Minty Green Smoothie

This Minty Green Smoothie is packed with healthful ingredients and is so creamy and delicious. It’s made with just kale, bananas, dates, chia seeds, mint leaves, and unsweetened plant-based milk. Healthy food not only makes your body feel great, but it tastes amazing too! 

Considering this is now one of my favorite recipes, I am going to have to start growing mint in my garden to keep up with my newfound love for this minty bowl of goodness. 

I used to love Shamrock Shakes back in the day, but those babies are loaded with sugar and for sure not plant-based with the milk. One small shake has 58 g of sugar— and that’s not healthy sugar from natural foods like fruits like bananas and dates. So this Minty Green Smoothie (I know.. I know.. can never actually replace this highly palatable Shamrock Shake) is a more healthful alternative and one you could eating daily, if you really wanted to. 

I have two methods for the Minty Green Smoothie, the Shake Style (which is my older version) and Smoothie Bowl Style (my new method). I love the Smoothie Bowl Style, which is a bit more work since you need to freeze the ingredients ahead of time in an ice cube tray- but the payoff is a really thick and creamy bowl of minty goodness. It’s more like a mint nice cream- so delicious!

INGREDIENTS:

3/4-1 cup fresh mint leaves

2 cups chopped kale

2-2.5 cups unsweetened soymilk*

2 Tbsp chia seeds

2 pitted dates

1.5- 2 cups of sliced bananas (use fresh for nice cream method, frozen for shake style)

Ice (for shake style)

Optional Add In:

A few cacoa nibs, dark chocolate chips or 100% cacao chips

METHOD 1 (Nice Cream Style):

  1. Wash the mint leave and the kale. Add to a blender with 1 cup of the unsweetened soymilk, chia seeds, dates, and bananas. Blend until smooth.
  2. Pour into ice cube trays and freeze.
  3. Clean the blender with another cup of soymilk, and set this aside covered in the fridge.
  4. Once the ice cubes are frozen, add to the blender with the reserved soymilk. Blend until smooth. If the cubes are having a hard time blending, you may need to stop the blender and move things around with a spoon. Add an addition 1/4-1/2 cup of soymilk if needed to help smooth it out.
  5. Serve in bowls or cups and enjoy!

METHOD 2 (Shake Style):

  1. Wash the mint leave and the kale. Add to a blender with the unsweetened soymilk, chia seeds, dates, and frozen bananas. Add ice, as needed. Blend until smooth.
  2. Pour the shakes into cups and enjoy!

NOTES:

I prefer unsweetened soymilk, feel free to use any other unsweetened plant-based milk of your choice. You can also make a homemade milk out of cashews or oats if you don’t have any on-hand.