We love to start the day with a good healthy smoothie, but we don’t always have time for peeling and chopping fruit when we need to get out of the house in a hurry. Other times, we have plenty of time, but no fresh fruit in the house. These freezable smoothie bags solve both problems — buy your fresh fruit in bulk (it’s usually cheaper that way), and prepare it all in one go, perhaps on a Sunday afternoon while you’re doing your other weekly meal prep. The prepared fruit can then be frozen in various combinations, ready for quick and healthy breakfasts all week long. We tried the hack with some of our favorite fruit combos, and they didn’t disappoint.
Ingredients:
For the strawberry peach smoothie:
— 8 strawberries
— 1 peach
— 1 banana
For the green smoothie:
— 1 green apple
— 1 small handful green grapes
— 1 handful fresh spinach
For the mixed berry smoothie:
— 1 small handful blueberries
— 1 small handful blackberries
*You will also need some small, resealable food bags
Instructions:
1. Prepare the fruit as needed, e.g. peeling the banana and removing the core from the apple. Roughly chop the fruit and divide it into small, resealable food bags. Ideally, you want to end up with one to two portions of fruit per bag.
2. Label each bag with the contents and date.
3. Seal tightly, squeezing out any air, and freeze.
4. When you’re ready to prepare your smoothies, dump the contents of one of the bags into your blender and add 1 cup of liquid (e.g. milk or water). Blend until smooth.
Prepare the fruit as needed — peel the banana, remove the core from the apple, etc. Roughly chop the fruit and divide it into small, resealable food bags. Ideally, you want to end up with around two portions of fruit per bag. We like to divide fruit into the bags according to their color — if you mix too many different colored fruits together, you’ll end up with a murky-looking smoothie.
Label each bag with the contents and date.
Seal tightly, squeezing out any air, and freeze. The bags should last for at least six months in the freezer. After freezing, a lot of fruits will have changed in texture, but they will be absolutely fine for smoothies.
When you’re ready to prepare your smoothies, dump the contents of one of the bags into your blender and add one cup of liquid (like milk or water). Blend until smooth. Depending on which fruits you’ve used, you may decide to add a little honey or agave to sweeten, and you can also add a spoonful of oats (for a heartier smoothie), protein powder, chia or whatever else you like in your smoothies. You could also add any extra fresh fruit that needs to be used up.
This time, we made three different kinds of frozen smoothie bags. First up, a green smoothie, made with frozen apple, grapes and spinach.
This smoothie is nicely tart, so it’s perfect for those of us without a sweet tooth. Or you might prefer to add a small amount of honey to your green smoothie to sweeten it up.
Next, we made a strawberry and peach smoothie with banana.
The banana makes this strawberry smoothie really creamy — it feels like a really indulgent milkshake, but it’s super healthy.
And finally, we made a mixed berry smoothie, with blueberries and blackberries.
I used a mixture of milk and water in all three of my smoothies, which gives a great consistency.
And that’s all there is to it! A healthy breakfast, prepped in advance and served up in just a couple of minutes.
What combinations would you add to your freezable smoothie bags? Share your ideas on Twitter @BritandCo!
