Healthy Smoothie Recipes For Kids To Enjoy

What better way to get your kids to have their daily dose of fruit and vegetables, than a yummy smoothie? Creamy yoghurt combined with fresh or frozen fruit – these miracle drinks are fresh, fast, high in fibre, low in fat and packed with vitamins and antioxidants. With the correct ingredients you can create tasty and nutritious smoothies that your kids will happily drink.

Tips for whipping up child-friendly Smoothies

• Instead of using ice, use frozen fruit as this will allow your smoothie to get that frozen texture and it will also boost the flavour.
• Most kids probably don’t enjoy plain yoghurt on its own, however when you use them in smoothies they won’t even know the difference as the fruit will sweeten it up. So why bother with all the added sugar in the flavoured yoghurts?
• Introduce your kids to smoothies by giving them what they want – tasty ingredients. At first, focus on the healthy ingredients that they like and then slowly bring in the ones that are more contentious. You know your kids and what they like, but typically kids want sweet ingredients and a creamy, milkshake-like consistency.
• Another great way to get your kids more excited about smoothies is to get them involved in the process of making them. Let them help you make the smoothies with the ingredients they like and work up to letting them make ingredient suggestions and craft their own recipes

Here are three smoothie recipes that my daughter cannot get enough of. Don’t stop here though – have fun mixing and matching your favourite fruits and vegetables.

1. Very Berry

In a blender combine the following ingredients:

• ½ cup of fresh or frozen blueberries, raspberries and/or strawberries
• ½ cup of raspberry or cranberry juice
• ¼ cup of plain yoghurt
• 3 ice cubes (if using fresh fruit)

2. Banana split

In a blender combine the following ingredients:

• 1 frozen banana
• 2 cups frozen strawberries
• ¾ cup of plain or greek yoghurt
• 1 cup of low-fat chocolate milk

3. Sunshine Girl

In a blender combine the following ingredients:

• ½ cup of baby carrots
• 1 cup of frozen pineapple chunks
• ½ cup of orange juice
• ¾ cup of plain greek yoghurt
• ½ cup of frozen mango pieces
• 1 tablespoon of honey

Happy Blending!