Making Green Smoothies in a Standard Blender – the Easy Way

I’m embarrassed to say this given how much I love them now, but in my pre-Vitamix days, I hardly ever drank green smoothies. Proof positive: I started Veggie Quest in 2010, but didn’t post a green smoothie recipe until 2014! That’s because the few times I tried making a green smoothie in a regular blender, for the life of me, I couldn’t get it to work.

In fact, I amassed quite the list of things NOT to do, including:

1. Load everything in the blender (in no particular order) and turn it on
2. Pulse the blade and curse as the fruit and greens hover above the blade, completely intact
3. Try to shove the ingredients into the [running] blender with a bamboo spatula
4. Drink the smoothie anyway, even though there are tiny chunks of spatula in it

Luckily I survived my early attempts at green smoothie making with all my fingers (if not my kitchen utensils) intact. However, given the hassle, I gave up on green smoothies entirely until my mom gave hubby Jeff and me a Vitamix. (Thank you, Mom!!)

That said, I’ve had plenty of people tell me they’d like to make green smoothies, but can’t shell out for a high-powered blender. Of course, all I could do was nod sympathetically. Making green smoothies in a regular blender was a huge pain—or so I thought.

Lexus smoothie, Toyota blender

But the more green smoothie recipes I posted, the more it niggled at me: No one should have to pay big money to be healthy. (Click here for 8 ways to save money on vegetables.) Everyone has a right to that green-smoothie-induced glow.

So while I love my Vitamix—and if you have the means, as Ferris would say, I highly recommend picking one up—I vowed once and for all to find a fast-and-easy way to make green smoothies in a regular blender.

Thus Jeff and I scoured the web for promising techniques. Then we road-tested them using our standard Cuisinart blender, which developed some “mechanical issues,” shall we say, a couple of moves back. We figured if a method could work in that blender, it’d work in any blender!

The winner? An approach we found on Blender Babes. However, to make things even easier, we trimmed it down to four simple steps and adapted it to work beautifully with the Ridiculously Simple Green Smoothie Formula. That said, this method should work nicely with any recipe that uses fresh fruit or a mix of fresh and frozen fruit. The only caveat? Add a little extra liquid if you’re using a banana as your base fruit.

So without further ado, here’s how to make green smoothies the easy way, even if your blender is more high-maintenance than high-powered. 🙂

Ready to give it a whirl? (Couldn’t resist!) How about trying it out on one of these:

Energizing Kale Smoothie with Orange and Pear
Honeydew-Mango Green Smoothie

Happy blending!