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If you’re new to green smoothies—or just want one that actually tastes good—this is the recipe to start with. This simple green smoothie blends spinach with banana, mango, and pineapple to create a naturally sweet, tropical drink that comes together in minutes. It’s proof that healthy can be easy, delicious, and something you’ll actually want to make again tomorrow.
Table of Contents
What is a Green Smoothie?
A green smoothie is a blended drink made with leafy green vegetables, like spinach or kale, and naturally sweet fruit such as bananas, berries, or tropical fruit. The fruit balances the flavor of the greens, creating a smooth, refreshing drink that’s easy to enjoy. Green smoothies are a quick and simple way to add more fiber, vitamins, and minerals to your day in one glass.
Ingredients You’ll Need
Everything you need to make my favorite green smoothie recipe is found in a garden, farmer’s market, or the produce section of your grocery store. I’ve found that the closer we eat to nature, the better we feel. This green smoothie recipe is a great way to start that journey.
- Fresh spinach: Baby spinach is the most mild version to use in smoothies, and also the most easy to find. I suggest using organic spinach because it’s on the dirty dozen list.
- Pineapple: I buy frozen pineapple at Costco in bulk to make frozen meal prep smoothie packs. If it’s on sale, I’ll cut pineapple and freeze it myself.
- Mango: You’ll find frozen mango next to the ice cream in the freezer section. I love how it’s already peeled and cut for you and ready to add to the blender. If fresh mango is on sale, you can always cut the mango and freeze yourself. Check out my guide on how to cut mango.
- Fresh banana: Bananas add a creaminess to smoothies that is hard to replicate. It’s magic! You can also freeze bananas to use them in green smoothies, yet the best results come from blending with a fresh, ripe banana.
- Water: The liquid base in the smoothie is water. Use filtered water to avoid any unnecessary chemicals or pollutants.
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How to Make a Green Smoothie
- Blend 1 cup of spinach in a blender with 1 cup of liquid. Blend until all leafy chunks are gone.
- Toss in frozen mango, pineapple, and bananas in the blender. Blend on high until smooth and creamy. If you want your smoothie to be extra chilly or possibly even turn it into a smoothie bowl, use more frozen fruit. (You can freeze your favorite fruits like ripe bananas, grapes, pineapple, or berries.)
- Add in superfoods once the smoothie is nice and creamy. Chia seeds, hemp hearts, and flax seeds are all great choices.
- In order to break down the cell walls of the plants, you need to blend at high speed. You shouldn’t have any leafy chunks or weird texture in your smoothie if your blender is powerful enough.
- Drink immediately. To get the maximum amount of nutrients from a smoothie, drink it immediately after blending it.
Recipe Tips
- Following a simple smoothie method in my how to make a smoothie guide helps balance greens, fruit, and liquid for a smooth, great-tasting blend. Tossing in random greens can lead to bitter flavors or a thin texture.
- Frozen fruit makes smoothies thick and creamy without ice, which can dilute flavor and strain your blender. I use a fresh banana for creaminess, plus frozen mango and frozen pineapple for sweetness.
- Invest in a high-speed blender for smoothies if you plan to make green smoothies a daily habit—it makes blending faster, smoother, and easier to stick with. A juicer or food processor won’t work to get you a creamy smoothie.
Ingredient Swaps
- Banana: You can substitute it with a quarter of an avocado.
- Mango: Swap with frozen pineapple, red apple or peaches for a fiber-rich alternative.
- Pineapple: Swap with a naval orange to get that juicy citrus flavor.
- Water: Use oat milk, almond milk, coconut water or orange juice depending on your health goals. Here are some of my favorite oat milk brands and almond milk brands to buy.
- Spinach: Swap for kale, Swiss chard, beet greens, or any leafy green vegetables of your choice.
How to Store a Green Smoothie
Store your green smoothie in the fridge with an air-tight lid (ex: mason jars are great) for up to 48 hours, yet I think it tastes best if consumed within 4 hours after blending. The longer your smoothie is exposed to oxygen, the more it breaks down and the nutrients deteriorate (aka: oxidation).
Green Smoothie Add-Ins
- Protein powder: You can turn any green smoothie recipe into a meal replacement by adding a serving of my homemade protein powder to the blender.
- Natural sweeteners: Increase sweetness by using more natural sweeteners like honey, maple syrup, bananas, or dates. A smoothie can taste like dessert without any refined sugars.
- Chia seeds: A simple way to add more healthy fats and protein is to add 2 tbsp chia seeds. It won’t alter the taste, but drink fast or it will congeal. Some recipes suggest adding almond butter, yet that’s disgusting in a tropical green smoothie
- Collagen: Unflavored collagen is a simple way to add additional protein and support gut health.
- More vegetables: Try adding 1/4 cup frozen cauliflower for a fiber boost without altering the flavor.
More Green Smoothies
Here’s some of the most popular green smoothie recipes on my blog to try next:
- My son is obsessed with this mango orange smoothie recipe.
- This tropical kale smoothie will surprise even the pickiest smoothie drinkers.
- I love this glowing green smoothie with spinach and romaine lettuce for digestive support.
- Escape with this tropical detox island green smoothie to heal from within.
If you make this best green smoothie recipe, I’d love to hear how it turned out in the comment box below. Your feedback helps me and all the readers in this community. And if you’re interested in more plant-based recipes (and exclusive content), sign up for my weekly recipe newsletter.
Dietary Adjustments & Substitutions
Need to accommodate a food allergy? Click the button below for tailored suggestions just for you:
Best Green Smoothie Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 cup spinach
- 1 cup water
- ½ cup pineapple frozen
- ½ cup mango frozen
- 1 banana
Instructions
- Measure: Tightly pack spinach in a measuring cup.
- Add: Put spinach to blender with water. Blend together until all chunks are gone. (Should resemble green water when blended well).
- Toss: Pineapple, mango and banana to blender. I like to use frozen pineapple and mangos to chill the smoothie down and save time cutting and prepping. It’s a win-win!
- Blend: It all together until smooth and creamy. Depending on your blender, this could take as little as 30 seconds or as long as 2 minutes.
- Pour: Into a glass and serve immediately.
Video
Helpful Tools
Notes
- Try adding a serving of homemade protein powder, it’s super clean and easy to make.
- Not a fan of bananas? Swap it for 1/4 avocado, additional 1/2 cup mango or 1/2 cup peaches.
- You can use 1 cup pineapple if you’re out of mango.
- Frozen fruit is recommended to chill the smoothie (and save time cutting and washing).
- Store in the fridge with a lid until ready to drink.
Nutrition
Did you make this recipe?
Leave a review for a chance to win signed copies of my cookbooks!Common Questions
You won’t be able to taste the spinach if you use the proper ratio of fruit to spinach (1½ : 1). This green smoothie recipe tastes like a mango pineapple smoothie with a hint of banana flavor.
For busy weeks, you can create frozen smoothie packs that you prep on the weekend and enjoy all week, or month. It’ll only take you 5 minutes every morning to have a green smoothie ready to go. You can also blend your smoothie the night before and store it in your fridge until ready to drink.
Green smoothies are the healthiest fast food out there. Blending spinach and fruit into a smoothie is a great way to boost your immune system, increase fiber intake, and boost your energy levels. Adding kale or spinach in a smoothie has incredible health benefits with additional phytonutrients. What we eat can truly transform our body in powerful ways!
Most smoothies you buy or find online are made with just fruit and fruit juice. This makes them crazy high in sugar, which can cause inflammation and consuming excess calories. A green smoothie, on the other hand, is made with fruit and leafy greens, typically spinach or kale. They’re loaded with iron, potassium, fiber and vitamins galore.
Any blender will work, yet to get the creamiest green smoothie you’ll need a high speed blender. Check out my blenders for smoothies guide, where I reviewed countless blenders to find the best ones for green smoothies. The key is to get rid of leafy chunks, blend quickly and provide tons of value for the price. Hint: not all of them cost $400.
hi, I noticed a some of the smothies have pineapple im allergic and wanted to know what can I use as a substitute.
Hey Gaby.
Thanks for the comment, try another sweet fruit in your smoothie, perhaps mango or a banana. 🙂
So excited! Day 1 of my 30-Day Green Smoothie Challenge and I feel better already! I made a delicious smoothie! Here’s the recipe:
2 cups kale
11/2 cups almond milk
1/2 banana
1 cup tropical frozen fruit
1 Tbsp. maca
It was sooooo good! 🙂
Cheers to you and you health journey! 🙂 We are cheering you on!
if I’m doing a meal replace smoothie how many ounces should I be drinking. and what meal replacement smoothie for weight loss do you recommend?
Hey Aujanae.
A meal replacement should be 16oz + a protein. 🙂
Hi. I really like your recipe. But ı don’t know when to drink it. Cause it’s like to have a lot calorie. Need your help. Thanks
Hey Sema! 🙂
Our smoothie recipes make about 4-5 cups (32oz – 40oz). Jadah drinks at least 2 cups (16 oz) everyday in the morning as a breakfast meal replacement. Jen drinks hers for lunch or sometimes as a mid morning snack Since green smoothies are full of fiber, they keep us both full for a while. If either of us needs afternoon pick-me-ups, we have been known to make another green smoothie later in the day instead of drinking a caffeinated beverage.
If you drink green smoothies as meal replacements, make sure to add a protein boost (plant-based protein powder, nut milk, nut butter), or snack on some nuts or a hard-boiled egg 30-60 minutes after you drink your green smoothie.
thanks sooo much 🙂 you are perfect 🙂 that helped a lot
Happy to help, Sema. 🙂
I just wanted to say that I am absolutely loving the recipes. I’ve had no trouble at all getting acclimated to all the Smoothies. This is my new lifestyle! Kudos to all of you that were involved in putting this site & program together. <3
Thanks for joining us, Cecilia, as well blend our way to health. 🙂
I’ve lost 15 lbs total since the start of Oct’s Challenge to date, plus some inches. Felling better as well. I already referred family, & now I’m going to refer my Fibromyalgia Support Group here. I hope they take advantage of the opportunity you all have given to us. 😉 Oh, I referred my Dr as well! lmao
Hey, I think your smoothies are fantastic and I’m on the Smoothie Challenge for October. I’m off-roading it with my own recipes after relying on yours for the first two weeks – though still smoothie-ing every day. I feel way better! Just wanted to suggest that maybe for us Europeans, you could include the measurements you give in metrics as well as in Imperial? It would really help as when I was following your recipes I kept having to convert. We don’t work in Imperial measurements anywhere in Europe these days, and fruit and veg are only sold by metric weight, so it means having to do all the conversions at home before hitting the supermarket. Just an idea! Thanks in the meantime for giving me the impetus to do this – it’s brilliant!
Hey Caroline!
Thanks for the suggestion! 🙂 We totally hear ya, and we are working on giving our recipes in Metric as well. 🙂 Be on the look out for it to be coming your way soon. 🙂
I’m with you Caroline, wish the US would just convert already, would make things a whole lot easier on all of us. I have a tendency to get hold of European recipes and have to convert it back for my use in the states, enough already. Enjoying my first homemade smoothie as I write, I could get used to this!
Thanks Deb for your input. 🙂 It would be nice if we were be on the Metric System. 🙂 Maybe one day…until then we will get those conversation out asap! 🙂
Do you have the calories fo the smoothies?
Hey Elizabeth. 🙂
We personally don’t count calories, so we don’t include them in our recipes at this time. You’ll find that when you consume more nourishing whole fruits and veggies, you will not only feel full longer, but you’ll also have lessened cravings for high-calorie, nutritionally empty foods. So in the end it balances out. But we know many people would like to have calorie info. Three great resources for tracking calories are Self Nutrition Data and the phone apps My Fitness Pal and Lose It.
Awesome thank you
I am starting my Smoothie challenge but I am not being able to save the pdf on my tablet, desktop or my cell.
Beginner’s Luck Green Smoothie, is the beginning of the challenge right?
Monell
Which tablet are using, Monell?
How long does a smootie last ?I find using pineapple it foments quickly
Hey! 🙂 Great question. Some people say you have to drink it “right away” to get the optimal nutrients from each blend. But if left in the fridge over-night for one to three days, the taste and satisfaction is still there. You also may add a small amount of lemon juice to preserve and keep the smoothie blend as fresh as possible. Your body is still reaping the benefits of consuming fruits and vegetables even if it is not consumed right away.
My 3 and 5 year old boys loved this smoothie. We added superhero seeds (what they call chia seeds) to make it that much better. Thank you for sharing this recipe! Funny because apart from the banana, they would never eat the other ingredients but love them blended together.
Wonderful!!
I’m allergic to coconut, what would be a better sub . for coconut milk.
Hey Dawn,
Rice, hemp or almond milks are great choices. 🙂
If you have a Vitamix, do you still recommend blending the liquid and leafy greens together first, or should you put it all in and blend at once? How long do you recommend blending?
Thank you!
I’m very excited to start this challenge, just got my new Vitamix today! Can these smoothies be made the night before for the following day? Also, can you drink more than the recommended pint?
Hey Kim. Here are our prep ahead tips. 🙂 https://simplegreensmoothies.com/meal-prep-smoothies/
Is it a problem if I add Greek yogurt to my smoothie?
Hey Jessi.
Great question! We’ve talked with a lot of nutritionists and milk isn’t all that it’s been hyped up to be. Dairy is one of the highest diet allergies (and often goes undiagnosed), yet can cause inflammation and infections. And if you aren’t buying organic milk, you’re also getting doses of antibiotics, hormones, etc that can tip your own body out of whack. So we just avoid milk for our family (and opt for almond milk). We get our calcium from plant-based sources mainly— broccoli, spinach and kale.
It’s definitely a personal choice, and you just have to decide what works best for you and your family.
New to this. Never heard of almond butter. Where do you buy it?
Hey Barbara.
Almond butter is a food paste made from almonds. Almond butter may be crunchy or smooth, and is generally “stir” or “no-stir”. Almond butter may be either raw or roasted, describing the almonds themselves prior to grinding. You can buy it at most grocery stores, it is near the peanut butter.:)
Good morning, I am new to this challenge and I just want to double check that I should start with the Beginners Luck on the first day and then move on to the other smoothies.
Thank you,
Adrienne
Hey Adrienne.
Thanks for the question. Have you signed up and received Week 1 Recipes and Shopping list? You can sign up here: https://simplegreensmoothies.com/challenge/ and we will send you what is on our menu for this week. If you would like to have Beginner’s Luck, go for it! It is FABULOUS!
So, yep looks like I missed your response….. Yes, I was signed up when I made my inquiry. I have been receiving all of my information and I must admit the smoothies have been delicious so far.
Thanks.
Wonderful to hear! 🙂 Let us know if we can help with anything else. 🙂 Keep blending those leafy greens!
Hi
Thank you for theses amazing recipes. I would like to know if we susbstitue the super by one of these smoothies?
Could you please add the number of calories and suger for each smoothie?
Thank you so much again