The Best Way To Keep Large Batches Of Smoothies Fresh

I’m bringing you the BEST way to keep large batches of smoothies fresh, so you can enjoy them throughout the week!  Smoothies are an excellent way to consume fruits and vegetables in one sitting.  While smoothies taste amazing, they can be a bitch to make. You have to clean and prep the fruit and vegetables, blend them up, then clean the mess afterward.  Obviously, none of those steps are complicated but consequently time-consuming if you only want one portion of homemade smoothies.

And let’s be real, how many times have you made smoothies that only feed one person?  After you add your favorite ingredients you have a smoothie portion that will feed an army!  Feel like keeping the extra smoothie fresh in the fridge for a week?  Forget about it, the fruit will separate and taste weird after a couple days.

I’ve seen people who freeze whole fruits and vegetables together in a freezer bag, before blending the ingredients together first.  That idea is generally fantastic, however, every day you want a smoothie, you have to pull out your blender again.

What if you blend up a large batch of your favorite smoothies and THEN freeze it?  Your freshly made smoothie will last longer in the freezer, and you simply thaw it, give it a shake, and drink!  You spend one day blending up your smoothies instead of whipping out the blender every time you want a fresh drink.

I got this idea from The Kitchn and I adore it for several reasons:

• You only have to pull out your blender once.  The rest of the week you simply thaw out your smoothie, give it a shake, and you’re ready to enjoy!
• You’re least likely to waste ingredients.

Have you ever looked up a smoothie recipe and it calls for a ridiculously small amount of something you rarely buy, like kale?  You go ahead and buy the kale, make the smoothie, and half the bundle is leftover.  You think, no problem, I’ll make the leftover kale into kale chips or something.  Then you forget about the kale and it goes to waste?  That shit happens to me on a regular basis.

The main reason I love making large batches of smoothies is all the ingredients get used up!!  Nothing goes bad and you don’t waste money – score!!!  I’ll talk about the types of smoothies I made in a moment, but first I want to talk about ways you can store the smoothie in the freezer:

• Mason Jars – Mason jars work great, however, they take up the most room in your freezer.  Note make sure to leave a couple inches at the top so the mixture has room to expand without breaking the glass.
• Freezer bags – Freezer bags don’t take up much room in the freezer, however, they create a ton of waste unless you rinse and reuse them.
• Ice Cube Trays -I froze some of my smoothies into an ice cube tray then transferred the cubes into a freezer bag once they were frozen.  You can either pop a few cubes into a water bottle before leaving for work or snack on the frozen cube for a fresh treat.

Use whichever freezer safe container works best for you.

I advise against freezing the smoothie in one large batch rather than measuring out portion sizes.  The smoothie would not stay fresh if you thaw out a big batch, pour out the amount you want, then refreezing the rest.  In my opinion, the best way to keep large batches of smoothies fresh is to measure out and freeze individual portion sizes.

Now, let’s talk smoothie recipes!  I thought it would be fun to make several different kinds of smoothie recipes for the week. My grocery shopping list looked like this:

For Smoothies:
5 Apples
1 whole Pineapple
2 Mango
Inch of fresh Ginger
2 kiwi
Parsley
Kale
16 oz Baby Spinach
1 bunch Bananas
2 Grapefruit
1 package frozen strawberries (you can use fresh too)
Vanilla almond milk

I already had peanut butter, flax seeds, garlic, instant oats, shredded carrot, cocoa powder, cottage cheese, and honey at home.

The first step was washing and cutting up the fruit into bite-sized chunks.  I experimented and blended up the following concoctions starting with my favorite:

Green Machine (Naked Juice knockoff) – apple, banana, kiwi, mango, pineapple, shredded carrot, spinach, kale, ginger, garlic, and parsley
Chocolate peanut butter – almond milk, cottage cheese, flax seed, banana, cocoa powder, honey, and peanut butter
Strawberry Pineapple – pineapple, strawberry, and mango
Chocolate spinach – almond milk, flax seed, instant oats, cottage cheese, banana, cocoa powder, honey, and spinach
Grapefruit Ginger – grapefruit, apple, spinach, banana, shredded carrot, parsley, kale, garlic, and ginger

Once my smoothie was blended, I poured 1 to 1 1/2 cups into my labeled freezer bags.  1 cup is 8oz so I figured that portion would be a good starting point.

You obviously don’t have to make all these recipes, choose your favorite!  When I make another batch of smoothies, I’ll stick to the Chocolate Peanut Butter and Green Machine.  Speaking of Chocolate Peanut Butter, I added cottage cheese for additional protein.  My husband doesn’t care for cottage cheese but said he couldn’t taste it when I asked him about it.

Since garlic and ginger both have overpowering tastes, I used small pinches of them at a time.  I doubt I used more than 1/4 teaspoon of each per batch.

I seriously mixed and matched, adding a handful of this or that, rather than measure anything out.  However, below I will give you an idea of what I did, so you have a starting point.  Honestly though, go by what you like and taste along the way.  If you blend your smoothie and think something is missing, add it!!  I kept adding and mixing until I used up all my ingredients!  The only ingredient leftover was garlic – I minced 1 clove for everything you see above.

So in conclusion, pre-blending your ingredients then freezing them is the best way to keep large batches of smoothies fresh!  Smoothies are fun to drink any time of year so I hope you purchase your favorite produce and get blending!

Thanks for stopping by,

Christina