Smoothies are a delicious and refreshing treat, especially in summer when temperatures can soar. You can buy shop bought smoothies, but nothing is more healthy and satisfying than creating your own delicious recipes! To make your own smoothie there are 4 basic parts you can memorise, and then you can go and start creating your very own flavours.
Here’s how to make a Refreshing Summer Smoothie:
Adding Liquid
Every smoothie needs around 1 or 2 cups of liquid. Depending on what you like or what you fancy, there are loads of different liquids you can incorporate into your smoothie. Here are the most popular choices:
Whole, Semi-skimmed Or Skimmed Milk – depending on which cows milk you normally drink you might want to incorporate a cup or two into your smoothie. All of them work well in smoothies as they give a nice smooth taste, letting the rest of the ingredients you add to it shine.
Soy Milk – soy milk is sometimes the choice of the health conscious out there, as it’s full of protein, calcium, isoflavones and is free from lactose and cholesterol. Soy milk will also last a lot longer than cows milk!
Almond/Coconut Milk – if you dislike both soy and cow’s milk, almond and coconut milk are great alternatives. These milks are also enjoyed by the health conscious and taste just as nice if not better. Almond milk can help to give an ever so slight nutty flavour, while coconut milk only has a hint of coconut.
Fruit Juice – any fruit juice is a nice addition to a smoothie, just be careful of the sugars.
Tea – tea cooled to room temperature such as chamomile tea or green tea can be lovely additions to a smoothie.
Yogurt – Natural and greek yogurts are perfect for smoothies and provide calcium.
Water – water is the most health conscious choice you can make for your smoothie. It’s also cheap and simple to obtain!
You can get most of the ingredients required for smoothies from the Milk and More’s website here and… you can get them all delivered to your door!
Fruit and Veg
Fruit and veg are important to making a smoothie taste great and there aren’t many rules to remember. Just bear in mind the more frozen fruits you add the less ice you’ll need, and the juicier the fruits and veg are that you add the less liquid you’ll need. You can play jazz with everything else and work out what you like to mix together on taste!
Optional Extras
You can add optional extras for nutritional reasons or even just because you like the taste! Why not try:
- Protein powder
- Vitamins
- Flavourings such as cinnamon, honey, vanilla extract, etc.
- Ice cream
- Peanut butter
- Oats
- Flax seeds
Blending
If you’ve used mainly fresh fruit then adding some ice to the blender may be beneficial to make your smoothie nice and cool. Using a high end blender is recommended to get the best results.You may need to blend all of the ingredients together for 45 seconds to a minute – you’ll know when it’s ready as the liquid will be circulating freely around the blender!
