This Green Smoothie is creamy, tangy, and light! Yes, it’s good for you, but more importantly, it’s so yummy you’ll start to crave it. I started making it to sneak more greens into my kiddo’s diet during the blisteringly hot LA summer months, but we loved it so much that it became a year-round favorite. PS I’ve made this green smoothie recipe for hundreds of kids at the cooking classes I host at schools all over the country. I’ve never had anyone not drink the whole thing. So this one’s a winner!
What Is A Green Smoothie?
A green smoothie is a velvety blend of leafy greens like spinach and kale, frozen fruit to add natural sweetness, and a liquid or creamy ingredient to help bring everything together and create a smooth texture. It’s loaded with vitamins, minerals, and probiotics.
What You’ll Need
This green smoothie recipe is simple because I’m not particularly eager to complicate my morning routine. I love that I can put the green smoothie ingredients in freezer packs if I’m facing a busy week. Sometimes I’ll blend the smoothie the night before, shake it up in the morning, and it’s still absolute perfection.
- Baby spinach – this is the “green” in your smoothie. It blends easily, and the fruit in the smoothie overpowers its mild flavor. You can sub with baby kale or your favorite super greens blend.
- Plain Yogurt – adds creaminess and a smooth texture. I use yogurt with probiotics to up the nutrition factor. You can substitute the yogurt with milk, cottage cheese, or plant-based alternatives.
- Orange Juice – helps to loosen the smoothie texture and adds a sweet tang that helps cover the bitterness of the raw spinach. You can sub with apple juice, pineapple juice, or with water.
- Green Apple – adds fiber and acidic notes that mask the spinach flavors. You don’t have to peel your apple, but make sure you scrub the peel with baking soda to remove the wax used to preserve it. You can substitute the apple with any other apple, grapes, peaches, mango, or pear.
- Frozen Bananas – you need to blend frozen fruit to create a creamy smoothie texture. Ice will only water down your results and ruin the blades of your blender. Bananas should be ripe, as their natural sugars will help sweeten the blend. Substitute bananas with frozen avocado, or frozen mango.
- Frozen Pineapple – the bright, tart notes of pineapple help mask the spinach flavor. You can freeze pineapple canned in its own juices to help lower costs. Reserve the juices and use them instead of orange juice.
What Else Can I ADD TO A Green Smoothie?
This green smoothie recipe is ridiculously versatile and a great way to use up any fruit, berries, greens, or juices you have withering away in the fridge or freezer. The color will change to a muddied gray if you use darker fruit or juices, but it’s still going to be delicious! Other ingredients you can mix in include:
- peaches, pears, avocados, cherries
- strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries
- Swiss chard, kale, collard greens, super greens
- apple juice, lemon juice, grapefruit juice, grape juice
How To Make A Smoothie Pack
I use a large mason jar to store my smoothie packs because I pour the smoothie back into the jar as soon as I blend it. You can keep the ingredients in your freezer-safe container of choice.
- Slice the bananas and add them to your freezer-safe container.
- Follow with the pineapple and the apple.
- Top with spinach and seal.
When you’re ready to enjoy your smoothie, add the juice and yogurt to a blender jar, add the spinach from the pack, and process until creamy. Follow with the remaining ingredients in the pack and blend until smooth.
Green Smoothie
Servings 8 cupsIngredients
- 1 cup orange juice ($0.50)
- 1/2 cup yogurt, plain ($0.34)
- 4 cups fresh baby spinach, packed (5 oz container) ($3.00)
- 1 cup frozen pineapple chunks ($1.25)
- 1 green apple, chopped ($0.62)
- 2 bananas, frozen ($0.50)
Instructions
- Add orange juice and yogurt to a blender jar. Top with fresh baby spinach and blend until smooth.
- Add the pineapple, apple, and bananas and blend until smooth. Add more juice (or water) to thin out the smoothie to your preference.
- Serve immediately or store in an airtight container for up to a day to ensure maximum freshness, nutrition, and flavor.
See how we calculate recipe costs here.
Nutrition
Have you tried this recipe?Mention @budgetbytes or tag #budgetbytes on Instagram!
How to Make A Green Smoothie – Step by Step Photos
Add 1 cup orange juice and 1/2 cup yogurt to a blender jar. Top with 4 cups fresh baby spinach and blend until smooth.
Add 1 cup frozen pineapple chunks, one green apple peeled and chopped, and two frozen bananas. Blend until smooth. Add more juice (or water) to thin out the smoothie to your preference.
Serve immediately or store in an airtight container for up to a day to ensure maximum freshness, nutrition, and flavor.
Good smoothie but I only got a little more than 4 cups/servings out of it.
Something that I love about budget bytes is that the recipes are designed for families or people with a low income.
The recipe sounds great, but it requires such a high quality blender. What about the good old’ Hamilton Beach single serve blender that Beth used for all her smoothies? I was so excited to see a green smoothie come out on the website, but I don’t think it can easily be made with a cheap blender. I feel like it drifts away from the heartbeat and vision for this website. I would love to see a green smoothie recipe made with the single serve Hamilton Beach blender.
You could totally use the Hamilton Beach one for this, but you’ll just need to make a smaller single-serving batch. :) The only reason we used the bigger blender for this one is because we made a larger batch.
Hi Amy, You can absolutely make this recipe with any blender. Frozen fruit is easier to break down than ice. The blender we used is a middle-of-the-road Ninja brand.
Is there an alternative to using bananas?
Yes- try mango, avocado, or a little more yogurt. xoxo -Monti
I’ve been making green smoothies for ages and have never had to worry about “masking the taste” of the raw spinach. I often use raw kale, and even that doesn’t need to be masked in any way. It would be a different story if you used cooked greens, but no need to worry about the raw greens’ taste.
I also find that yogurt is unnecessary/optional. I use almond or soy milk as the liquid, although if I need more flavor and/or sweetness, I’ll throw in a spoonful of frozen OJ concentrate.
One ingredient that’s not optional for me is a dash of vanilla extract. I often make “creamsicle” smoothies with orange, OJ, banana, whatever milk is on hand, and a generous amount of vanilla extract. (Vanilla alternamilk and vanilla yogurt are also great in these or any smoothies, although not a sufficient sub for the extract IMO.
Halved the recipe. Very good. I would make this again.
Is there something you can substitute for yogurt?
As Monti mentions in the blog post in the section labeled “WHAT YOU NEED” (just after the bolded text “Plain Yogurt”), “You can substitute the yogurt with milk, cottage cheese, or plant-based alternatives.” I hope that helps! ~ Marion :)
Wow! This looks delicious! I love how you include all of the prices for the ingredients as well as per serving on your page. Whenever I am out and am craving a smoothie, I end up spending $7-$8. This is way more affordable! I cannot wait to try it out!
Glad to help! Since we calculate the recipe costs manually at the time of publishing, some of the older recipes might be out of date. Here’s a little step-by-step explainer of our process if you’re interested in learning how we do it ourselves: https://www.budgetbytes.com/how-to-calculate-recipe-costs/
~ Marion :)
I’m curious about the yield here. Is it really eight 1-cup servings?
Yes. The leftovers can be stored in an air-tight container in the refrigerator for ~4 days or frozen before blending (directions for how to do this are located in the section of the blog labeled, “HOW TO MAKE A SMOOTHIE PACK.”) If you’d like to make a smaller amount, you can also lower the serving sizes on the top of the recipe card (where it says “8” delete and type in the serving size you want, or use the up and down arrows), which will automatically adjust all of the ingredients amounts in the recipe to make that serving size. I’d suggest either halving (4 servings) or making a quarter (2 servings) of the recipe since that will yield ingredient amounts that are a little easier to measure! ~ Marion :)
Adding in so much fruit & fruit juices can be incredibly dangerous which kinda defeats the purpose of a “healthy green smoothie”
It’s for 8 cups; not 1 serving.
“Incredibly dangerous” is pretty dramatic. It’s fruit, you’ll be okay.
Just because “it’s fruit” doesn’t mean it’s benign or that the person will “be okay.” 🙄 That’s true especially for folks who can’t have (or don’t want) a lot of sugar or carbs, for whatever reason—many types of fruit and fruit juices are loaded with them. It’s great that you’re not at risk and don’t have to watch what you eat, but don’t be so glib and dismissive of others who *are* mindful of what they put in their bodies.
I guess this recipe isn’t for those people then. Just move on!
I am very confused about the serving size and how to make this into individual smoothies. Does this make 8- 8 oz smoothies? and if I wanted to make 4 -16oz smoothies would it really only need 1/4 cup orange juice for each? That feels low.
8 x 8 oz. smoothies and 4 x 16 oz. smoothies would make the same amount of smoothie, you would just be consuming two servings rather than one. You are correct though, that making a quarter of the recipe will only require 1/4 cup of orange juice. Plain yogurt and fresh spinach both contain a lot of moisture, as well. It should all blend easily with that little bit of juice added first to help get things going.
As Monti mentions in the second step of the recipe: “Add more juice (or water) to thin out the smoothie to your preference.” I’d suggest waiting until the very end to add more juice, as she does. Since the pineapple, apple, and banana all contain moisture in different forms, too — you may not need it! ~ Marion :)