Our 6 favourite ways to get more veggies into your smoothies
It can be really challenging some days to get the recommended daily serve of vegetables in, every day, let alone with our kids. So we honestly try and get veggies in wherever we can and our smoothies are no exception! They are an easy and loved snack in our households and are the perfect place to add in a serve or two of veg, without anyone realising it!
Every time that you eat (and feed your family) is an opportunity to nourish yourself, so don’t let an opportunity pass you by! Vegetables are great sources of so many essential vitamins and minerals and with less sugar (fructose) than most fruits. So how can you add more bang for your buck into your smoothies without compromising taste? Here are some of our top tips for getting some vegetables into your smoothies…. and most of these will pass the test of even the most canny vegetables detectives (trust us, we’ve tested it out on ours;-)!
- Sweet potato puree OR pumpkin puree. Adding pumpkin or sweet potato to your smoothie will give it a sweet caramel-like flavour. You can add the puree to the blender, fresh or frozen (we prefer semi-frozen / frozen so that the smoothie stays thick and cold). Check out our Top Three Smoothie recipes for our incredible Pumpkin Pie smoothie recipe. Delicious!
- Avocado. You can add avocado to most smoothies. It’ll make the smoothie wonderfully creamy and thick AND it is giving you an incredible dose of healthy fats at the same time.
- Frozen zucchini. Zucchini will add a lovely creaminess to your smoothies without altering the taste much at all. You can peel the zucchini before popping to the freezer, if your little detectives might be put off by the ‘green’ tinge to their smoothie.
- Frozen peas. Peas are naturally quite sweet. Add a small handful of frozen peas to your green smoothies. We also love that the flavour doesn’t overpower everything – it will look green though! 😉
- Steamed cauliflower. When these are in season, we snap them up. Not only do we love, love, love roasted cauliflower, but we have found they are an incredibly sneaky addition to our smoothies too. Steam up the cauliflower florets, let them cool and then pop them into ziplock bags in the freezer. You can literally add these to any smoothie and no one will be any the wiser.
- Baby spinach or silverbeet. Baby spinach or silverbeet (chard) are both naturally sweet and can be a delicious addition to your smoothie. We use a couple of big handfuls to ensure that we are all getting a nice serve of leafy greens with our daily drink. Spinach is probably the easiest leafy green to start out on when attempting green smoothies as it has the most subtle taste.
If you (or your tribe) are still not so comfortable with a green-looking smoothie, try adding cacao (for that delicious brown chocolatey look and taste) or add in some dark coloured berries, like blueberries, blackberries and mulberries. This will help ‘disguise’ the green colour of the smoothie, should you need to.
And now, a smoothie is not just a matter of throwing some fruit (and of course, veg!) into a blender – for our Guide on “How to Make a Balanced Smoothie”, read here.
Let us know what you think and if you would like more tips like this one?
Anna & Em xo
