Healthy Smoothie Recipes
Start with the Right Ingredients

Healthy smoothie recipes can produce drinks that are the most nutrient-dense meals on the planet. They're also just about the quickest, too! The secret to a healthy smoothie recipe is knowing which ingredients to use — and which to avoid.

Healthy smoothies contain only natural, whole foods, in a form that's easily digested and assimilated. They're loaded with antioxidants, vitamins, minerals and enzymes. There's no better way to give yourself an abundant, long-lasting supply of energy!

The good news is that anyone can make perfect healthy smoothies — recipes for smoothies are very flexible. You can experiment and switch ingredients to suit your taste and substitute your favorite beverage, fruit or vegetable.

The Best Starter to Use
for Healthy Smoothie Recipes

The most common liquids people use to make smoothies are water, milk, yogurt, fruit juice, soy milk or any variety of nut milk. If you read my page on how to make smoothies, you know that these may not all be healthy options. Of all the choices, dairy-substitutes such as rice milk, hemp milk, coconut milk and almond milk are your healthiest ones.

Make your own healthy smoothie starter! If you have one of the more powerful blenders such as the BlendTec or VitaMix, it's easy to make your own nut milk. I'd consider that the best option of all. Any factory-made, packaged beverage, is, after all, essentially a processed food.

Here's my universal recipe for a healthy smoothie starter. This takes just a few minutes and you're ready to make your healthy smoothie!

Almond Milk Smoothie Starter

Combine the following in your blender:
• 12 oz of water
• 1/3 cup soaked, raw almonds
• 1 tbsp coconut oil
• stevia — sweeten to your taste

Blend until smooth and strain through a nylon-mesh nut bag to remove the almond meal.

You can use this as a substitute for milk in any healthy smoothie recipe — or drink it as is. It will only keep for a couple of days, but it's so quick to make, it hardly matters.

About Stevia. If you want to add some type of sweetener to your smoothie recipe, I recommend using stevia.

Stevia is an herbal extract that's 300 times as sweet as sugar. It comes in powder, liquid or tablet form and has no calories. Stevia also does not raise blood sugar levels and is safe for diabetics.

If you need a good source for stevia products, iHerb.com has over 70 to choose from! And at iHerb, you'll get $5 off your first purchase!

Chilling Your Healthy Smoothies

Is there's anything more refreshing than a cold, creamy smoothie? There are two ways of chilling your healthy smoothie recipes:

• Ice Cubes — a good way of thinning down a smoothie that's too thick and chilling it at the same time.

• Frozen Fruit — has the advantage of not diluting the taste, and also giving your smoothie a creamier texture. It's also very convenient to store cut-up fruit in your freezer, so you always have them on hand.

Optional Ingredients
for Your Healthy Smoothie Recipe

Optional ingredients for any healthy smoothie recipe that will increase the nutritional value and the protein, fat and fiber content of your smoothie include:

Superfoods such as chlorella, spirulina, acai, goji berry and others give your smoothies extraordinary antioxidant content and other nutritional benefits.

Hemp Protein Powder adds protein, healthy omega-3 fats and fiber to your healthy smoothie.

Raw Organic Eggs give your smoothies nature's purest form of complete protein.

Coconut Oil contains lauric acid, a rare medium-chain fatty acid found in mother's milk that has many health-protecting properties. It also gives your healthy smoothie a richer, creamier taste.

Cinnamon, Nutmeg and Cloves have higher concentrations of antioxidants than any fruit or vegetable, and add their warm spiciness to your healthy smoothie recipe.

Healthy Smoothie Recipes

Back to Antioxidants Home Page from Healthy Smoothie Recipes