The Best Green Smoothies Recipe for Beginners

Use this framework to make your own green smoothies or try my favorite simple green smoothie combo! Find great ideas for smoothie flavors and add-ins too, plus make your favorite green smoothies ahead of time with frozen smoothie packs.

If you’ve been around here for a while, you know that I’m a big fanatic about a green smoothie recipe…Green Maca Smoothie, Detox Smoothie, 7 Days of Green Smoothies… I’ll drink them all.

Smoothies have been my staple go-to breakfast for several years now and I even wrote a book about how to make them high-protein without using processed protein powder (yuck!).

Making green smoothies is a lot like riding a bike – once you know how, you can’t ever forget. But what if you’ve never made a green smoothie?

That’s why today I’m showing you how to make my favorite healthy green smoothie recipe!

Before I jump in, it’s important to understand that you don’t NEED an actual recipe to make a good smoothie (although there is a simple green smoothie recipe at the end of this post). You really just need a basic framework, and you need to experiment.

So, with that in mind, let me show you how to make green smoothies that taste amazing!

FRAMEWORK FOR THE BEST GREEN SMOOTHIES

For the best green smoothies, you need three things:

• A liquid base
• A creamy factor
• Greens!

Let’s talk about each of those parts.

ALWAYS START WITH A LIQUID BASE

You must, must, MUST add some sort of liquid to your smoothie, otherwise it won’t be thin enough to drink. There’s no way around it.

Your liquid can be water, coconut water, or orange juice, but most green smoothies call for some sort of milk (regular, almond milk, coconut milk, rice milk, etc.) because it helps to make the smoothie creamier.

I personally also think it bridges the flavor between the other ingredients better.

I’ve tested several smoothie recipes, making one version with water and one version with almond milk. The almond milk versions always taste better.

• To me, when you make smoothies with water, you can taste each individual ingredient in the smoothie. It’s not a “bad” thing per se, but I think green smoothies taste a lot better when everything is melded together.
• For example, recently I’ve been making a blend using pineapple + banana + avocado + vanilla protein powder. I tested it with water, and it was so-so. Nothing to write home about.
• But I tested it with almond milk and BAM! It was like the pineapple popped and the whole thing was so creamy, I knew that I could make it for my avocado-hating husband, and he wouldn’t even know the difference!! (Much like this Avocado Chocolate Mousse I make.)
• If you’re a beginner, I highly recommend starting with almond milk. (It’s easy and inexpensive to make your own too, by the way. Here’s how.)

Note: If you’re following a certain diet – whether it’s keto or low carb or high protein – and you want your smoothies to align with your goals, I highly recommend using the charts in my book High Protein No Powder.

I included 12 different liquid bases, with various calorie, protein, fat, and carbohydrate content so you can mix/match based on your personal dietary needs.

YOU NEED A CREAMY FACTOR

Ever wonder why most smoothies have bananas? It’s because they make smoothies creamy.

• Bananas are naturally sweet, which helps to balance out the overall flavors in a smoothie. Plus, when you use fruit that is naturally sweet, you can get away with adding more veggies or greens without taking away from the flavor of the smoothie.
• Bananas aren’t the only creamy factor – mangos, avocados, and pears are among some of the others – but bananas are the most readily available, the most affordable, and honestly, I’ve never had a smoothie with a banana that tasted bad.

If you’re a beginner, I highly recommend using bananas in your smoothies.

• If you don’t like the flavor of bananas, try using green bananas instead of ripe bananas. The banana flavor is very mild. They’re not as sweet as a fully ripe banana, but they still take care of the creamy factor.
• If you’re allergic to bananas, I created a list of 10 other ingredients, like Greek yogurt, that will work as a creamy factor in my book. A word to the wise: if you pick something that has a strong flavor, you don’t need very much!

TO MAKE ANY GREEN SMOOTHIES, YOU NEED GREENS!

There is a huge variety of leafy greens that you COULD put in a smoothie – Swiss chard, turnip or beet greens, collard greens, even romaine lettuce – but in my opinion, the best greens for a smoothie are kale or spinach.

• If you’re new to green smoothies, start with spinach smoothies. Spinach is very mild in flavor so you can add some to any smoothie and not even notice the difference (other than the color change!).
• I recommend starting out with just ½ packed cup at first. I know this doesn’t sound like much, but I would much rather you add a little spinach and love your smoothie and make more than add a lot of spinach and hate your smoothie and never make another one again.
• You can always increase the amount of spinach you add to your beginner green smoothie recipes over time, and in fact, I recommend you do that! Once your brain understands that spinach in a smoothie isn’t a weird thing, you can add up to 2 cups – sometimes more! – without blinking an eye.
• I personally add about 1 ½ packed cups of spinach to all of my green smoothies, which is about two large handfuls. That’s my personal sweet spot!
• Use fresh greens. It might be tempting to buy frozen spinach, but I assure you, that will NOT taste good! Frozen spinach at the store is usually cooked or blanched. It won’t blend up or taste good in a smoothie. You can freeze fresh spinach at home if you buy it in bulk or make smoothie packs for the freezer. The texture will change slightly, but won’t have the cooked spinach flavor.

GREEN SMOOTHIES RECIPES SHOULD BE FLAVORFUL AND FUN!

Once you have a liquid base, a creamy factor, and a handful of greens, then you can have fun with added flavors if you’d like!

Strawberry banana smoothie? Blueberry cheesecake? Chocolate-covered bananas? Peanut butter cups?

I’ve made all of these and so much more, and the sky is the limit with flavors, but I do have some guidelines to help you out:

• Pick flavors that are in season. Not only will they taste better, but they’ll be cheaper too!
• A little bit goes a long way. Start with ½ cup of added flavorful ingredients and go from there. You can always add more, but you can’t take it back out.
• Use nuts and nut butters in moderation. Really, one to two tablespoons of peanut or almond butter is plenty in a smoothie.
• Use simple, tried-and-true combinations. Mixed berries. Peanut butter + banana. Strawberries + banana. Pineapple + mango. Kiwi + green grapes.
• Your green smoothie may not turn out green. Depending on the fruit you choose to add, you may end up with more of a purple or brown smoothie, but it will still taste great!

You can also boost the flavor of your smoothies with extracts and spices from your spice cabinet too.

A few of the healthy smoothie recipes in my book High Protein No Powder are of the “plain Jane” variety, but some of them are pretty inventive… raspberry lemonade, peach + blueberry, cinnamon bun, cinnamon persimmon, and blueberry cobbler are just a few of my favorites.

GREEN SMOOTHIES TIPS AND TRICKS

I’ve taught you how to make simple green smoothies that taste amazing, but I didn’t want to leave you without a few more tidbits of helpful info…

Some green smoothie ingredients can pull double duty.

• Milk kefir is fermented yogurt, which has protein and live cultures in it, and it serves as both the liquid base and creamy factor.
• Fruit that has a lot of natural juices, like pineapple and oranges, can offer both flavor AND contribute to the liquid base as well.

Avoid added sweeteners if possible.

• The whole point of making green smoothies is because they’re healthy, right? So, let’s not PLAN to add honey or dates or any other sweetener – natural or not. There’s really no need!
• If you need to baby-step your way from super sweet smoothies to green smoothies, start by adding 1 tablespoon of maple syrup to your smoothie recipe, then lower it to ½ tablespoon, and eventually omit it altogether.
• If you don’t think your smoothie is sweet enough, you can also change the fruit you’re using, add more banana for a touch more sweetness, or add less spinach. Your taste buds will change over time, but adding sweeteners won’t help the long-term goal of eating less sugar.

Skip the ice cubes.

• Hands down, cold smoothies are WAY better than warm ones, but ice cubes don’t help the overall flavor of the smoothie. In my opinion, ice cubes also make smoothies feel more like slushies – they’re icy, not creamy.
• If you really want cold smoothies, use frozen fruit. You can freeze the fruit ahead of time, or buy fruit already frozen. I recommend freezing the bananas because they’re one of the staples in my own smoothies, but you can also make almond milk ice cubes or freeze berries as well. The more frozen ingredients you start with, the thicker your smoothie will end up.

Add good things.

• If you’re trying to boost the protein in your smoothies, here are 12 natural ways to do that, (flax seed is one of my favorites!).
• For an even bigger boost in nutrition, hide one of 7 superfoods in your smoothies (this includes chia seeds!)!
• Smoothies are my preferred way to take maca powder. I started taking that to help me manage my stress and hormones! Here’s a specific green maca smoothie recipe.
• I’m also a huge fan of collagen. Smoothies are the easiest way to get my daily dose! Perfect Supplements is hands-down my favorite brand of collagen. You can read why in this post!

LET’S TALK ABOUT BLENDERS FOR GREEN SMOOTHIES

We can’t talk about green smoothie recipes without talking about blenders, can we?

I have a Blendtec Classic. My husband bought it for me as a birthday gift several years ago. We’ve since added multiple jars (this Twister Jar and the Wildside Jar) to our collection and we don’t regret the purchase in the least bit.

Yes, it’s pricey up front, but when you use it on a daily basis – sometimes twice – you need it to work and to work well.

HOW TO BLEND THE HEALTHIEST GREEN SMOOTHIE WITHOUT A HIGH-POWERED BLENDER

If you don’t have a high-powered blender, you can still make great smoothies by following these instructions. I recommend blending in stages:

1. Blend the liquid + greens until they’re all blended up.
2. Then add the creamy factor and blend.
3. Finally, add whatever flavor and fun is left and blend until smooth.

FAVORITE GREEN SMOOTHIES RECIPES FAQS

MORE DELICIOUS SMOOTHIE RECIPES

• 7 Days of Green Smoothie Recipes
• Green Maca Smoothie
• Detox Smoothie with Bentonite Clay
• High Protein Gingerbread Smoothie
• Blueberry Cheesecake Smoothie
• Chocolate Peanut Butter Smoothie