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Kid-Friendly Smoothies {No Sugar Added}

Healthy, no sugar added kid-friendly smoothies to make.

Click to read also: Make It Easy for Your Kids to Pack a Healthy Lunchbox

healthy smoothie ideas for kids

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No Sugar Added Smoothies Kids Love

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 ice and other delicious no sugar added smoothies

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.

Strawberry banana mango smoothie and other delicious combinations

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.

Easy smoothies that kids love

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.

Freeze leftover smoothies to make popsicles - plus favorite smoothie recipes

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?

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MaryAnne is a craft loving educator, musician, photographer, and writer who lives in Silicon Valley with her husband Mike and their four children.

25 thoughts on “Kid-Friendly Smoothies {No Sugar Added}”

  1. Jessica @ConveyAwareness

    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! =)

  2. Yum! I love smoothies! We just love frozen bananas (or avocados) with berries, a little milk, and honey!

    1. 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!

  3. I cannot get Aarya to drink smoothies! Maybe this will change his mind. I love your li’l ones cute face! She is adorable :)

  4. 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…

  5. Natalie PlanetSmartyPants

    Oh, yummy! Our favorite recipe is pretty basic – milk, banana, strawberries and blueberries (when we have them). We mix ours in Magic Bullet.

  6. 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?

  7. 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.

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