Simple Zero Waste Smoothie

Have you made the decision to start your health journey with great intentions? You buy the ingredients to make the smoothies and then life gets chaotic and they slowly rot in the fridge while you work through life’s challenges. That was me until I found a simple hack to create a simple zero waste smoothie.

Now my morning routine is simple.

I save time having everything ready to go.

I don’t waste money throwing food out and I get to stick to my health journey plans.

Bonus!

I love finding simple solutions to help simplify my life. Each one sorts through the chaos bit by bit and I gain more time with my husband, my kids, and those special to me.

I have a couple of go-to recipes for my smoothies. However, it is the prep that helps simplify my morning routine. I was finding that life would be chaotic and before I knew it I’d have wilted, slimy spinach in the fridge and expired greek yogurt that sometimes wasn’t even opened.

I know! What a waste of money!

Then the guilt would set in and I would give up on the health journey for a while, only to try with good intentions again and find myself in the same situation.

Then I changed two things to my weekly routine:

freeze the spinach
freeze the greek yogurt

The spinach was easy. I’ll rise the fresh spinach and then place it in a freezer zip-lock bag. This helps with dinner meals and with my simple zero waste smoothie.

The Greek yogurt takes a bit more prep but it is worth the time, trust me!

I purchase my Greek Yogurt in large containers and then portion it using muffin tins. Then I pop those babies into the freezer for a few hours until frozen. I’ve even forgotten about them for a few days and all was okay. So if this is you, don’t panic. Life happens!

Once the yogurt disks are frozen gently press on the bottom of the tin to loosen them. Place the disks into a freezer safe bag and use for your simple zero waste smoothie.

Hint: I have a 25-year-old blender that doesn’t like to work too hard, so I warm up the yogurt disk in the microwave for 15 seconds first. This softens it enough to help my old blender.

Simple Smoothie Recipe

1 frozen greek yogurt disk (see above)

1 cup frozen berry blend

2 cups frozen spinach (see above)

1-1/2 cups milk

1 scoop protein powder (optional)

1 Tbsp chia seeds

Directions: Place all but the chia seeds into the blender and blend until fully smooth. Pour into your smoothie shaker of choice and add the chia seeds. Secure the lid and shake to mix the chia seeds.

These are my favorite smoothie shaker cups. They include a mixing ball that is great for stirring up the chia seeds in your simple zero waste smoothie.

Alternate Recipe (The Green Monster)

We have another favorite in our house and it is called the Green Monster. Even my picky kid has this as his favorite smoothie. I would have to prep frozen smoothie packages and use a marker on the bag for the ingredients and portions they needed to add to the blender to finish off the recipe.

Banana Hack: Freeze the banana without the peel. It doesn’t go as brown in the freezer when it is peeled, and it is ready to use for baking or smoothies any time.

What is your favorite recipe for smoothies? Leave a comment and share your favorite. I love to try new recipes!