Rainbow Smoothies
Sun, Mar 9, 2014
Desserts, Disguising Healthy Foods, Dishfolio, Drinks, Featured, Foodgawker, Fun Family Activities, Holidays, Ice Cream & Frozen Treats, Itsy Bitsy Foodies Sightings, Party and Decorative Ideas, Photograzing, Search by Course, Snacks, St. Patrick's Day
(+2 rating, 1 votes)
Loading...
Print This Recipe
My family loves smoothies. We have them for breakfast, lunch, snack and dessert. We even freeze them to make healthy popsicles. We rarely follow a recipe but simply add yogurt, fruits and vegetables to consistency and to taste. With all of the smoothies, I love seeing the array of colors that the different combos of fruits and vegetables make. I have made green {spinach} smoothies, red {berry} smoothies, purple {blueberry} smoothies, orange {pineapple-mango} smoothies, and many shades in between. In my son’s preschool class, the same visit that we made Mr. Baked Potato Heads, we made rainbow smoothies. The kids had fun brainstorming fruits and veggies for each color and we blended them all up into a tasty, healthy concoction. Fortunately, making smoothies is not a science and you can add more frozen fruit or more juice to reach your desired consistency and in this case, your desired color.
This time, however, I wanted to make a {naturally-colored} rainbow smoothie, layered just like my Rainbow Cake made with natural food dyes. Though the method is super simple, it does take a bit of prep time to make six batches of smoothie, one for each color. This is perfect for a large group or party because you will end up with six batches of smoothie (unless you reduce the ratios) to divide between glasses. Although, even if you’re making them just for your family, you can freeze the leftovers into rainbow popsicles so nothing goes to waste.
The optional dollop of whipped cream {clouds} on top and gold chocolate coins (or Rolos or other gold-wrapped chocolates) makes it a little more festive for your little leprechauns on St. Patrick’s Day.
Here is the start of a brainstorm list for the different colored smoothies. Have fun creating your own rainbow smoothies:
Red – strawberries, raspberries, cherries, watermelon
Orange – oranges, orange mangoes, cantaloupe, papaya, carrots
Yellow – banana, Pineapple, yellow mango
Green – spinach, kale, kiwis, honeydew melon, avocado
Blue – Blueberries make a blue-purple smoothie. *If you have any suggestions on how to naturally make a {blue} smoothie I would love to hear it. Though blueberries can bake blue (in a cake) due primarily to the baking soda or other alkaline in a recipe, it blends up pretty purple without that in a smoothie. I’ve found that blending in spinach may add a slight difference to the purple hue.
Purple – Blackberries add more of a reddish-purple hue to the smoothie.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Happy {almost} spring! Happy rainbows!
- ½ cup plain low-fat Greek yogurt
- ½ cup apple juice (or "red" or even orange juice), to consistency
- 2 cups frozen red berries (strawberries, raspberries, cherries, etc.)
- 2 mangoes (if orange)
- 1 cup frozen pineapple chunks
- ½ cup orange juice
- 4-6 ounces plain low-fat Greek yogurt
- ½ cup low-fat plain or vanilla Greek yogurt
- 1 banana
- 2 cups frozen pineapple (or mixed with frozen white peaches)
- 1 mango (if yellow, not orange)
- ¼ cup orange juice, to consistency
- 1 banana
- ½ cup plain Greek yogurt
- 2 cups tightly-packed spinach
- 1-2 cups frozen pineapple
- ½ cup Trader Joe’s (or other) Green juice
- 1-2 kiwis, optional
- ½ cup plain low-fat Greek yogurt
- 1 cup frozen blueberries
- 1 banana, optional
- ¼ cup apple or orange juice, to consistency
- Tall glasses
- Whipped cream, optional
- Gold chocolate coins/Rolos, optional
- Starting with the color (red or purple) that you would like to put at the bottom of your glass, blend the ingredients of the smoothie together until it is smooth and reaches your desired consistency and taste.
- Spoon the smoothie into the bottom of your serving glasses. (Depending on the size of glasses, the amount will vary. You will want to roughly divide the glass into 6 portions, for each color. Allow for some space at the top if you will be topping the smoothie with whipped cream.)
- Place the glasses with the first layer into the freezer while you prepare the next smoothie.
- Repeat the process with all of the layers.
- Top the smoothie with whipped cream and gold chocolate coins if desired.
Tags: berry smoothies, drinks, fruit smoothies, green smoothie, healthy smoothies, I Can Eat a Rainbow smoothies, orange smoothie, pot of gold, purple smoothie, rainbow smoothies, red smoothie, spinach smoothie, St. Patrick's Day, vegetable smoothies, yellow smoothie
Where are your jars from? I’ve been looking for tall slim jars like this for a long time.
I save jars from foods. The slightly larger jar is a Mezzetta peperoncinis jar and the slightly slimmer one is a molasses jar. Hope this helps!