You might be thinking: Smoothie recipes are a dime a dozen nowadays! What makes this one so special? Well, I’ve been making smoothies almost daily for years (we have 20 blueberry bushes on our property so who knows how many gallons of blueberry smoothie I’ve consumed) and I think I’ve finally found smoothie nirvana. Here’s my argument as to why this is the ultimate smoothie:
- It only contains fruit and fruit juice so no added sugar
- It contains several servings of fruit, 7 grams of protein and 100% of your vitamin C for the day
- It is easy to make
- It is a cheap breakfast or snack (a little over $1 for everything)
- It is flexible so you can use whatever frozen fruit you have around or is on sale
- It tastes awesome!
I make my smoothies with this Cuisinart Immersion Hand Blender which makes clean-up really easy. A big mess that I did’t want to clean up is what deterred me from making smoothies before I whipped them up with this device and the accompanying plastic beaker-thingy. It is one of my favorite kitchen tools and I have used it for making everything from smoothies to baby food to homemade jam.
Without further ado here is the recipe along with some money-saving tips that can make smoothie-making even more affordable.
Ultimate Smoothie Recipe
by Leah @ The Frugal SouthIngredients
1 banana, peeled
1/2 to 2/3 cup frozen fruit (our favorites are blueberries, mango and strawberries)
1/2 cup plain yogurt
3-4 ounces pineapple juice
1 tsp ground flax seed (totally optional but I like the added omega-3s)
Instructions
1. Break the banana up into a few pieces and throw it into the plastic beaker.
2. Add the frozen fruit, pineapple juice and flax seeds if you are using them.
3. Add the yogurt on top.
4. Place the immersion blender into the beaker and blend until smooth. Add water if needed to bring it to the desired consistency.
Money-saving tips:
- Buy yogurt in the large quart size container – it is about half the price of buying individual containers.
- Buy your frozen fruit when it is on sale or freeze fresh fruit when it is in season.
- I buy flax seeds from the bulk food section of our local co-op and grind them myself with an old electric coffee grinder. Each teaspoons cost pennies this way.
- I buy pineapple juice in the 6 pack of little cans. I use about half of a can for each smoothie and save the other half in the fridge. Checkout 51 has been offering $1 off Dole Pineapple Juice for months now and I have used it many times over!
- Checkout 51 and Snap have been running rebates on bananas, too.
Hope you like the recipe and tips and happy smoothie-making!