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Step aside salad. You’re no longer the only way to get dark leafy greens into my diet. I’m sharing a leafy green list of greatness with you as well as how to use greens in a smoothie like the best green smoothie (or salad or soup or anything) as well as why it’s good to rotate your greens and try something like a kale banana smoothie every so often. Ready, set, go green!
Table of Contents
What are Leafy Greens?
Leafy greens are super important for a healthy diet. They’re nutrient-dense, green veggies that provide tons of vitamins and minerals. According to the US Department of Health and Human Services, a daily serving of leafy greens can lead to slower age-related cognitive decline.
Greens can be found as the tops of other plants (here’s looking at you, carrot tops and beet greens), or as plants in their own right. They come in all shapes, sizes, textures, shades and seasons. They aren’t even all in the same plant family.
If your taste buds have ever balked at something dark green and leafy, never fear! I’ve got some great new options for you to blend.
The Ultimate Dark Leafy Greens List
I often talk about rotating your greens. This is because greens come from all different plant families, each offering different health benefits. Yet if spinach is your jam, no worries! Your body will tell you when it’s time for a leafy green change-up. Read on to learn about some different types of greens, as well as my favorite options in each family.
Crucifers
Kale
Having a health issue? Kale can help with that. Seriously, kale is at the top of the superfood chain. With 684% of the recommended daily value of vitamin K, 206% of the RDV of vitamin A and 134% of the RDV of vitamin C, this dark leafy green packs a health punch. Kale has the highest level of antioxidants when consumed raw, yet does retain some health benefits when cooked. Try kale in this simple kale smoothie.
Collard
Like their other cruciferous family members, collard greens are great cancer fighters. They are also pretty good at helping your body digest foods properly with all the fiber inside. They are most popular steamed, but adding them raw to your smoothies will provide greater health benefits. Try some alkaline recipes to experiment with collards.
Cabbage
Cabbage is yet another example of a cruciferous cancer-fighting leafy green. This veggie can actually be purple, red, white or green, but is definitely still considered a leafy green. I love using cabbage as a plant-based taco shell, blended in a cabbage smoothie or roasted cabbage with light seasoning. Loaded with fiber, folate, vitamin B6 and antioxidants which help fight inflammation.
Bok Choy
This unique green vegetable is typically grown and harvested in China. Full of vitamins A and C, bok choy ranks high for nutrient density as well. All parts of the plant can be used: shredded in a salad, my vegetarian ramen, cooked in soup or blended in a smoothie.
Arugula
More than just a garnish, this leafy green has a peppery taste and a full nutrient profile. One cup contains 27.7% of the RDV of vitamin K. It has a stronger flavor than other cruciferous greens on my list, yet is fun in lemon arugula salad or strawberry arugula salad, homemade arugula pesto, or as a pizza topping on my incredibly delicious plant-based pizza recipe.
Amaranth
Spinach
It’s hard to beat spinach when talking about nutrient-packed greens. Just one leaf contains a sampling of more than 20 different nutrients. The list of benefits is nearly as long as the number of nutrients:
- cancer-fighting
- blood pressure lowering
- bone strengthening
- cardiovascular helping
- brain boosting
- skin smoothing
- vision improving
- inflammation reducing
- energy increasing
Beet Greens
I recommend branching out and trying beet greens for your next smoothie! They include a wide variety of nutrients, and can easily be substituted in any recipe with spinach, kale or chard. Our friends at Epicurious will kick-start your love for dark leafy beet greens with some of their favorite recipes.
Chard
Looking to put a pep in your leafy green step? Chard is a colorful, dark leaf known for its ability to regulate the body’s blood sugar. Translation? If diabetes or maintaining blood sugar levels is a concern, add this veggie to your regular rotation. Perfect for the afternoon smoothie pick-me-up!
Asteraceae
Romaine Lettuce
Romaine lettuce is good for the heart and low in calories. The vitamin C and beta-carotene content help to lower cholesterol and prevent build-up on artery walls, which reduces the risk of a heart attack.
Not a fan of lettuce salads? Then use romaine as a food wrap like I do in these Thai lettuce wraps or blend it into this gazpacho soup recipe.
Apiaceae
Carrot Tops
Who knew those frilly greens on the tops of carrots could come in handy? #NoFoodWaste. Filled with chlorophyll, which can fight against tumor growth and acts as a cleansing agent, carrot tops are the perfect addition to smoothies like this carrot top smoothie.
If you really want to boost your next smoothie, toss in the carrot and its top.
How Often Should You Rotate Greens?
Most of the smoothie and meal recipes I create use kale or spinach. That’s because these are the most easily found and affordable leafy greens available at the grocery store. Plus, they are in different leafy green families, so it makes rotating my greens easy-peasy.
Alkaloid Build Up
Why is it important to rotate through this leafy green list? All greens have small amounts of toxins. If you only consume greens from one family, your body may start to experience alkaloid build up. This is very rare and easy to avoid. Just try a different leafy green every once in a while.
I recommend rotating your greens once a week. This way, your body doesn’t get too much of a good thing in one leafy green family, and you get the chance to reward your body with new nutrients from a different green family.
Basically, by rotating greens on a regular basis, you avoid building up the toxins from one green. And, this gives you a reason to try that new fun green you’re always eyeing at the farmer’s market.
While our green smoothies are super easy to swap out one green for another, I’ve also got a meal planner full of plant-based recipes. Rawk the Year makes finding new recipes a breeze, and helps you incorporate the whole rainbow into your week. This meal planner also equips you with the kitchen skills to change up your veggies with ease!
Freezing Your Leafy Greens
Ever wonder how to use up all that beautiful produce you just bought, before it starts to wilt? Even though I make green smoothies daily, I still find that my greens never stay fresh as long as I need.
To lengthen the shelf life of those leafy greens and make rotating your greens as easy as opening your freezer, I came up with a way to freeze your greens. This way, you can have your greens and eat them too! Since I typically buy spinach and kale at Costco, I found that freezing them in ice cube trays and then storing them in freezer containers is the perfect solution to maximizing the freshness.
Bonus: Frozen greens can help keep that smoothie cool.
Leafy Greens FAQs
You’ve probably heard of spinach, kale and lettuce, but leafy greens also include carrot tops, beet greens, swiss chard, arugula and more! They can grow all on their own, or be found on the tops of other plants (like broccoli, beets and carrots).
All leafy greens are incredibly nutritious and great to mix into your diet. Kale and spinach are probably the most nutrient-dense, yet you need a variety of greens (and other fruits and vegetables) for the best health. Don’t be afraid to give a new one a try next time you’re at the store. You might be surprised by mustard greens, bok choy and more!
Greens don’t just take place in salads or garnishes for burgers. You can use them in green smoothies, all kinds of pesto, filling for stuffed mushrooms or potatoes. Pretty much anything you want! Next time you are grocery shopping, grab a new-to-you leafy green and get adventurous with how you prepare it.
The Ultimate Green Smoothie App
Our amazing app, Daily Blends Smoothie app., has hundreds of recipes ready for you to work your way through the leafy greens list! You can sort by the ingredients you have on hand or the type of smoothie you want to try. It’s a great app to try a new recipe and catalog your favorites.
What are your favorite leafy greens? Drop a comment below and let me know if this list has inspired you to try a new ingredient, or if you’ve got a new green for me to try!
For those concerned about the effect of cruciferous veggies on thyroid…
Short answer: get enough iodine and you shouldn’t have any problem.
Hello Simple Green Smoothies,
some greens are not “mild” like kale or spinach, but a little … don’t know the word… (sharp/harsh/acrid/…?).
It just happened yesterday… It is a flavor that I experienced from adding perhaps too much of the stem of bok choi? Or perhaps the green of turnip cabbage or savoy cabbage or others. Or batavia lettuce? Or too much romaine lettuce? I’m a bit lost…
Question: Which ingredient counter-balances that?
Question: Which greens can be used in “cup-fuls” like kale and spinach, which should only be added in smaller amounts due to their strong taste?
Idea: Perhaps you could help a little and put the greens in two categories “main-green” vs. “side-green” (like main and side dish).
Or you add a little advice such as green x leads to flavor y and is best combined with type z fruits (e.g. citrus fruits // berries // bananas // …)
As they seem to delist frozen kale during summer and fresh kale is only rarely available, I need new “main greens”… and some of my own attempts to substitute your greens in your recipes went … ahem… not so well.
Thanks
Best regards
Birte
This is probably the most helpful:
Some people have a “bitter gene” that makes certain vegetable taste bitter to them. Try baby leaves, and try different kinds of leaves to find some that suit your taste. I personally find that red-leaved varieties usually taste less bitter. Remember to disguise your greens with lots of sweet fruit and ensure it’s blended thoroughly in a high quality blender 😀
Thanks, Vicky!
Yes, harvest time for baby leaves is coming up (if I keep finding the slugs before they find my baby leaves…). Problem solved 😉
Bitter (as in endive, dandelion,…) is fine with me, it’s more the fiercness (a very specific acridity) of cabbage I don’t like that much in a smoothie.
(I like nibbling raw turnip and other cabbages and I find that taste very good then)
I must say it is more a problem of “winter/spring smoothies” – I try to buy regional and seasonal and the variety of green leaves in winter is basically down to lamb’s lettuce and cabbage.
Hi there, thanks for the clear explanation of rotating the greens. I’m used to take my green smoothie every morning, but I’m really stuck on one favorite smoothie. Spinach, banana, some peanut butter, cacao and almond milk. I always use deep frozen spinach. Here in the Netherlands we have deep frozen spinach in little cubes, so it’s easy to throw 3 or 4 cubes of spinach into my smoothie. Makes my smoothie cool and fresh. But I’m not sure if it’s o.k. to use deep frozen vegetables?
Should be fine, Conny! Fresh is always best, but frozen is good, too.
Hi – This is a really helpful guide to the various families of leafy greens, and thank you for compiling it for us! I am wondering about the calcium content of dandelion greens… You list that a “healthy dose” contains almost as much calcium as a serving of cow’s milk, yet one cup raw of this green has only 10 percent of avg daily calcium needs… which is still a nice amount, but only a third of that in milk. Did you mean that a healthy dose would be three cups of dandelion greens?? Or was the amount of calcium you listed taking into account the bioavailability factor? Thank you!
Also I wanted to say that sometimes frozen veggies are actually fresher than “fresh” greens in the supermarket, which you cannot be certain as to how long they’ve been sitting there… Sometimes I go to buy greens and none of the bunches look as healthy as I’d like, a bit wilted. But usually when greens and other veggies are frozen and packaged for consumption, they are “flash frozen” which does preserve the nutrients very effectively! They also tend to be a bit more economical for those of us for whom that might be more of a concern.
Hi Rebecca!
We suggest using at least two cups of leafy greens in each smoothie, which would make it close to the calcium content in dairy milk. Hope this helps!
Rebecca – cows milk takes out more calcium from your body than it puts in, because your body has to strip calcium from your bones to neutralise the phosphorus and sulphur in the milk. This is why countries with the highest milk consumption have the highest levels of osteoporosis. The dairy industry propagandizes milk is being high in calcium for sales purposes. It is an easy sell, because milk and dairy are white or yellow like teeth and bones, so it is easy to form associations in people’s minds. Most people don’t even realise that calcium is a grey shiny metal.
Many leaves including dandelion greens have much more calcium than milk per 100 grams, but one cup of dandelion greens is probably only about 30 or 40 grams whereas one cup of milk is about 200 millilitres. Officially, to count as one of your portions of fruit or veg you need to eat 80 grams.
Cruciferous vegetables are higher in calcium than dandelion leaves though.
Yes, it is ok!
I always have kilos of that organic, frozen spinach (in cubes) in my freezer. My understanding is that its vitamin level is even better, as they directly process it after harvesting it.
And unfortunately most greens pretty quickly lose their vitamin levels.
(But some stuff even grows on a balcony/in a small garden!)
Maybe the German cubes are smaller, but I guess I use at least 15-25 cubes per (2-pers.) serving 😉 maybe I need to count again…
Best regards
Birte
PS: But 2 cups (as in the recipes) really almost equals 1 pack of frozen spinach (450 or 500 g). It really is a lot!
Do you have any thoughts on possibly adding edible seaweed to a smoothie? I’m trying to figure out a methodology for nori. Maybe soak and then blend? Any ideas?
Here’s some of our favorite things to add:
https://simplegreensmoothies.com/superfoods-list
Haven’t tried seaweed, though!
This is great news. I’d like to know if you could still use a mixture of beetroots and carrots as the vegetable? Just a thought because you haven’t mentioned them anywhere.
Sure, Christine! Check out this page!
https://simplegreensmoothies.com/fruit-and-vegetable-smoothie
Do you peel cucumbers?
You don’t need to!
This is such GREAT information ladies! Thank you so much for taking the time to put this together…very clear and concise! I will DEFINETLY be rotating my greens!
Great Jadah & Jen …. on the whole level just great !
and, i drink about one liter of a smoothie during the morning and its energy lasts for hours. sometimes it takes till two or sometimes even four o’clock p.m., till i am hungry again. i dont know if that is maybe too unilatterally and should i perhaps drink less smoothie and eat some more different things during a day ?i am not quiet sure. and i am not really going vegan or raw. i love salats, yes, which i use to eat at late afternoon. but i like cooked food once in a while, as i love to go to the pizzeria with friends sometimes and once a day i do drink coffee too, not with cowmilk, but other like almond or haver. but my question ….. if you only drink one smoothie in the morning, do you have something else for breakfast also ? and what do you eat during the rest of the day ? and do you do sports once a day or once per week, or something ? i am really curious about that. thank you so much and keep the good spirits up ! xxxx
Hi Dina!
We recommend drinking about 16-20 ounces for breakfast, and not eating anything else with it. It would be totally fine to workout, play sports, or anything active with just having a green smoothie for breakfast. They are packed with nutrition that will fuel your body!
Hello, i signed for the live 30 Day Challenge that starts in April, but i am starting with some of the recipes you have. I live in the Dominican Republic and kale is not that easy to find. When the challenge starts and i don’t have Kale, can i use another green? I bought baby spinach and that is what i am putting on my smoothies.
I’m in Mexico, and I have had Kale for the first time ever just last week (they just started selling it at the local supermarket a couple weeks ago). I’m taking a guess but “La Española” island 🙂 is quite warm, so greens like Kale or chard do not grow (they turn bitter if exposed to warm temperatures). But I believe you can find cabbage, celery, beets (for the tops), or lettuce? You can use all of them!
Sounds like Ces has some great options for you Gisselle! You can use any of the leafy greens above in any smoothie, too!
I have an underactive thyroid and my nutritionist said to cook any cruciferous vegetables to get rid of the goitergens. She that with a thyroid issue if you eat too many raw cruciferous vegetables you risk getting a goiter. When I use greens like spinach, kale, collard, greens, etc. I usually steam them a little. Do you think this has an effect on the smoothies?
Hi Natalie!
It definitely takes out some of the nutrition, but please follow your nutritionist’s orders!
Natalie, I have found out that when I eat too much it sends me into hypothyroidism. Hate that because I love spinach kale and arugula. I have also read that this can happen if your iodine levels are low. Have you heard that? I asked my doctor but he thought I was crazy. he put me on thyroid meds. I did not take them. I just changed what i ate. Now I went back three months later and he said the meds are working. I laughed and told him no I just changed my diet.
Hi! I’m venturing to assume that, when you use greens for your smoothies, you use the stems (if they are not de-stemmed as it happens when you buy spinach or chopped kale by the bag). When you use greens with thick, fibrous stems like Celery or Bok Choy, do you chop the stalk and count it towards the cup, or how do you measure it?
Hi Ces! For celery and bok choy, we just trim a small piece off the end if it’s dry at all and for the other greens, if it has a thick stem (like that of fresh kale not already pre-chopped, we cut that out and just use the leafy green part. And we measure the entire thing. 🙂
Hi I’ve been interested in the idea of the Green Smoothie Challenge for a while now but I’m still in the process of researching more about it. So, this might be a ignorant question but could asparagus be used as one of the greens in the smoothie?
Hi Katelyn!
We like to use one leafy green per green smoothie, and the rest is filled with fruit/vegetables. Asparagus would be one of those vegetables, but not technically a leafy green. We’ve never made a recipe with asparagus, though!
Hello I have a 8 and a 5 year old whom are starting to like the smothies I make at home. I want to know is it “kid friendly” and if so is there any recipes you might have for them to sip on. Thanks for your help!!
Hi Adriana! It sure is kid-friendly 🙂 If you go to our recipe page, you should see a button near the top that says “kid-friendly,” and it will give you some great options!
https://simplegreensmoothies.com/recipes
I have a question about cruciferous veggies and the thyroid. Should you avoid raw cruciferous veggies and greens if you have a thyroid condition?
Hi Deb,
We definitely recommend talking to your health care provider to see if raw veggies will hurt if you have a medical condition.
🙂
I just posted about this above a few. If I have too much it sends me into hypothyroidism
Hi! My husband and I have literally just started the green smoothie thing yesterday! It wasn’t as bad as we though thank goodness, we found its a huge mental thing rather than taste. My question is we are only using spinach at the moment for our green, and I must admit quite nervous to try other green, any recommendations for a beginner who is at this stage only having spinach, what would a good next step be in terms of a new green to add in the mix?
Thanks!
I use spinach almost exclusively, but I also use romaine and bok choy rather than kale because, though I have a good blender, I still can sense the weird texture of kale. Cilantro and celery are strong, but if you like them, go for it. Cabbage isn’t too strong, so you may want to try that, too.
Try lambs lettuce, also known as “corn salad” – it’s tastes exactly like spinach but is in a different family. Also, try rocket, also known as arugula, but be sure to choose the “salad” or “cultivated” variety rather than the “wild” sort, which is incredibly peppery and should be used as a herb, not a salad leaf. (It’s also not actually wild, that’s just what it’s called). Also, try generic salad leaves, they are often polycress or some related green.
Thanks! I’ve started using bok choy and romaine instead of kale because I don’t like the texture of kale. But spinach is my favorite! Can’t believe how many greens I get per day!
Isn’t it crazy how many greens are out there? So good for you!