This Green Smoothie Is My Favorite Way to Start My Day

My practice of drinking a green smoothie every morning arose right around the same time as I was first finding a ton of success in the garden growing leafy greens. Once I started harvesting kale, Swiss chard, and spinach, I needed smoothie recipes to help me use up all that green goodness.

I've kept this practice going for over five years now to get a healthy start to my day. I harvest fresh kale leaves early in the morning for as many months of the year as I can. When I have surplus kale, I either freeze the leaves or dehydrate them and grind them up into a powder to use throughout the winter months. What's great about making green smoothies (besides the obvious health benefits like all the fiber and Omega 3s) is that it's a great way to use up leaves that have grown a little larger than you might enjoy in a salad.

My Go-To Kale Smoothie Recipe

I was initially inspired to make green smoothies by Jen Hansard of Simple Green Smoothies. Over time, I've made some tweaks to come up with my favorite recipe, though I still make changes to shake it up all the time based on what I have on hand.

Ingredients

• 1-2 cups of kale (curly kale, dinosaur kale, red kale—whatever type you have)
• 1 cup water
• 1 avocado (seeded and scooped out of skin)
• 1 banana
• 1 cup frozen mango
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• 2 Tbsp pumpkin seeds

Kale Smoothie Substitutions and Additions

It's easy enough to make this recipe your own based on your personal preferences or whatever color your toddler has decided is acceptable for food to be that day.

Substitutions

• If you're out of kale, you could use spinach or Swiss chard leaves instead.
• You could do half water and half coconut milk if you'd like your smoothie to be extra rich and creamy.
• Instead of mango, try frozen cherries, peaches, pineapple, or blueberries (berries are a great way to disguise the green color of the smoothie—in case that makes this type of smoothie more palatable to certain young people). If your fruit isn't frozen, just add some ice cubes near the end.
• You could also swap the mango and banana for half a sweet potato. In-season sweet potatoes are an easy way to make your smoothies more local, and they also have a lower sugar content than bananas.

Additions

• I made this smoothie with Marcia Smart once. She adds 1/4 cup frozen riced cauliflower to hers in lieu of half of the banana. Cauliflower doesn't have as much sugar as bananas, but it still makes the smoothie nice and creamy. It also adds vitamin C, potassium, and fiber. Don't worry if you're not a cauliflower fan—you're not likely going to taste any cauliflower thanks to the power of the other flavors.
• You could do chia seeds and/or ground flax seeds instead of/in addition to the pumpkin seeds. Marcia also adds one Brazil nut.
• If ever a smoothie isn't sweet enough for your liking, just add a little bit of local honey.

Directions

• Give your kale a quick wash. There's no need to remove the center stem (that's where a lot of the fiber is!).
• Add your kale leaves to a high-speed blender and then pour in enough water to cover the leaves.
• Blend water and kale together first before you add anything else. This is my little trick to ensure the final result is nice and smooth—no large green chunks to get caught in your teeth or anything.
• Stop the blender and add in the other ingredients. Blend on high for a couple minutes.
• Add a few ice cubes if your smoothie needs to be thickened up.
• Enjoy immediately.

Fill Up on Garden-Fresh Kale

I've found that the more I incorporate things I've harvested from the garden into my everyday meals, the more I'm motivated to grow healthy leafy greens like kale. When you grow your own, you don't have to worry about leaves turning nasty in the produce drawer of your fridge. Instead, fresh leaves are waiting for you outside, in your kitchen garden.

You can learn more about growing your own kale, Swiss chard, and spinach if you're looking to incorporate more green goodness into your life. We've got lots of resources here at Gardenary to help you grow a little bit more of your own food.