Category Archives: Recipes

Green Smoothie Recipes

Posted on by Allen Stern

I’d like to share several of the green smoothie recipes featured in the Smoothie a Day newsletter I send out each weekday. The Smoothie a Day newsletter features a healthy smoothie that will help you lose weight and feel great! There are two special days currently in the newsletter: on Monday I feature a new exclusive recipe that I have created and Friday features a dessert smoothie (which is still amazingly healthy!). We are growing a great community of smoothie lovers and you should join us and subscribe. You can also check out all of my green smoothies, my green smoothie starter guide and my simple green smoothie for weight loss.

Wild Blueberry Avocado Energy Smoothie
This smoothie from A Harmony Healing is creamy with the avocado and uses green oak leaf lettuce as the greens. Sugar-Free and Gluten-Free, this smoothie also uses coconut water for an additional nutritional boost.

avocado blueberry green smoothie

Pumpkin Spice Green Smoothie
This pumpkin spice smoothie looks like it would be perfect for those cold winter mornings. Simple Green Smoothies has lots of smoothie recipes — this one includes a carrot which is an ingredient not often found in green smoothies but adds a huge nutritional powerhouse.

pumpkin spice smoothie

Watercress and Apple Smoothie
Who knew that watercress would be awesome in a smoothie? I do now! This green smoothie from SmarterFitter is very simple and is a nice alternative from the traditional berry green smoothie.

watercress apple smoothie

Orange Spinach Basil Smoothie
This green smoothie comes from the awesome Kristina Carrillo-Bucaram of FullyRaw. If you need a pick-me-up, just watch one of her YouTube videos and I guarantee a smile before she is done. This green smoothie is totally basic with only 3 ingredients: spinach, cilantro and orange juice.

green-smoothie

Lacinato Kale Green Smoothie with Mango and Orange
Last up we have this kale-based green smoothie. It’s important to vary your greens in your smoothies and kale is the Rocky of leafy greens. Wishful Chef has the green smoothie recipe which includes mango — one of my favorite fruits to include as it makes the smoothie totally smooth!

lacinato kale smoothie

Get a fresh smoothie each morning with my Smoothie a Day newsletter!

Grapefruit Ginger Green Smoothie

Posted on by Allen Stern

Grapefruit Green SmoothieGrapefruits were on a huge sale at the market I shopped at this morning so I decided to make this week’s green smoothie for the newsletter a grapefruit green smoothie. The grapefruit I purchased was huge and was only 80 cents! I remember my mom eating grapefruit when I was a young kid but I don’t remember ever eating it myself. Of course I don’t remember eating any fruit or veggies as a kid!

One of the questions I’ve received a few times the past week is whether all smoothies are good for weight loss. There are plenty of companies using the term smoothie now for garbage smoothies (i.e. fast food shops) so you want to make sure you consume smoothies with only fruit and greens (no dairy). I have a weight loss green smoothie recipe that I like a lot. I think that green smoothies can help you lose weight if you replace say a crappy breakfast with the green smoothie. I’ve lost 100 pounds since February by drinking a green smoothie every morning (even when I travel!) and eating well the rest of the day. If I drank the green smoothie and then ate junk food the rest of the day, I wouldn’t have lost any weight.

I was impressed with the taste of my first grapefruit green smoothie. The grapefruit has more liquid than berries so the amount of additional liquid is reduced. I also increased the amount of banana in this smoothie to help make it a bit thicker. I buy organic bananas once a week and freeze them, this way I am always ready to make a green smoothie anytime i want.

I add ginger to every smoothie I make and truly believe it has helped me feel better and better. I also suggest you add spinach or kale to every single smoothie you make. Neither leafy green will change the taste of the smoothie but will increase the nutritional value of the smoothie. Even if a recipe you download doesn’t call for leafy greens, you should stick some into your blender when no one is looking :) .

Grapefruit Smoothie

Grapefruit Ginger Green Smoothie
 

Prep time

Cook time

Total time

 

Author:
Recipe type: Drinks
Serves: 1

Ingredients
  • 1 large grapefruit, peeled and cut
  • 1.5 frozen bananas
  • 4 ounces water
  • 3-4 handfuls of spinach (or as much as your blender will allow)
  • ½ inch ginger
  • 1 teaspoon green powder (optional, I used Miessence)

Instructions
  1. Place all ingredients into the blender, blend then enjoy!

Grapefruit Ginger Green Smoothie

Note: the photos were taken before the greens were added. The grapefruit was non-organic, the spinach, bananas, ginger and Miessence green powder are all organic.

Get a fresh smoothie each morning with my Smoothie a Day newsletter!

Matcha Superfood Green Smoothie

Posted on by Allen Stern

Matcha Green Tea SmoothieFor my smoothie this week in the Smoothie a Day newsletter, I decided to create a green smoothie using matcha. Angie from Raw Mama Nature has posted a number of smoothie photos on Instagram using matcha so I just had to give it a try!

Matcha is a Japanese green tea powder. Nuts.com explains, “Many people drink green tea for its health benefits or to lose weight; Matcha takes it a step further. Matcha contains more antioxidants than virtually any other food, including Acai berries and pomegranates. It also contains high levels of L-theanine, an amino acid which lowers stress levels but preserves alertness. The L-theanine counteracts the caffeine in the tea, making Matcha ideal for creating a mental state of relaxed alertness.”

Matcha green tea powder is expensive so I think of this smoothie as once-in-a-while smoothie. I posted a photo on Facebook of my matcha green tea powder purchase at Whole Foods. The tea clerk gave me the smallest amount the scale could register and it came to $1.10 or $55/pound. Angie suggested I check some local Japanese markets – I called one here in Austin – their matcha powder runs approximately $13 for 1.4 ounces. Other places to buy the green tea powder less expensively include Nuts.com and Amazon.

My suggestion is that you go to Whole Foods and grab the same amount I did – if you use my recipe below, the amount I purchased will work for 4-5 smoothies and will be a great way to test out if you like the benefits of matcha.

One important note that Angie mentioned to me is that matcha does have caffeine so it may have a kick. I didn’t notice any caffeine effects when I drank the matcha smoothies so far.

Matcha Superfood Green Smoothie
 

Prep time

Cook time

Total time

 

Author:
Recipe type: Drinks
Serves: 1

Ingredients
  • ½ tsp matcha green tea powder
  • 1 frozen banana
  • 1 cup strawberries – fresh or frozen
  • 3 handfuls of spinach
  • 4 ounces apple juice
  • 6 ounces water
  • 1 tablespoon chia seeds (optional)
  • 1 tablespoon flax seeds (optional)

Instructions
  1. Put the matcha green tea powder in the blender first so that it doesn’t blow around when the blender is turned on. Then blend and enjoy!

Matcha Green Tea Smoothie Recipe
Note: the photo shows the smoothie before the spinach was added to make a prettier color for the photo :)

Get a fresh smoothie each morning with my Smoothie a Day newsletter!

Grape Green Smoothie

Posted on by Allen Stern

Lots of Grapes in a cakeMy birthday was last week and for most of my life, I would have a big fast food meal and a lot of cake. Now that I have adopted this new healthy lifestyle, I needed something to replace the chicken nuggets, fries and cake.

I walked around the Whole Foods fruit section and it appears grapes are in season. I can’t say that I was a big grape guy growing up but every now and then I would eat some grapes. So grapes it was – I created a “cake” of grapes and a satsuma orange (see right).

I really enjoyed the grapes and the time thinking about this past year. My sister sent me a card that said that I have come a long way in the past year. I think it has been the most interesting year of my life – culminating in my first ever 5k run last weekend. The good part is that now the train is moving on the express tracks so this next year should be even better and more exciting. I look forward to sharing the journey with ya’all here on LTF.

Since I enjoyed the grapes, I thought this week’s green smoothie recipe would features grapes as the main fruit. This was my first grape green smoothie – I enjoyed it although it came out a bit different than the other smoothies I’ve enjoyed. I use a Blendtec blender and even with 2 “smoothie” cycles, there were still some bits of the grapes left in the liquid. This made the smoothie a bit interesting as I am used to completely smooth smoothies but it was a nice change. This smoothie also separated quicker than the berry smoothies so I would suggest drinking it within an hour after blending.

Grape Green Smoothie

Grape Green Smoothie
 

Prep time

Cook time

Total time

 

Author:
Recipe type: Drinks
Serves: 1

Ingredients
  • 18-20 grapes – whatever variety you like – I used a mix of green, red and black
  • 4 ounces orange juice – fresh squeezed is best
  • 6 ounces water – can use coconut water for extra nutrition
  • 1 tablespoon chia seeds
  • 2 large lacinato kale stalks with the center rib removed

Instructions
  1. Blend and enjoy!

Nutrition Information
Serving size: 1 Calories: 160 Fat: 1g Carbohydrates: 38g Sugar: 25g Sodium: 39g Fiber: 3g Protein: 4g Cholesterol: 0g

Alternatively you could replace 10 grapes with 1 cup of strawberries. Note: the photo above was taken before the greens were added.

If you are new to green smoothies, check out my green smoothie starter guide and signup for the Smoothie a Day newsletter where I share a healthy smoothie each weekday.

Get a fresh smoothie each morning with my Smoothie a Day newsletter!

Green Smoothie Bowl Recipe

Posted on by Allen Stern

If you are a regular LTF reader, you know I love my green smoothies and my green smoothie for weight loss. If you are new to LTF, welcome. I also share lots of recipes in the Smoothie a Day newsletter.

Today I want to share my first Green Smoothie Bowl recipe. I’ve been working on this recipe for a while to make sure it worked well in a bowl and not in a cup. This green smoothie is a bit thicker than a regular green smoothie but not as thick as a pudding. It reminds me a lot of the acai bowls I’ve come to love.

This recipe is perfect if you want to make a green smoothie bowl to enjoy after dinner or prefer a morning meal that feels more like a bowl of cereal than a cup of coffee. It could also work as a nice dessert after a dinner party.

The secret I’ve found is to use more banana and less of the other fruit to make the green smoothie thicker. You also will want to use frozen bananas rather than fresh bananas. Lastly, after you blend the smoothie, put it into the freezer for 15 minutes and it will be even thicker! This freezer part is optional – you may not be able to resist eating the smoothie as soon as you blend :) If you place the smoothie in the freezer, it actually comes out like a very soft serve ice cream.

Green Smoothie Bowl

Green Smoothie Bowl Recipe
 

Prep time

Cook time

Total time

 

Author:
Recipe type: Drinks
Serves: 2

Ingredients
  • 2 frozen bananas
  • 1 cup peaches (can be fresh or frozen)
  • 3 large handfuls of spinach
  • 6 ounces water
  • 6 ounces orange juice
  • chia seeds for garnish (optional)

Instructions
  1. Blend smoothie
  2. Place smoothie in bowl
  3. Place in freezer for 15 minutes (optional)
  4. Garnish with chia seeds

Nutrition Information
Serving size: 2 Calories: 551 Fat: 2g Saturated fat: 1g Carbohydrates: 139g Sugar: 84g Sodium: 30mg Fiber: 15g Protein: 9g Cholesterol: 0g

 

I hope this new smoothie bowl will give you more ways to try green smoothies.Enjoy!

Green Smoothie Bowl

Get a fresh smoothie each morning with my Smoothie a Day newsletter!