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If you love chocolate but still want to make choices that help you feel good, this Chocolate Strawberry Green Smoothie is about to become your new favorite blend. It tastes rich and chocolatey—almost like dessert—yet it’s made with simple, plant-based ingredients, including a generous handful of kale.
This recipe proof that green smoothies don’t have to taste green. When you pair leafy green vegetables with the right fruits and flavors, they disappear into something sweet, creamy, and totally satisfying.
Table of Contents
Why This Green Smoothie Tastes Like Dessert
The secret is balance. Sweet strawberries and banana bring natural sweetness, cacao adds deep chocolate flavor, and almond milk keeps everything smooth and creamy. Kale blends right in (or sneaks in), adding nutrients without competing with the chocolate-strawberry combo.
It’s the kind of smoothie you make when you want something indulgent—but still want to nourish your body.
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Ingredients You’ll Need
- Kale: A leafy green in a dessert?! Kale yeah!!! De-stem before adding to the blender to cut down on the bite or use baby kale for a milder kale option. You can freeze kale and use later, too.
- Almond milk: Unsweetened non-dairy milk is a great way to thicken a smoothie. Almond milk provides a bit of protein and a mild, nutty flavor that compliments both the fruit and cacao. You can also make your own almond milk, which tastes amazing.
- Strawberries: During strawberry season, use fresh for the sweetest taste. If you’re blending this smoothie during the winter months, frozen strawberries will give you the best flavor.
- Banana: I love freezing bananas to have on hand for tasty treats. Bananas provide natural sweetness as well as the milkshake flavor and texture that I want.
- Cacao powder: Unsweetened cacao powder is a chocolate-lovers superfood. No need for extra sweetener since you’re using other fruity ingredients. Surprisingly, cacao also helps balance the bite from the kale.
How to Make a Chocolate Strawberry Green Smoothie
Before you blend this one up, if you’re new to smoothies or want to make sure yours turns out thick, creamy, and never gritty, I recommend starting with my how to make a smoothie guide. It walks you through the simple formula I use every time—what to blend first, how to balance flavors, and how to make leafy greens disappear into dessert-worthy smoothies like this one. Once you’ve got that down, this Chocolate Strawberry Green Smoothie is practically foolproof.
- Start by adding the kale and almond milk to your blender. Blend until completely smooth—this step helps avoid any leafy texture. If your blender struggles with kale, check out my list of recommended blenders for smoothies.
- Next, add the frozen strawberries, banana, and cacao powder. Blend again until thick, creamy, and dessert-like.
- Pour into a glass and enjoy right away.
Ingredient Swaps & Variations
This smoothie recipe is flexible and easy to customize:
- Sub spinach for kale if you prefer a milder green.
- Swap unsweetened cocoa powder for cacao powder if that’s what you have.
- Use ¼ banana + ¼ avocado to lower natural sugar while keeping it creamy.
- Replace almond milk with oat milk, coconut milk, or any plant milk you love.
- Boost protein, healthy fat and fiber by adding in homemade protein powder.
Why I Add Kale to Smoothies
Surprisingly, this dessert-like chocolate strawberry smoothie only has 15 grams of natural sugar. It also boasts 9 grams of fiber, helping to process that natural sugar into a smooth energy boost that won’t leave you jittery. This comes from the mighty kale leaves. Adding kale to smoothies provides protein and fiber to break down the sugar from the fruit into useable energy for your body.
Recipe Tip
Add 1/2-1 cup of leafy greens to any fruit smoothie to help cut down on the natural sugar spikes. If you’re new to leafy greens, start with a small amount! Then as you get used to adding them, start increasing the amount to a healthy giant handful (one cup).
More Chocolate Smoothie Recipes
I love the idea of a dessert that gives my body a natural energy boost instead of putting me to sleep. I have an entire collection of chocolate smoothies that taste like a sweet treat yet pack in the plant-based benefits. Here are a few more:
- Chocolate covered cherry smoothie has a handful of spinach
- Chocolate banana smoothie uses frozen cauliflower
- Shamrock shake blends spinach and mint
- Skinny mint smoothie combines fresh mint leaves and baby spinach
If you make this chocolate strawberry 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.
Chocolate Strawberry Green Smoothie
Ingredients
- 1 cup kale
- 1 cup almond milk
- 1 cup strawberries frozen
- ½ banana
- 2 tablespoon cacao powder
Instructions
- Place kale and almond milk in blender. Puree until smooth.
- Add fruit and cacao, and blend again.
Helpful Tools
Notes
- Use at least one frozen fruit to make the smoothie cold.
- Swap in unsweetened cocoa powder for cacao powder.
- To lower the natural sugar, use 1/4 banana and 1/4 avocado.
- Use the plant milk of your choice in place of the almond milk.
- Use the leafy greens of your choice in place of the kale.
Nutrition
Did you make this recipe?
Leave a review for a chance to win signed copies of my cookbooks!No. The chocolate and strawberries completely mask the flavor of the kale. When you blend the kale with almond milk first, it becomes smooth and neutral, letting the dessert-like flavors shine.
Yes! Just make sure the cocoa powder is 100% unsweetened and the only ingredient listed is cocoa powder.
Yes! While this might be an opinion, chocolate typically goes well with most berries. Strawberries provide a sweet balance to the bitterness of cacao powder.
Kale is more nutrient-dense and holds up well to bold flavors like cacao. Its slightly earthy taste disappears once blended, making it a great green for rich, chocolatey smoothies.
I didn’t want to buy a big bag of cacao powder, since I didn’t think I’d use it for other things. I ended up just having this smoothie for lunch and replacing the cacao with chocolate plant-based protein powder. It was filling and tasted yummy although I think the chocolate flavor was more toned down than it would have been with actual cacao.
This is a smoothie I could make regularly! My blender is able to really make this smooth and the flavor is great! Love this one!
Yummo!
This was delicious, I really like this one
I had this first thing in the morning and 2 tbsp of cacao powder was too much for me I think. I’ll likely try it again with a little less after a workout bc it has great potential to be tasty!
I’m giving up coffe while I’m participating in this challenge. The cacao powder provided the missed coffee flavor for me so this smoothie is my favorite.
Hey, even my littlest (super picky) smoothie drinker drank it! I did have to quite a bit of extra liquid bc my blendtec didn’t like that all the berries and bananas were frozen.
Loved this smoothie! It was like a milkshake.
This Chocolate Strawberry smoothie was much better than it looked. The cacao turned it a very ugly brown. However, I loved the mix of the strawberry, chocolate and slight added flavor of the almond milk. It was super thick and I needed to add a little water to blend it but really good!
I love feeling decadent with the chocolate in this recipe!
One of my favorites, although I did use a little less cacao powder. With both frozen strawberries and frozen bananas, it was thick like a (healthy) milkshake.
I don’t know if the fact that the ingredients were not frozen and that I waited a while before drinking my smoothie somewhat affected the taste but this was not my favorite. Didn’t really like the bitter after taste from the cocoa. I just saw that I’m not the only one who didn’t enjoy this too too much. I would make it again though just for the great health benefits from the cocoa and will tweak it a bit to make more enjoyable for my taste.
Hey Sheera,
If you ever feel like your smoothie is too bitter you can always add some all natural sweeteners. Sometimes if the fruit isn’t just ripe they are missing their delicious flavor.
Check out our recommendations for all natural sweetners:
Ok I may be the only one but this was not easy to go down. There was nothing bad about it, just didn’t love it like the first two. Will def try again and see with different strawberries. But I did make it and drank it so that’s a win!
Hey Marilyn,
I am sorry this wasn’t a win for you… That is why we love offering so many different recipes to everyone, so you know what you like and don’t like. After these 30 days you will have a list of favorites that will be able to keep you going with your daily smoothie habit 🙂
I really enjoy this recipe, but you need to use super ripe and sweet strawberries for it to shine! Otherwise, it’s pretty tart. Defrosting strawberries a little helps to bring out their flavour too.
Hey Mireille,
You are exactly right! If your fruit isn’t perfectly ripe you might have a bitter tasting smoothie on your hands. You can always add some honey to your smoothie if that happens so it doesn’t taste soo bitter.
Not my favorite… If i repeat this recipe I’ll add less cacao powder…
Strawberries! Chocolate! Yum!