By Stacy Myers, Contributing Writer
In this house, smoothies are a regular thing. I make them almost daily as either a snack or a supplement to a meal. I can’t just eat a smoothie and call it done – or I’m hungry in an hour. Breastfeeding, anyone?
I’ve seen those awesome “smoothie kits” at the grocery store sold in the frozen section. However, they are kind of expensive, considering they only feed two…and who am I kidding? I can drink that WHOLE THING. I repeat – breastfeeding, anyone?
Basically, they are frozen yogurt cubes and fruit. That’s it. They are in a bag and you can add milk or yogurt to blend it up. If I can make a regular smoothie, I ought to be able to tackle that, right? And tackle it I have…and I hate to toot my own horn, but they are FAR SUPERIOR and CHEAPER than those you can buy in the store so…Toot! Toot!
I’ve made these two ways: with fresh fruit and with already frozen fruit. If you choose to use fresh fruit, you need to flash freeze it first so that your smoothie base doesn’t become one giant block of fruit that won’t blend. Ask me how I know. I flash freeze mine for about an hour. For that reason I actually prefer using already frozen fruit from the store.
I usually use homemade yogurt for this, but I’ll be honest…my 9 month old is teething and not sleeping well. Thus, I sometimes use store bought Greek yogurt. Just keepin’ it real, folks.
Also, I use plain yogurt. Feel free to use already sweetened or flavored yogurt if you like. I use plain so I can sweeten and flavor however I like. I use maple syrup to sweeten my daughter’s smoothies and stevia for me and my husband.
This is a very basic recipe because the idea is that you can make as many as you want or need…or as many as your freezer will hold.
You’ll need to freeze your yogurt in ice cube trays. Once it’s frozen you can pop it out and it’s ready to be assembled with your fruit!
You can use any fruits you like: bananas, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, etc. I haven’t tried pineapple, but I imagine you’d have to have a MEGA blender to get it all pureed.
In each of my bags I like 2 cups of frozen fruit and about 4 cubes of yogurt. When I blend I’ll add between 1 and 1 ½ cups of milk…depending on how thick or thin I want it. You’ll also want to add sweetener to taste if you didn’t use sweetened yogurt.
I place mine in Ziploc bags which I wash a reuse over and over…because I’m cheap frugal like that.
This really streamlines your morning or afternoon smoothie. When I make these, I make an assembly line on my kitchen counter and it goes really fast…it has to go fast or everything melts. Don’t dilly-dally.
Let your imagination run wild with flavors! I love making different flavor combos. Even Strawberry Rhubarb is fabulous (although it requires a bit more sweetener)!
And I’m not gonna lie – even though each baggie is supposed to make TWO smoothies, I can usually drink one myself. I’m famished. Breastfeeding, anyone? Please pass a doughnut.
Homemade Freezer Smoothies
Ingredients
- Fruit of your desire already frozen or flash frozen to avoid one big clump of fruit
- Yogurt I like plain Greek yogurt, but you can use whatever you have
Instructions
- Place desired amount of yogurt in ice cube trays and freeze.
- In each Ziploc or re-usuable bag, combine 2 cups of frozen fruit and 4 frozen cubes of yogurt.
- Freeze for up to 6 months. Make sure to date each bag.
- When ready to make a smoothie, combine contents of bag with 1 – 1 ½ cups of milk (I use almond milk) and sweetener, if needed (I use stevia for myself and maple syrup for my children). The amount of milk you use will depend on how thin you want the mixture.
Yield: 2 smoothies…or one for a breastfeeding mama who is HUNGRY
Do you make your own smoothies? What’s your favorite kind of smoothie to make?
Homemade “Jiffy” Corn Muffin Mix: Simple, Healthier Cornbread, with Three Variations
Oohh… These are yummy and perfect for the hot {H.O.T} Indian summer.. Am gonna be trying these with bananas and mangoes.. We have LOADS of them here.. Hmm.. Would watermelon be a good idea? Should try it.. Thanks Stacy!
I’m not sure – I’ve never tried watermelon in my smoothies. I’ve read that it doesn’t freeze very well…but you could try! 🙂
I feel a little bad now because apparently I eat as much as a breastfeeding mom. 😉
LOL That really gave me a big ole laugh!
lol, breast feeding? no. I gave that up 46 years ago! But daily smoothies are still key. Kefir and frozen fruit… probiotic and delicious.
We freeze fruit on a cookie sheet and then put it all of each fruit in it’s own baggie. This way we can add as little or as much of each fruit as we want that day. I let my three year old pick out the ingredients for his smoothie a couple months back and it has become a family favorite. It included 5 frozen strawberries, about1 frozen banana, one orange, about 3/4 cup of almond milk, and a dash of ginger and cinammon. It was a hit!
Smart thinking, Sara!
We do the same recipes here! I always buy extra fresh fruit when its crazy on sale and flash freeze on a cookie sheet. Then pop in a freezer bag. We do pineapple a lot and it blends up fine in our regular ole blender. I’ve also been know to “sneak in” wheat germ undetected by my little ones! Just don’t put too much or it gets grainy.
I just invested in a Nutribullet (Magic Bullet’s bigger, stronger cousin) and have been making smoothies with spinach and kale, fresh fruit and veggies, frozen berries and nuts and flax or chia seeds (plus water to blend). It completely breaks down the seeds and hard veggies like carrots — better than juicing, because the pulp is still there, but fine enough to drink easily. Today’s combos were spinach, frozen mixed berries and flax, and later, spinach, frozen strawberries, banana and almonds. YUM!
Blending makes me happy. I <3 my blender.
I just got the Nutribullet, too! It’s amazing- even does pineapple. Love that I can get in the greens, and protein as well. Seeds, nuts, it does it all! I tend to use yogurt instead of water. And it washes so easily. been there, done that with the screen on a juicer. This is far better!
I have a Blendtec….we make beautiful smoothies together. 🙂
DEFINITELY going to have to get the mini-chest freezer fixed/replaced now! Farmer’s Market season canNOT get here soon enough.
Question – How do you flash freeze at home?
I wash my berries and let them dry. Then I place them on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper or parchment. Sock it in the freezer just until they get hard – then I take them off and put them down in a baggie. 🙂
I’ve been looking for ways to make smoothie’s faster. You know when you something fruitie and healthy but you don’t want to a lot hassle and take a lot of time? These sound like a great way to remedy that. Thanks for the post. I’ve pinned it and will be sure to try this soon!
It takes a bit of time to put them together, but then the end results of “smoothies anytime!” makes it totally worth it. 🙂
I always freeze my bananas once they start looking “unattractive.” I peel them and put them in freezer bags, when I want to make a smoothie I simply take out the frozen bananas add fresh strawberries apple juice, yogurt and blend. Great way to make sure bananas don’t go to waste, especially since it’s too hot to bake banana bread in the summer months.
I usually just freeze mine straight in the peel…then I thaw just a tad and cut the top off. When you squeeze, that puppy just slides right out. My 3 year old enjoys watching that. LOL
My kids use frozen watermelon cubes all the time for their smoothies and they love them! We started freezing cubes of watermelon whenever we unwittingly got an overripe watermelon. They are not nice to eat fresh but you can’t tell when you use an overripe watermelon cube in a smoothie. We did the same thing with pineapples that didn’t taste sweet. They blend up fine with a hand blender even.
Good to know! Thanks for chiming in, Selina!
We make smoothies for breakfast often. I never thought of freezing it ahead of time. What a great idea!!! This could make mornings with my little nine month old even easier, Thanks!
I have a 9 month old too, so I feel ya. 🙂
I love this idea! I think I would probably use small Pyrex glass bowls so they could be easily reused and I wouldn’t have to worry about using plastic in the freezer. Thanks for the tip!
You’re welcome! 🙂 Thanks for commenting.
We do this sometimes. I just store the baggies in the freezer once they’ve been used… No need to wash them then, since I will just be refilling with the same ingredients. 🙂
Oooooooh! Good idea!
One thousand thank yous for this recipe! I am a regular smoothie girl but always struggle with having all of the ingredients on hand. What a great idea, thanks so much for sharing it!
You’re welcome! 🙂 I’m so tickled it’s helpful to you!
These look great! My son actually came up with a very yummy smoothie, using a can of coconut milk and frozen fruit. Throw it in the blender, and that’s it! He has a dairy allergy, but I really like the coconut milk smoothies too!
I <3 coconut milk!!!
Oops – I forgot to add that he uses bananas, too! So it’s frozen fruit, canned coconut milk, and fresh bananas. Whew!
I need to use up a bunch of raw milk quickly and this will do the trick. I guess I’ll be making yogurt every day for the next week!
Question: do you think some spinach tossed in each bag would work? Would it freeze well and then incorporate into the smoothie well?
I think I would just toss the spinach in right before I blended it…but freezing it should be okay. 🙂
Spinach freezes EXTREEMLY well! So well in fact you can just buy the jumbo bag of spinach and toss it straight into the freezer if you wanted to! 🙂
We freeze spinach and toss in smoothies that way. IT started when my grocery store had a bunch of bags of spinach clearance to get rid of for 40% off, so I got them all. Tossed into the freezer and ta da! Now I keep spinach on hand frozen just for our smoothies and it frees up room in the fridge for fruits and milk (we’re a family of soon to be 10, one fridge is a big squeeze for fresh foods).
I make kefir every week so when I make smoothies I just use kefir and frozen fruit. I never thought about making kefir ice cubes so they would be ready and on hand. Sometimes I want a smoothie but I don’t have enough kefir available. Making cubes would solve that problem. Thanks for the tip.
We love kefir smoothies! I like making a “base” at the beginning of the week and just adding kefir when we want a smoothie. 🙂
I’ve been making smoothies with 2 cups of baby spinach, milk and then whatever frozen fruit I have available…never even thought about using yogurt! I made one the other day with some frozen fruit and fresh watermelon, the watermelon provided enough water content that I didn’t have to add milk or other liquids…very refreshing! Can’t wait to try the frozen yogurt though-great idea 🙂
I have never put spinach in my smoothie – can you believe that? I’m going to make the jump eventually….the idea of drinking spinach turns me off. I need to put my big girl panties on. lol
When adding a green to your smoothie, I find it blends best by mixing the liquid and greens first. Then when that is all smooth, add your fruit, yogurt, etc.
So the clostest and most convient store near us is Costco. I love it there! But we can never eat/juice all the vegetables that come in those big bags and I love spinach and carrots. So, I blend them in my vita-mix with a bit of water and then freeze them in ice cubes trays. So happy now that I’m not wasting food. My favorite smoothies is: coconut water, spinach, carrot, apple, celery and usually another random fruit. I also like a play old: kefir, strawberry, protein power and chia seed. I wonder if you can freeze kefir too? I can’t wait to freeze my homemade yogurt for easy smoothies for the kids!
I think kefir would freeze fine – I’ve never frozen mine, but since the yogurt does well I imagine the kefir would too.
I make smoothies almost everyday too. I use frozen blackberries, blueberries or strawberries (oftentimes fruit that I have grown and then frozen). Greek yogurt is so great since it is very high in protein, I eat it almost everyday. My youngest son likes ground flaxseed added to his smoothies, he is the only 4 year old that I know that likes to eat the same foods that I do 🙂
Oh yeah! Ground flax is delish in them…so is wheat germ. Yummy!
We adore smoothies here. My current favorite:
Mango
Pineapple
Spinach
Vanilla Yogurt
Maybe a handful of blueberries.
My kids current favorites:
Banana
Peanut butter
Spinach
Vanilla yogurt
OR
Orange (no peel)
Banana
strawberry
Spinach
Milk and some ice.
Those are all great combos!
Any ideas for what I could substitute for yogurt? Our house is newly dairy free for my husband and I’m still learning what substitutes well for different recipes.
You could use coconut or almond milk yogurt. 🙂
I’ve been drinking smoothies almost daily since being put on a gluten/sugar free diet about 11 weeks ago. I’ve also been freezing fruit in baggies so I can do whatever combo I feel like. I have several combos I like. I always use plain yogurt as a base then add strawberries, pineapple and sometimes blueberries or raspberries. I have a tropical one I like in which I use peaches, pineapple and mango. I also add coconut oil to that one, and I also add either spinach or kale to them. Right now I have spinach in the garden, so am freezing that to use later on. I am blessed because we have our own strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and peaches, so I will be freezing lots of fruit this summer. Has anyone tried cantelope?
Those sound great! And no, I’ve not tried cantaloupe. I’d have to wrestle it out of my daughter’s hands. LOL
I forgot to add that I throw in scoop of vanilla protein powder as well.
We use a lot of protein powder around here too!
I am new to using stevia, how much do you use?
I never measure – just to taste. 🙂