Healthy Kid-Friendly Fruit Smoothies

The truth is that healthy smoothies typically aren’t our thing. We’ve always preferred to eat our food in its solid state rather than blended up in a pureed form. However, after some experimenting with blending our favorite frozen fruits in our Cuisinart Food Processor, we have discovered a couple of Healthy Kid-Friendly Fruit Smoothies that everyone in our house loves.

Whether you’re looking for a healthy breakfast idea for your busy mornings or a nutritious snack to serve your kids or grandkids on a hot summer afternoon, we think you’re going to love these delicious smoothie recipes.

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Healthy Smoothie Recipes

Each of our favorite smoothie recipes have a super simple ingredients list that can be adjusted to suit your family’s unique likes and dislikes, and the best part?

These easy smoothie recipes involve super simple combos of healthy ingredients – no added sugar!

You may actually already have these ingredients on hand to be able to give one or both of these a try right away.

Smoothie Recipe #1:

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of orange juice – Yay for Vitamin C!
• 3/4 cup of plain yogurt – We typically use plain Greek yogurt. The yogurt is what will give the smoothie its creamy texture.
• 1 bag of Dole’s frozen mixed fruit (Don’t thaw!) – We’ve found these packages of mixed fruit at Sam’s Club.

The first time we made our own smoothies like this, I dumped all of these ingredients into my food processor (Maybe you have a blender you love.), and when my kids saw the creamy texture, they started cheering, “It looks like ice cream!” – and it most definitely did!

Mission accomplished – ha!

For each kiddo, I poured their portion of the smoothie into a wide-mouth canning jar and plopped a giant straw down in the cup.

This smoothie recipe was the first homemade smoothie recipe we tried, and it was immediately a big hit.

Around here, we use these canning jars as drinking glasses, and they are perfect for smoothies, too.

I found these particular straws at a kitchen store in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. (Similar ones can be found here.) These wide straws are specifically designed for smoothies, milkshakes, etc. and they’ve worked really well for my kids.

We’ve also used them for a variety of at-home learning activities, but I’ll save those educational ideas for another post.

Now back to the smoothie recipes.

While we still love the recipe I just shared, this second creamy smoothie recipe grew from continuing to experiment, and it is also delicious.

Smoothie Recipe #2:

Ingredients:

• 1 can of pineapple juice – Another great option for Vitamin C!

• 1 cup of plain Greek yogurt

• Sometimes I’ll add a splash of almond milk, coconut milk, or orange juice. (Optional)
• 1 bag of frozen bananas (Don’t thaw!) – We’ve found these at Walmart.
• 1 bag of frozen berries (Don’t thaw!) – Strawberries are the top pick in this house.
• A handful of baby spinach leaves

Don’t worry! No one is going to be able to taste those leafy greens.

This might also be a good time to toss in anything else your kids may not otherwise eat.  Does another fresh fruit or a specific vegetable come to mind? This could be a great way to incorporate it into a healthy snack for your child.

Other Ideas:

• chia seeds
• protein powder
• flax seed
• coconut water
• oat milk
• maple syrup

Blend all of your ingredients together, and now it’s time to serve.

Here we go again with the wide-mouth Ball canning jars. They truly have been the perfect drinking glasses for our family.

See how you can barely see the specks of spinach in this recipe?

You may find your family prefers using a spoon instead of a smoothie straw. That works, too! These smoothies truly do feel a whole like like eating a fruity ice cream, so either will do.

You may have more complicated smoothie recipes you enjoy, but these simple ingredients lists have worked well for us.

In addition to finding different varieties of frozen fruit at Walmart and Sam’s Club, we have recently discovered some great organic frozen fruit options at Costco. If you’re curious about what else we love from Costco, we have shared many of our Costco Favorites here.

A Fun Smoothie Challenge

As a mom, I have really tried to make an effort to educate myself about how to best feed my kids bodies. I believe I am responsible for stewarding well in this area, and as I’ve worked to grow in my knowledge related to this part of our day-to-day family, I have learned so much from Karalynne Call over at Just Ingredients.

As I have followed along with her, I have gained so much insight into what kinds of things are important to consider when purchasing not only different foods, but various other products as well. She has been a wealth of information for me.

One fun idea she has for encouraging kids as they grow in their understanding of healthy eating is to challenge them with a point system. I’ve taken her idea as inspiration and challenged my kids with a Smoothie Point System. For every fruit and vegetable represented in our smoothies, they earn a point!

For example, in the first smoothie recipe I shared in this post, there is:

• orange juice and oranges- 1 point
• strawberries – 1 point
• pineapple – 1 point

This smoothie gets a total of 3 points. 

In the second smoothie recipe, there is:

• pineapple juice – 1 point
• Sometimes I add orange juice. – That would be another point.
• strawberries – 1 point
• bananas – 1 point
• spinach – 1 point

This smoothie gets a total of 5 points. 

My kids, even the older ones, have loved this little game, and are most definitely motivated by getting as many points as possible. An idea like this might even make your kids a little more excited about you tossing a handful of veggies into their creamy fruit smoothie.

I don’t like to say that I’m sneaking things in…I want them to know what’s there and learn to love the ingredients found in healthy recipes. I realize you may have to work up to this point, especially if you’re working to change course with extra picky eaters, but keep going! The work of introducing new foods and healthy options into your child’s diet is worth it.