Win­ter Detox Smoothie Recipe

Fresh fruit, a good blender, and a lit­tle know-how are all you need!

Smooth­ies are every­where: in the mall, at fast-food restau­rants, in cof­fee shops. But for the most part, those smooth­ies might be bet­ter termed fruit milk­shakes. Stuffed with sugar, frozen yogurt, even ice cream, they do more harm than good. But made prop­erly, smooth­ies con­dense large amounts of fruits and veg­eta­bles into one com­pact and very tasty drink. Just one go-to smoothie recipe won’t do, though. Plants are most nutrient-dense at peak sea­son. So when putting together a smoothie, try to use the fresh­est organic ingre­di­ents from the gar­den or farm­ers’ mar­ket. When some­thing is in sea­son, it packs the health­i­est punch.

First, Our Top Tips

1. Invest in a blender with at least an 800-watt motor. (Vita­mix is the gold standard.)

2. Pre­pare frozen fruit ahead to save time. Cut and freeze on a bak­ing sheet, then trans­fer to a freezer bag or container.

3. Frozen bananas go a long way. Peel, slice, and freeze them. This go-to smoothie ingre­di­ent adds thick­ness with­out tak­ing over other flavors.

4. Add ingre­di­ents like milk, yogurt, water, or juice first to get the blender mov­ing. Then, add lighter, drier ingre­di­ents, like leafy greens, fol­lowed by heavy ingre­di­ents like ice and fruit pieces.

Win­ter Greens Smoothie

• 1/4 cup car­rot juice
• 1/2 cup orange juice
• 1 cup spinach
• 1 cup roughly chopped kale, ribs removed
• 4 small broc­coli flo­rets, sliced and frozen
• 1 banana, peeled, sliced, and frozen
• 1 appled, cored and roughly chopped

 

Com­bine ingre­di­ents in blender and blend until smooth.

Makes 3 cups