3 Kid-Friendly Ways to Enjoy Smoothies

Now that our kids are back in school, I’m making a point to be more intentional about planning ahead for our breakfasts, packed lunches, and after school snacks. I need to make sure I have quick, easy, and healthy options available.

Fortunately, our family loves smoothies. (I mean really, who doesn’t?!) And I love that smoothies are a great way to pack a lot of nutrition into a meal or snack without a lot of work!

Here are some of the ways our family enjoys smoothies:

For Breakfast

You can easily put together smoothie bags for your freezer with most of the ingredients ready to go. Then making a smoothie for breakfast is super quick and doesn’t require a lot of prep or measuring ingredients on your part.

Add all of the fruits or veggies needed for the smoothie together into to a freezer bag and freeze, in this case, the avocado, bananas, and pineapple. You can pull the bag out the night before and let it defrost in the fridge or in the morning run it under hot water until the contents are loosened up enough to dump into the blender.

Add the liquid ingredients to the blender, in this recipe the Silk Cashewmilk and lime juice, and blend together until smooth. Depending on how frozen the contents of the bag are, you may not need to add any ice to the smoothie.

In Packed Lunches

We have reusable popsicle molds, and I fill them up with smoothies and freeze them to send in my kids’ lunches. I usually make the smoothies during the day when my kids are at school so I don’t have to stop them from drinking all of the smoothie before I can pour any of it into the molds.

Then, I pop them in the freezer and grab them the next morning to pack in the kids’ lunch boxes. They defrost enough that they are easy to eat by lunch time and my kids’ absolutely love taking smoothies in their lunch!

As After School Snacks

My kids walk in the door after school extra hungry and ready to eat just about anything and everything. Smoothies fill them up and give them a great boost of nutrition without ruining their appetite for dinner. I like to make smoothies right before they get home so they’re ready when my kids walk in the door. I surprised them with these Pina Colada Smoothies yesterday after school and they were so excited!

Our family enjoys different kinds of smoothies, and I love to put together different combinations to mix things up and help add variety to our diets. I came up with this version of a delicious Pina Colada Smoothie using new Silk Vanilla Cashewmilk which is irresistibly creamy and makes a great dairy-free base for the smoothie.

And just for fun, because I’m always trying to add something green to my smoothies, I snuck an avocado into this recipe. If you’ve never tried avocado in a smoothie before, I think you’re totally missing out! It adds creaminess and nourishing fats and vitamins, without affecting the flavor.

Pina Colada Smoothie

1/2 avocado, scooped out
1 – 2 bananas
1 cup frozen pineapple
1 cup Silk Vanilla Cashewmilk
1 cup ice
1/2 Tbsp lime juice
2+ Tbsp coconut oil, melted

Add all of the ingredients except the coconut oil to a high powered blender and blend until smooth and creamy. Stir.

Then, turn the blender on medium, remove the spout cover on the lid, and pour the melted coconut oil into the blender while it is running so it gets mixed in right away. This is the best way to add coconut oil to a smoothie to make sure you don’t get hard clumps of the oil in your drink.

This Pina Colada Smoothie is so creamy and delicious, I know it’s going to be a go-to smoothie for me in the middle of winter when I want to dream about taking a tropical vacation!

I was excited to try the new Silk Vanilla Cashewmilk for this post because even though our family is not dairy-free, I am always looking for good alternatives to add variety and nutrients to our diets. I also discovered that my youngest daughter who generally doesn’t drink milk loves to drink the Vanilla Cashewmilk on it’s own!

Silk Cashewmilk features: