This green power smoothie is so simple to make, which is perfect for an early morning drink, or lunch on the run. Even better, it’s make-ahead friendly, and you can take a portion out of the freezer and thaw it as needed.
Why This Smoothie Recipe Works
- Easy – just 6 ingredients, toss them in the blender, and voila. No sugar added!
- Feel Good – an easy way to boost your vitamins and nutrients while filling you up, even in a hurry. This sweet treat has 2 servings of vegetables and 3 servings of fruit blended in.
- Picky-eater approved – it might be green, but it doesn’t taste green. WIN!
Ingredients
These green smoothies are seriously so simple to make. If you have a high-powered blender, you don’t need to fuss too much with chopping fruit and it’s done in less than a minute.
- Coconut Milk – You can use any milk (I prefer plant-based for smoothies), or even water, but using coconut milk adds a smooth and creamy texture and a hint of sweet coconut flavor.
- Banana – Adds sweetness without an overpowering flavor, when blended it makes the smoothie extra creamy and smooth.
- Orange – The natural sweetness balances the spinach flavor while adding vitamin C.
- Spinach – Greens are an easy way to pack your smoothie with nutrition, and coupled with the right fruit, you cannot even taste it.
- Pineapple – I use frozen chunks of pineapple so there is no need to add ice cubes, which melt and water down your drink. The tropical flavor is delicious and pineapple has great nutritional benefits as well.
- Chia Seeds (Optional) – They don’t really have a taste but do add texture, thickness and fiber.
Substitutions
Milk: You can use any liquid – almond milk or oat milk for creaminess, coconut water or orange juice for a tropical taste.
Fruit: The natural sweetness of fruit balances out leafy greens so you don’t need to add any extra sugar. Try peaches, peeled apple slices, a slice of avocado, raspberries, blueberries, or mango.
Leafy greens: I find spinach to be the easiest green vegetable to disguise, but kale or swiss chard are great leafy greens to use in a healthy green smoothie.
Vegetables: Cauliflower, carrots, and cucumber are all veggies that have a mild flavor and are perfect to use in a simple green smoothie recipe.
Protein: Adding one tablespoon of nuts or nut butter, such as peanut butter or almond butter, helps to thicken your smoothie and add a creamy texture. You can also add protein powder, hemp hearts, or peanut butter powder.
How to Make Green Smoothies
- Load Your Blender – Peel your fruit and place everything into a blender in the order listed, starting with the liquid and ending with the frozen fruit and chia seeds (if using).
- Blend – Push the button and blend until smooth. That’s it. It really is that simple. Pour your green smoothies into two glasses (or that new Stanley cup you just got) and enjoy.
Layering Guide for Blending Smoothies
The order you add your ingredients to your blender matters! If you’re new to blending smoothies, the best advice I can give you is to layer your smoothie correctly in the blender jar. This will prevent the blender from getting stuck. Start with your liquids and end with your frozen ingredients since the frozen ingredients act as a weight to push the rest of the ingredients down. Add ingredients in this order:
- Liquids (water, milk, juice, yogurt)
- Powders and sweeteners (protein powder, cocoa powder, honey, agave)
- Leafy greens and soft fruit (banana, berries, avocado)
- Creamy ingredients like yogurt and nut butter
- Hard fruits or veggies (apples, carrots, beets)
- Nuts, Seeds, dried fruit
- Frozen fruit or ice
Pro Tips for Blending:
To ensure ingredients blend into a smooth and consistent texture, cut your fruits and vegetables into smaller pieces. Start gradually and blend increase to higher speeds to avoid overloading the blender motor.
Should I Use Fresh or Frozen Ingredients?
Use at least one frozen ingredient in your smoothies to keep the texture creamy and chilled without using ice (which waters down the flavor). I keep a giant Costco-sized bag of frozen pineapple in our freezer. It’s super affordable and great to have on hand for smoothies. During the summer and fall when pineapples and bananas are in season, buy them, chop them up, and flash-freeze them on a baking sheet until firm. Then you can bag fruit and use it throughout the coming months.
Frozen spinach is pre-washed, pre-chopped, and retains its nutritional value so keep a bag on hand in the freezer and you’ll always have your ingredients ready for any time you have a hankering for the best green smoothies. Like the frozen pineapple, frozen spinach will chill the drink which I love. Just be sure to reduce the fresh spinach measurement by half.
Make-Ahead
This recipe makes two portions. Make a batch to share or store half for later.
- To Refrigerate: Pour your prepared smoothie into an airtight container and promptly refrigerator for 24 hours. Give it a good shake or stir before you drink it to redistribute the ingredients.
- Freezing: Make a batch of green smoothies for the week, or month. Divide the blended smoothies into individual serving portions. You can use ice cube trays, silicone molds, or small freezer bags. If freezing in bags, remove as much air as possible and lay flat on a tray to freeze. This makes them easy to stack and store neatly in your freezer.
- To Thaw: Refrigerate frozen portions overnight, or in a hurry, blend the frozen Green Smoothie, adding more liquid if necessary to obtain the desired consistency. You could also put the frozen portion into a blender ball cup and bring it on the go, to the office, or in the car while running around town, and it will be thawed and ready for you.
If your blender has been tucked away in a corner collecting dust, it’s time to put it to good use with this breakfast smoothie. Cheers to mornings that start with a sip of sweet, vitamin-packed, green goodness.
More Easy Smoothie Recipes
If you love our recipe for Green Smoothies, then you won’t want to miss our other delicious smoothie recipes.
- Blueberry Mango Smoothie
- Strawberry Smoothies
- Blueberry Pear Smoothie
- Mango Pineapple Smoothie
- Blueberry Smoothie
Green Smoothie Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 cup unsweetened coconut milk, or your milk of choice
- 1 banana, peeled
- 1 orange, peeled
- 2 cups fresh spinach
- 1 1/2 cups frozen pineapple
- 2 tsp chia seeds, optional
Instructions
- Place everything in a blender in the order listed, starting with the liquid and ending with the frozen fruit and chia seeds (if using).
- Blend until smooth and transfer into two tall glasses.
Nutrition Per Serving
Filed Under
I made mine with chlorophyll powder (since i can’t drink it with just water as directed ) instead of spinach. And added some fresh turmeric. So good. Thanks for sharing!
You’re welcome Myra! I’m glad you enjoyed the recipe!
This is amazing! Thanks for sharing.
How many calories would you say a serving of this is?
Hi Sasha, due to time constraints, I don’t have calorie counts or nutritional info on most of my recipes.
Finally made this smoothie today! My girls (5 yrs&21 months) don’t eat greens at all but loved the smoothie. Definitely a keeper. Thanks Natasha!
Marina, thank you for the nice review and you are welcome 😀.
I just made this smoothie with a couple of adjustments. I didn’t have coconut milk so I used Greek vanilla yogurt and I used mandarins instead of oranges and it was absolutely delicious!! Loved it!
Maya, thank you for the great review and nice job improvising 😃.
This looks amazing! I can’t wait to try it. Do you think it would still taste as good without the orange? I am not really a citrus fan.
You might replace it with another juicy fruit, but yes you can make it without the orange.
Hi dear Natasha:)
Your recipe is really cool and easy to Do!
I love it.
But I can’t use Internet all time by my phone, can you make it pdf?? it will be easier to use sweetheart 🙂
Hope you enjoy life!
God bless you…♥
There is a print friendly recipe at the bottom and if you click on the green sharing button at the bottom of the post, you can select an option to print it, but I don’t have pdf creating capabilities on my site. Thanks and God bless you also 🙂
Wow! How fast you are to answer! Thanks 🙂
By you guidance I found out a new thing; I can take a snapshot from my screen when I clicked on print button.
It will save to me to read later at it’s time!
I’m glad you found a method that works for you 🙂
any idea how many calories are in this? I’m on a diet trying to lose weight at the same time as trying to change my eating habits permanently. Thanks
I currently don’t have nutritional values, but when I need to research something, my best source: Caloriecount.com – sign in for free and then go to “tools” and then click “recipe analyzer” You can copy and paste your list of ingredients and it spits out the nutrition info. It’s a great tool.
Can you only eat drink smoothies or do you need to eat regular food to because I want to lose about 30 pounds
Hi Jezel, I think it would be really really difficult to try to do this with smoothies and still get all of the nutrients that you need. This is a green smoothie but the amount of fruit is much higher than the amount of vegetables and it’s also lacking in protein. I’m obviously no dietician but I would think it’d be difficult to get a balanced diet via smoothies.
Made it with frozen mango (no pineapple) and added a bit of Greek yogurt and protein powder. Very tasty and nutritious.
Thank you Cheryl for the great review and great job on improvising :).
I just made this substituting with unsweetened vanilla almond milk and fresh pineapple and it is absolutely delicious (and 3 year old approved)! Thanks so much for sharing.
You are welcome Kelly and thanks for the great review :).
I’m glad I clicked on this before going for groceries. Can’t wait to make this. Your pictures look amazing by the way. Love my Blendtec.
Thank you Marina, we use ours almost daily for green smoothies in the morning :). What other type of smoothies do you make?
Something very helpful to people who buy the seeds is in preparation. I was going through them quickly because I was using them incorrectly. Here is the correct way: For every tbsp you scoop out you add 1/2 to 3/4 cups of water depending on how thick you like it. I usually do 2 tbsp and 1 cup and 1/2 water. Then you leave the seeds in the water for 30 minutes before ever using them. After using them, store them in a container in the refrigerator. They will become like a jelly like pudding. They will last in the fridge for 2 weeks and you can scoop out tbsps and add them to all kinds of foods to get the health benefits. They don’t have any taste so they blend into everything. Since the 2tbsp grows 12 x because it absorbs the water, it will last a lot longer and you will be getting a great deal more benefit from them. Just sprinkling them doesn’t do much. Just thought I would share.
That is definitely a great tip and we love to make Chia seed putting this way. Thank you so much for sharing that tip!
I love making smoothies, especially in the morning as a “quick healthy breakfast to go” Have you tried using kale instead of spinach? that’s what I’ve been using lately, heard kale is more nutritious then spinach. I don’t notice much difference in taste (as long as I put banana it in) 🙂
We do use loads of kale in this smoothie in the summer; especially when it’s growing in my Mom’s yard. We tend to buy more spinach in winter – I have no idea why, but we do. ?? 🙂 We love kale in smoothies too! 🙂
YUMMY!! I totally agree with you! It was the perfect thing to have for a nice healthy breakfast after the holiday treats. Thank you and yer husband for this!
Thank you Viktoriya :).
Ohhh…you just had to go there! Healthfood! Just kidding…it looks incredibly refreshing. I wonder if frozen spinach would work?
Elizabeth,frozen spinach would work as well :). My husband also freezes kale and uses it for smoothies as well.
I LOVE my Blendtec too!!!
Can hardly wait to try THIS smoothie.
The feeling is mutual Deloris :). We use ours almost daily, it doesn’t have many days off.
Natasha,
While I love the site and your great step by step directions but would it be at all possible to only rate a recipe when you’ve actually tried it as oppose to rating without trying
There isn’t a way of knowing who has tried it and who hasn’t and the pluggin that I use for that feature doesn’t have that option.
Natasha your husband smoothie recipe looks really good!
Me and my daughters love smoothie drinks!We’ll be trying
this.Thank you. Also loved the snowman pictures of your
baby playing in the yard! I soo miss those days when my
children was that young and playing along with them.Now
I have my 6 grandsons.They have so much energy! Thanks for
sharing the photo.
Thank you so much for your comment. 🙂 I’m appreciating those moments even more now :). Time sure flies by!
Can you use regular milk in this?
I’d probably go with either water, almond milk, coconut milk or orange juice. I guess I’m not a fan of milk in smoothies. The texture gets weird sometimes if you don’t drink it right away.
That looks amazing!
Thanks Diana 🙂
I was wondering will almond milk and soy milk work instead of coconut milk?
Almond milk would make a great substitute and we often interchange with almond milk and coconut milk :). You could even use water if you wanted to. I feel sheepish admitting this, but I’ve never tried soy milk. Is it similar in flavor to coconut milk or almond milk?
I don’t know if the flavor is similar to coconut milk or almond milk but thank you for replying 🙂 And I can’t wait to try out this smoothie!!
You’re so welcome! Enjoy and Happy New Year! 🙂