With water-rich vegetables, creamy mango, and a touch of lemon juice, this Refreshing Green Smoothie will make you feel light, hydrated and ready to start your day!
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I'm not a big smoothie person.
You'd think as someone who eats a plant-based diet I would be making a smoothie every day!
I just prefer to chew my food.
However, this refreshing green smoothie recipe IS a smoothie recipe that I thoroughly enjoy!
This green smoothie recipe is full of water-rich vegetables, creamy frozen mango, and hydrating coconut water.
What's not to love?!
Let me walk you through how to make it.
Ingredients
This green smoothie recipe is basically like enjoying a green salad and a fruit salad all in one sweet, refreshing drink.
That may gross some of you out, but it's honestly delicious and a great smoothie recipe if you're new to green smoothies.
To make this recipe you'll need the following ingredients:
- Frozen mango
- Green apple
- Romaine lettuce
- Cucumber
- Celery
- Lemon juice
- Cold filtered water or cold coconut water
All of these ingredients pair so well together and create such a hydrating green drink!
What are the best greens to put in a smoothie?
Some greens taste better in green smoothies than others.
As you could probably guess, the darker the green, the more "green" flavor it will give the smoothie.
On the other hand, the lighter the green, the more mild of a flavor it will provide.
My favorite greens to use in green smoothies are listed below:
- Spinach (adds a vibrant green color, is mild in flavor and high in nutrients)
- Romaine (is a great green to add to smoothies if you're new to them as it doesn't add much flavor)
- Kale (adds lots of color and nutrients, but is also stronger in flavor)
I'll share some of my best tips for making a good green smoothie next.
5 Tips for making the best Green Smoothie
Not everyone can make a good green smoothie.
It takes experimenting and practice!
I've been making smoothies for years now, so I want to share some of my tips for making a good green smoothie that I've picked up along the way.
- Invest in a high speed blender
- Choose your liquid wisely
- Use frozen fruit
- Think tropical
- Add citrus
Invest in a high speed blender
While I hate to say it, a high speed blender really does make all the difference. No one wants to feel like they're drinking a salad for breakfast!
A high speed blender is great at blending up all your greens until completely smooth, so you don't even notice they're there!
I love my Vitamix blender so much and have been using it for almost a decade!
If you don't have a high speed blender, you can still enjoy a green smoothie. You may just have to slurp up larger pieces of greens.
Choose your liquid wisely
I've found that milk isn't the best liquid for green smoothies.
Even non-dairy milk such as almond or oat doesn't taste good in a green smoothie in my opinion.
Personally, I love to use coconut water, juice or even just cold, filtered water in my green smoothies.
Use frozen fruit
When it comes to choosing the kind of fruit you use in your green smoothie, try to use as much frozen fruit as possible!
Frozen fruit adds so much creaminess and helps the greens to blend better.
The creaminess of the frozen fruit also hides the texture of any greens better.
I find frozen bananas and frozen mango are the creamiest fruits, but any frozen fruit is better than fresh!
Think tropical
I love to use tropical fruit in my green smoothies.
I'll often use a little bit of frozen banana for creaminess, but other than that I love to use frozen mango and pineapple.
Add citrus
If you're not using juice as your liquid of choice, I highly recommend adding some citrus to your smoothie.
A fresh squeeze of lemon or lime juice brightens up the smoothie so much!
More smoothie and juice recipes
If you like getting your fruits and veggies in drink form, be sure to check out my other juice and smoothie recipes!
- Apple Carrot and Ginger Juice in a Blender
- Watermelon Mint Juice in a Blender
- Fig and Tahini Smoothie
- Banana-less Chocolate Mint Smoothie
📖 Recipe
Refreshing Green Smoothie
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 large mango frozen
- 1 green apple cored
- 6 small leaves of romaine or 3 handfuls of spinach
- 2 celery stalks
- ½ english cucumber
- ½ lemon peeled and seeded
- cold filtered water to blend about 2 cups
Instructions
- Place everything into a high speed blender and blend until smooth.
- Serve and enjoy immediately!
Stacey J. says
We don’t always have affordable fresh greens available all year. Have you made smoothies with dehydrated greens? I save all kinds of greens and dehydrate. Wondered how it would impact the texture of smoothie.
Faith VanderMolen says
Hi Stacey! I've never used dehydrated greens. That's a great question. I would think they'd have a strong taste and maybe taste chalking, but you'd probably know better than I would if you cook with dehydrated greens often! If you try it out let us know whether you rehydrated the greens before blending or not and how the smoothie tasted!
Barb aka MIL says
Guess what we made on yesterday . . . two batches of green / fruit smoothies, they are "growing" on me. Each batch had 2 handfuls of spinach and a variety of fruit (watermelon, raspberries, strawberries, pineapple and the last of the frozen bananas from your stay). Batches frozen for quick breakfasts this week 🙂
Faith says
YAYAY!! That's awesome:) I'm glad the green smoothie love is spreading. There are tons of different fruits here but the berries and pineapple just went out of season before we got here. I'm impressed you're eating bananas too! Keep me posted on all the delicious food you guys are creating. We miss you're cookin'!
Liv @ Healthy Liv says
This looks so creamy and refreshing! I completely understand the feeling of not wanting to cook and just throwing things into a blender instead 🙂 I've been doing that just about every day at school this year and it's such a time-saver!
Faith says
I usually love to cook but when tiredness hit, sometimes a smoothie will just have to do:) that's awesome you have a blender in your dorm room!
Deborah @ Confessions of a Mother Runner says
You've hit all the vitamins in this one!! Very healthy. thanks for joining meatless Monday!
Faith says
So true!! Makes me want to drink it even more!
Tina Muir says
I was really hoping this was going to be your meatless monday recipe when I saw it yesterday. It sounded and looked SO refreshing, I wanted to stick a straw on the screen! YUM! And I sometimes drink straight out the blender too, I like to think of it as practical...and saving the environment....as its less cleaning up 😉
Faith says
Haha! My thoughts exactly about clean up! Why use another cup when you've got a blender;)