Healthy, no sugar added kid-friendly smoothies to make.
Click to read also: Make It Easy for Your Kids to Pack a Healthy Lunchbox
Some links on this site are affiliate links and I may earn a small commission at no cost to you. Thank you! Learn more.
No Sugar Added Smoothies Kids Love
What You'll Find on This Page
With hot weather here, I love to make smoothies for lunch. They are a healthy treat, and a fun way to cool down – especially in homes like ours that don’t have any air conditioning! Today I’m sharing some of our favorite kid-friendly smoothie combinations, and I would love to hear yours in the comments, if you have combinations that you recommend!
Chocolate Banana Smoothie
Bananas, cocoa, and ice with just enough milk to blend make the healthiest chocolate “ice cream” you can find – and my entire family loves it!
Sometimes we add vanilla extract, and sometimes we add cinnamon. Saigon cinnamon (we buy ours at Costco) is particularly good in this type of smoothie!
I also add cashews when I want a heartier smoothie – you can see them in this photo if you look just above the banana chunk.
When my kids were younger, they used to eat an even healthier “ice cream” with spinach, but now they say that’s just a smoothie.
Ice is the most important ingredient in all of my smoothies – it gives a much nicer texture than smoothies made without it. Having a good blender makes a big difference. I don’t own a stand mixer (it’s on my “someday” list), but we did invest in a Vitamix blender (Costco has a good deal on these every once in a while). It gets a lot of use! I know my sister-in-law really likes her Blendtec (which I have also seen for sale at Costco), but my brother says he wishes it had the tamper that the Vitamix has.
Berry Based Smoothie Ideas
You can add spinach to pretty much any berry-based smoothie. I’ve gotten out of the habit since I switched to eating broccoli and kale salads instead of spinach ones. That’s really no excuse; spinach freezes beautifully. I just need to start keeping spinach in the house again. In the meantime, my kids enjoy delightfully pink and orange smoothies.
The smoothie in the photo above has strawberries, milk, whey protein, ice, bananas, and mango, and earlier this week we made a delicious one with mango, greek yogurt, a little milk, ice, chia seeds, and a dash of maple syrup. Some kids prefer to have the chia seeds added at the end, so they don’t get blended in.
With four kids, there is rarely any leftover smoothie, but when there is I pour it into Silicone Ice Pop Makers to have as a treat later on. Zipzicle bags are great, too. Here 21-month-old Anna is eating some of the banana-cocoa-ice-milk-cashew nut smoothie you saw in the blender earlier on in this post!
What are your favorite smoothie combinations?
Share comments and feedback below, on my Facebook page, or by tagging me on Instagram. Sign up for my newsletter to receive book recommendations, crafts, activities, and parenting tips in your inbox every week.
MaryAnne is a craft loving educator, musician, photographer, and writer who lives in Silicon Valley with her husband Mike and their four children.
Smoothies turned popsicle is the best momma invention ever! I’m a huge fan of the saigon cinnamon too. So flavorful! I also picked up the same silicone reusable pop makers. We have some fruity smoothies freezing now. I can’t wait to share one with the boy! =)
Yay! Such an easy summer treat!
Yum! I love smoothies! We just love frozen bananas (or avocados) with berries, a little milk, and honey!
I’ve never tried avocados in smoothies, but I can see how that would be good. Now I know what to do if I have extra ripe avocados!
I made a similar “healthy” milkshake but I add natural peanut butter…yummy!
Ooh, great protein-rich addition!
I’m lazy, strawberries and bananas. At some point I should branch out.
You should, although it’s hard to go wrong with strawberries and bananas.
I cannot get Aarya to drink smoothies! Maybe this will change his mind. I love your li’l ones cute face! She is adorable :)
I hope so! Smoothies are delicious, and such an easy way to add some nutrition to typical toddler and preschooler diets!
I’m the only one in the family who will eat the banana ice cream – but it is wonderful :)
It is delicious! My kids like it best when we add cinnamon and cocoa.
I have never put ice in mine, though I enjoy ones made with ice from smoothie shops on the rare occasion we have store-bought ones. We always start with frozen bananas (which make a lovely “ice cream” all on their own), then we add frozen berries of whatever kind we have on hand, some of our homemade nut butter (almonds, cashews, and Brazil nuts blended together with coconut oil and grapeseed oil), a dash of vanilla, a bit of honey, usually some cocoa, cream and/or milk. I like it to be easily pourable but not too runny. We have these after swimming each week, and we all look forward to them! Though we might be starting in on healthy hot chocolate instead soon with the weather getting cool down under…
Your combinations sound delicious! Do you have a favorite hot chocolate recipe?
Oh, yummy! Our favorite recipe is pretty basic – milk, banana, strawberries and blueberries (when we have them). We mix ours in Magic Bullet.
You can’t go wrong with basic!
I like: spinach or kale, with coconut milk, pineapple and banana. I blend the spinach and coconut milk in batches and freeze it in ice cube trays, so I don’t feel like I have to have the same thing several days in a row to use up the fresh spinach and entire can of coconut milk at once. (I’m the only one who drinks this). The taste is great, but admittedly I don’t find it very filling. Maybe cashews would help?
This sounds good! I’ll have to try it. Cashews would probably make it more filling :)
My current favorite is banana, pb2 (powdered peanut butter–it gives smoothies a better texture than regular peanut butter), milk, carnation instant breakfast powder, a dash of vanilla, a handful of spinach, and ice. It makes a super yummy and filling peanut-butter-chocolate-banana smoothie that reminds me of the Peanut Butter Moo’d at Jamba Juice.
For fruit smoothies, I love blending a can of peaches with frozen blueberries, a scoop of vanilla icecream, spinach and ice.
I have never tried powdered peanut butter. Time to change that – thanks for the inspiration!
These look wonderfully delicious!
We love them :)
Oh, yum! I will have to try some of these.
I have those silicone ice pop makers, too. They are terrific!
They work really well! Definitely my favorites out of the various ice pop makers I have tried over the years.