I have received a few requests over the past couple of weeks for the smoothie recipe that I use. To give credit where credit is due, I got the recipe from my coworker, Mike. Here’s how I (we) do it. The only tools required are a drinking glass (preferably a large “sports cup” size like you get at sporting events or extra large drinks at fast food restaurants) and a decent blender.
Ingredients
- One yellow banana (not green).
- Mixed frozen fruit (a single bag of mixed, not a bunch of bags of individual fruit–that’s just too expensive!).
- Orange juice (pulp or no pulp really doesn’t matter)
- Another 100% fruit drink. Preferably something a little sour like grapefruit juice or tart like cranberries. My favorite so far is cranberry and grape juice.
- (Optional) Milk (whatever you like).
- (Optional) Another bag of individual frozen fruit. I like to either get mixed berries or cherries.
Directions
- Peel and dump the banana into the blender.
- Now, fill your glass about 3/4 full with frozen fruit. If you have the optional extra fruit, mix a little bit of that in there as well. I find that my favorite mixed-to-specific fruit ratio to be about 3/4 mixed to 1/4 specific. That means the fruit volume is 3/4 & 1/4, glass volume still stays at 3/4!
- Add the fruit to the blender.
- Fill your drinking glass with the various liquids to the same volume as the fruit (3/4). The recommended mixture if you got milk and another juice is 1/2 orange juice to 1/4 milk and 1/4 juice. If you left out the milk, do 3/4 orange juice and 1/4 other juice. Once again, make sure the total volume of liquids is 3/4 of the glass!
- Add the juice to the blender.
- Blend. I usually start out on the lower settings and work my way up so I don’t upset the blender too much.
- Once fully blended, pour back into the glass, clean up your mess, and enjoy!
It may not be to your liking at first, but it’s easy to experiment around to taste. Sometimes too much milk can make the smoothie a little too creamy. You can also substitute an avocado for a banana. It will make the smoothie a little less sweet, but don’t add any extra sugar because you probably still will not need it. Mike also likes to throw in some vegetables like spinach and carrots. I personally don’t care for what they do to the texture. The taste is fine, but the texture seems to come out a little chalky.
Enjoy!
Looks yummy.
I’m gonna go out here on a limb though and say that the plastic sport cup is needed equipment, not an ingredient. Though I’m sure if you put it in a blender it would blend eventually.
Ha! It’s no longer an ingredient.
Wanna know what I use for my glass? A “sports cup” from the Predators!
Never thought to use an avacado instead of a banana, (either is definetly a texture necessity).
I prefer yogurt over milk and consider it non-optional. What it does to the texture is nom-azing.
Bananas and avocados are emulsifiers, so they help it stick all together. I completely forgot about yogurt. If you want to go for a dessert smoothie, use frozen yogurt. Not as healthy, but really good!