Tips To Make And Use Smoothie Packs
- Where should I shop? We recommend purchasing the fruit at a large box store that offers organic frozen fruits, like Costco or BJs, or a place like Traders Joes . Amazon Fresh also has some great options for bulk fruit.
- How Do I Make Smoothie Freezer Packs? Simply place all the specified ingredients, except the milk, inside a plastic bag and freeze until ready to use, up to one month.
- Can You Freeze a Smoothie for Later? We do not recommend blending the smoothie too far in advance. Smoothies are best consumed immediately.
- Have Some Leftover Smoothie? We pour any leftover smoothie into a popsicle mold and enjoy later as a frozen treat. Kids love this! Though frozen smoothie pops are best consumed within a few days of making.
- Items we love for smoothie packs:
How Long Can You Freeze Smoothies In The Freezer
If stored properly in a freezer-safe ziploc bag, these freezer packs will last up to 3 months in the freezer. When ready to enjoy, you can either thaw the night before or blend straight from the freezer. If blending straight from the freezer, you might need to add a little more liquid to help balance out for the frozen produce.
Diy Frozen Smoothie Packs On A Budget
Froze smoothie packs keep my daily smoothie habit going when I’m super busy… or just don’t feel like coming up with a recipe to blend. These packs are made using Costco sized bags of produce to maximize my budget and make for easy prep.
Ever wonder if it is possible to prep a month of green smoothies on a budget, using mostly organic produce? Well, I did… so I tried, conquered and am now going to share all my tips with you. Frozen smoothie packs using Costco produce that now give you no excuse to having a daily smoothie.
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Month Of Smoothies For Under $50
We know that fresh produce is often the most expensive stuff in our grocery carts, not to mention trying to buy organic! Here’s what we were able to do at Costco with our shopping list and a $50 budget:
- Organic Power Greens = $5.99 per 24 oz
- Organic Spinach = $3.89 per 32 oz
- Oranges = $13.99 for 24
- Organic Bananas = $1.99 per 8 bananas
- Frozen Pineapple = $7.99 for 80 oz
- Fresh Mangoes = $4.49 for 6
- Organic Frozen Strawberries = $9.99 for 64 oz
Grand Total: $48.33
How To Make Your Smoothies Taste Better
If youre using too many leafy greens, smoothies can end up tasting too bitter.
Sweet fruits like bananas, pineapples, mango can add lots of natural sweetness to your smoothies.
I especially like bananas and mango , they make almost every smoothie taste better.
Strawberries and oranges can also be a great choice for masking bitter flavors.
If youre just starting with smoothies, you can add honey, maple syrup, or agave syrup to make smoothies taste like a dessert.
Once youre more experienced, you can reduce the amount of sugar in your smoothies and add more leafy greens or other veggies.
The less sugar , the more natural ingredients youll use, the healthier your smoothie will be.
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How To Make Frozen Smoothie Packs
How To Make A Smoothie
The first step in making your own fruit smoothie freezer packs is to understand how to make a smoothie. Fortunately, this is very simple. Here are my tips for how to make a smoothie:
- Liquid: Use 1 cup of milk per serving. When ready to blend, youll want to start with the liquid. This will help your blender get moving.
- Produce: With fruit smoothies, youll need a fruit base. Bananas and avocados make great bases for smoothies and dont overpower the flavor. Other produce that works great includes: berries, mango, pineapple, peaches, spinach, and kale.
- Thickeners: Personally, I like my smoothies to be thicker, rather than thinner. In order to add a thick, creamy texture to your smoothies, you can add fillings that are nutritious, such as peanut butter, almond butter, chia seeds, flaxseeds, rolled oats, or greek yogurt.
- Flavors: Now that you have the basics down for your smoothie, you might want to give it a boost of flavor. This can be done using spices, such as cinnamon or mint or using sweeteners, such as dates or raw honey.
- Boosts: This is where you can add healthy add-ins and nutritional boosts that add a punch of vitamins, antioxidants, and even a little texture to your smoothie. Great boosts include flaxseed meal, chia seeds, protein powder, matcha, and spirulina.
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Frozen Fruit Smoothie Recipes
Youre probably aware that eating a diet rich in fruits and veggies is good for you. Smoothies are an easy way to incorporate more of the good stuff into your diet.
I love using frozen fruits in my smoothies. It saves me a lot of time and makes smoothies even more refreshing and delicious!
A little down below youll find my favorite frozen fruit smoothie recipes. But before well get to the recipes, here are a few tips on why and how to make frozen fruit smoothies
How To Cook A Frozen Pork Roast
Its a fact of life that I love a good frozen pork roast. That means that a lot of time we spend in the kitchen is cooking. Its always great when you are cooking with a freezer meal. One of the best things about this type of meal is that it takes no prep time. You just pop the ingredients in a container and stick it in the freezer. When you want to cook, you just heat the frozen meal. So why dont you have a frozen pork roast in your freezer? The truth is that there are some issues with frozen pork roasts. There are some foods that just dont freeze well. Pork is one of them. It tends to dry out during freezing. If you dont have this problem, you can enjoy your pork roast whenever you want to. However, if you are having problems with your frozen pork roast, there are a couple things you can do. Here are some of the things you can do to make your frozen pork roast look good and taste great.
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How Long Can You Freeze Smoothies
Smoothies will last for up to 3 months in the freezer.
However, it will depend on what you use to store the smoothies. If stored in a freezer bag, the smoothies will not last very long. It will stay fresh for only 1 month.
On the other hand, if you store smoothies in mason jars or airtight containers, they will last much longer. These storage items have seals in the lid that can keep air and moisture from entering.
Using mason jars or airtight containers will keep your smoothies fresh for up to 3 months!
How Do I Make Smoothies If I Dont Like Bananas
Lucky for you, we have an entire post of recipes to make a smoothie without banana. Try those recipes, or tweak any of the recipes below by:
- Subbing in 1/2 cup additional plain Greek yogurt , plus 1 tablespoon additional sweetener and a handful of ice cubes in place of the frozen banana in these recipes.
- Other options: canned pineapple, sweetened yogurt, canned pears. Adding half a ripe avocado can really help make up for the creaminess that bananas usually add, too.
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What Are Frozen Smoothie Packs
One of the best parts of these recipes, in our humble opinion, is that you can make them into frozen smoothie packs ahead of time to have on hand for quick breakfasts and snacks. Freezer smoothie packs are simply individual packs of the solid ingredients of your favorite smoothie.
It makes so much sense to use your time and resources wisely by prepping smoothies in bulk. Plus, having these on hand means healthy eating is right at your fingertips anytime!
Lets Break Down The Math:
One months worth of smoothie subscriptions can cost you about $240! Yes, there is definitely a convenience factor, but if you make your own, you control the ingredients and sweetness and it is SO much more affordable. Our 30 days worth of smoothie packs came in at a minuscule: $46.33!!! Or about $1.50 per smoothie! And we timed ourselves making the smoothie packs and can confidently say it should take you no more than 1 hour, or less, to put them all together.
We wanted to use one shopping list interchanging the ingredients as much as possible when putting together these recipes. We came up with 5 smoothies that are all their own flavor, while still using some of the same ingredients. Weve made a SHOPPING LIST that you can find below, as well as in the notes of the recipe.
It was also important that we kept the ingredients as common as possible so theyre easy to find. Weve offered a few substitutions in the recipe for ingredients that are less common, like cacao nibs. And while we tend to like a sweeter smoothie, we know some people would prefer to keep it as low sugar as possible, so sweetness is optional for most . You can use maple syrup, honey, or stevia to sweeten your smoothie.
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What Other Healthy Ingredients Can You Add In
The great thing with smoothies is that its easy to slip in an extra healthy ingredient or two without it being easily noticeable which is especially wonderful when you have kids.
A few of my favorites are fresh spinach, kale, chia seeds and ground flax seeds. My kids love their smoothies and think they are a treat. They have no idea that they are enjoying something super nutritious or drinking spinach. I love being sneaky like that!
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Why Make Frozen Smoothie Packs
Smoothies are the bomb! I can think of no tastier way to get TONS of fruits, vegetables, and other healthy foods into you and your family every single day.
Theyve become the norm in our homes for breakfast, lunch, or snacks since developing these 7 delicious, healthy smoothie recipes AND learning how to make freezer smoothie packs.
Weve created one smoothie for every day of the week, so you never get tired of the same one and so you include a variety of fruits and vegetables in your diet throughout the week.
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Tips For Making Premade Smoothie Packs
How Long Do Frozen Fruit Smoothies Last
Frozen fruit smoothies, and all smoothies in general, will last up to two days in the refrigerator.
Its best to keep them in airtight containers. Mason jars, for example, can help to prevent the fruits from oxidizing.
Keeping your smoothie in the freezer will guarantee a longer storage period. You can pour it into a freezer-safe jar and leave it to defrost an hour before drinking it.
Or you can keep them in popsicle molds. It creates a more fun and convenient experience.
Alternatively, you can store the frozen ingredients separately instead. You wont have to wait hours before defrosting to get your smoothie ready.
Plus, it may result in a fresher frozen fruit smoothie.
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And Check Out Some Of Our Favorite Smoothie Hacks Too:
- How to Freeze Strawberries. There are lots of ways to use frozen strawberries, but smoothies are definitely one of my favorites!
- How to Freeze Blueberries. We freeze as much fruit as we have room for every summer, for smoothies all year long.
- How to Cut a Pineapple. Dont be intimidated by that spiky skinheres the easiest way to cut a pineapple.
- Smoothie Booster Packs. Never let spinach go bad again! Drop these frozen smoothie packs into your smoothies to boost the nutrition.
- 3 Ways to Meal Prep Smoothies. Yes, you can make ahead smoothies! And we have three ways to show you how.
Ingredients You Will Need
If you are looking for a quick meal you can turn to the freezer section of the store. In fact, youll find many different frozen foods that can be prepared in a few easy steps. If you need something quick and easy, here are some ingredients you will need to make a quick and delicious pork roast. A pork roast is a cut of meat from the loin. It is usually very lean and can be braised, grilled, or roasted. Pork loin is a very versatile cut, but can be expensive. One of the best options is to use pork loin roast. When the roast is frozen, it will cook to medium and then you can just thaw and use it. Make sure you follow the recommended cooking times for your roast. Then add to it. You will need to add some vegetable stock to the pan for some flavor. Youll want to simmer the roast for about 20 minutes per pound. The time can vary depending on the size of the roast. Youll need to check the package to find out the weight of the roast. A good cooking time for a 3 pound roast is a little more than one and a half hours. After the pork roast has been cooked, youll need to cut it into pieces. When youre ready to serve, youll want to add some vegetable stock or gravy. This will help to thicken the dish and add flavor.
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What Do I Use To Sweeten A Smoothie
All of these smoothies here use frozen fruit as a base, which adds a nice baseline of sweetness that you can build on if your tastebuds would like. My recommendation is to blend up your smoothie without any added sweetener, then taste. Add in honey or maple syrup to taste. Many times, I dont need to add anything! Another great natural option for sweetening: pitted Medjool dates. Throw in one or two of those bad boys and let the blender do its thing. Youd be amazed at how sweet your smoothie will be!
Frozen Mango Smoothie Recipe
This fruity Frozen Mango Smoothie Recipe is so quick and easy to make. Its the perfect cool snack or light meal.
Now that were moving into fall, I thought it would be the perfect time to share a Frozen Mango Smoothie Recipe. Because fall means its smoothie time, right?
Im not much about sticking to the seasonal fare rules, especially when it comes to smoothies. We like to enjoy fruit smoothies all year long. Thats why I like buying and staying stocked up on frozen fruit. Whether its blueberries, strawberries, cherries, or mango, you will always find a few bags of frozen fruit in our freezer. Which means that we are never without the ingredients for a healthy snack, quick breakfast, or even when needed, an easy lunch for on the go.
Our daughter, Hope, is a big mango fan. Ever since she enjoyed a frozen mango popsicle in NYC a few years back, she just cant seem to get enough of the tropical fruit in frozen form. So when she came home from college this weekend, I made sure to have a couple of bags of frozen mango ready because I knew she would get around to making her favorite smoothie, a Frozen Mango Smoothie.
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Why Use Frozen Fruits In Smoothies
Its so convenient!
Most supermarkets sell frozen smoothie packs these days.
Theres no need to wash or cut the fruits. Everything is done for you already. Its a huge timesaver!
You wont even have to defrost the fruits before making smoothies. Just open the bag, add some to your blender and youre good.
Just because its convenient doesnt mean its less healthy!
Fruits are picked and frozen at peak ripeness. Studies show again and again that frozen fruits retain at least as many vitamins, minerals, as fresh fruits. Some fruits can even retain more vitamins when theyre frozen than when theyre bought fresh.
Using more frozen fruits also means less spoilage.
Frozen fruits are good for months, instead of just days. You can easily enjoy your favorite fruits at any time of the year.
Using frozen fruits actually makes your smoothies taste better.
Some people like to use ice cubes in their smoothies, I like using frozen fruits. A chilled smoothie simply tastes better, theres no question about it. Save the ice, and add some frozen fruits instead.