Fruit smoothies are easy to make, delicious, and full of nutrients. A properly made smoothie has a delightful milkshake-like consistency that’s remarkable coming from a drink that’s both low-fat and dairy-free.
A basic smoothie contains vegan milk, like soy or almond, plus some frozen fruit. Bagged frozen berries sold at grocery stores are ideal for smoothies, or you can freeze fresh berries yourself. Frozen bananas bring a distinctive extra flavor—always peel and cut up your bananas before freezing. Coarsely-chopped frozen peaches are likewise a wonderful choice. No matter whether you are freezing berries or sliced fruit, use the IQF method—which involves freezing your fruit in a single layer on trays prior to bagging—for best results.
You can jazz things up with dates, protein powder, or various kinds of nuts. Blend these into your vegan milk first, since they require more processing than the frozen fruit.
Since they’re made in a blender rather than a juicer, smoothies contain all the fiber of whichever fruits you select. This fiber helps to reduce fruit sugar’s tendency to spike your blood sugar, which is likely the biggest health drawback to drinking fruit juice.
Maximizing the Nutrition of Your Smoothies
For a nutritional boost, add a couple of teaspoons of chia seeds to your smoothies before blending. Chia seeds contain loads of omega-3s, an essential fat that’s abundant in only a few vegan foods.
Since nearly all fruits are quite sweet, it makes sense to choose an unsweetened variety of vegan milk. Soy or pea-based milks will dramatically increase the protein content of your smoothie. You can find unsweetened soy milk in any supermarket or natural food store.
Green Smoothies
An increasingly popular smoothie variation is a “green smoothie.” In addition to the usual varieties of frozen fruit, these smoothies contain spinach, kale, or other greens. Some people will boost the chlorophyll content even further by adding spirulina or chlorella. I must warn you that, prepared ineptly, no beverage tastes quite as vile as a green smoothie. But done right, it’s possible to get the slight bitterness of the greens to balance out the sweetness of the fruit, yielding an appealing flavor. In any event, you won’t find a more hardcore health food than a green smoothie.
Basic Vegan Fruit Smoothie Recipe
If you want to get ambitious and fully explore the multitude of smoothie possibilities, pick up Kathy Patalsky’s book, 365 Vegan Smoothies.
Here is a super easy starting point for your smoothie adventures.
Ingredients:
- 2 cups unsweetened organic soy milk
- 1/4 cup frozen blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, banana slices, or sliced peaches
- 2 teaspoons chia seeds
Add the above ingredients to a blender and process until smooth. While a cheap blender is plenty powerful enough to make most smoothies, fibrous kale-based green smoothies require a Blendtec or a Vitamix for best results.
