green smoothie

Green smoothies are all the rage lately. I first tried one a couple of years ago and was pleasantly surprised that everyone was telling the truth…you can’t taste the spinach at all!

The problem for me was that I wasn’t drinking them often enough and my spinach would go bad before I could eat it all.

Seeing as I can’t be the only one with this problem, I present to you the solution to that! This isn’t anything new and it certainly wasn’t my grand idea. I first saw it on Pinterest, but their spinach cups had a bunch of other veggie juices in them and for now I just wanted spinach. I looked up a few other recipes, but none were what I was looking for and for whatever reason, I just decided to drop it. Fast forward to a month ago when I ran across this BodyBuilding.com recipe by Natalie Hodson. Score!!! Just spinach and water! Duh. So simple I should have thought of it on my own, but…..I didn’t. The only thing I did different was add flaxseed meal b/c that stuff goes rancid quick once it’s ground and it’s usually a step I would skip since it was a pain.

I used…

one bag of spinach (about 6 cups)
6tbsp of flaxseed meal
approximately 1 cup of water

I filled the blender to the top with spinach and added some of the water

I kept adding spinach and water as needed until I finished the bag. Once I was on my last bit of spinach, I added the flaxseed meal.

All mixed!

A lot of recipes I saw, put them into a regular muffin tin to freeze, but I liked the idea of putting them into a mini muffin pan. It takes less time to freeze and it’s easier on your blender! It made 25 cups exactly (I used a small container to hold the 25th cup :)).

Annnnd, here they are frozen. Aren’t they cute?

(Please ignore the frostbite. I didn’t take the after pics for a few days.)

Nutrition info: each frozen spinach cup has approximately 10 calories

It’s so easy to pop them into a smoothie! I haven’t had a protein shake without spinach since I made these. I usually add about 3-4 ice cubes to my shakes, but since these are pretty much like spinach ice cubes, I just throw in 3 of them instead of the ice cubes.

My go-to protein shake recipe…

1/2-2/3 frozen banana (I weigh it and add about 65g)
1 cup almond milk
1 scoop vanilla protein powder (Jay Robb is my fave!)
1 tbsp of peanut butter
3 frozen spinach cups
dash of vanilla extract

Last year I tried my very first green smoothie. For those who don’t know, a green smoothie involves a leafy green and sometimes vegetables. I went safe and used spinach for my first one. I believe Spinach and Kale are the most commonly used, but with spinach you can easily mask the taste, where I’ve heard that you can’t really with kale. In the green smoothies I’ve made, I don’t taste the spinach at all. I haven’t been brave enough to try kale yet. 😉

If you’re new to green smoothies I highly recommend this one. It’s pretty tame as far as green smoothies go and it’s very tasty!

1 large handful of baby spinach

1 cup unsweetened Almond Milk

1 scoop vanilla protein powder (I used Jay Robb)

1/2 cup blueberries (frozen)

1/2 banana (frozen)

1 packet Truvia (or other sweetener of choice)

1 cup of ice

Tear off the stems of the spinach (optional). Blend the spinach and the almond milk together fully. Then add the rest of the ingredients and blend until smooth. Makes about 16oz.

Foodie Friday :: Frozen Spinach Cups

Blueberry-Banana Green Smoothie