Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with a fun and tasty green smoothie called, “Shamrocks & Gold.” After testing several recipes, I finally created the right combination of ingredients to make a tasty, kid-friendly green smoothie.

This recipe was inspired by a school wellness event where I served around 400 samples to K-12 students and staff. It was interesting to watch each age react to the green smoothie. Some didn’t like the fact that spinach was in it, but if they were willing to try it, the majority ended up liking or loving the smoothie and wanted seconds. Unfortunately, I did not have enough ingredients to allow for seconds, but I would call that a success! Here is a quote from one of the local newspapers that covered the Farmer’s Market event at Tri County Public Schools:

“One of the more popular items was the “Shamrocks and Gold” fruit smoothie prepared by the Nebraska extension that had apple juice, baby spinach, pineapple, yogurt and bananas in it. A group of fourth graders gave it a big thumbs-up as they slugged down a small cup of smoothie, even if the spinach did sound a bit weird at first.” – Beatrice Daily Sun Newspaper Article

There are a few tips and tricks to make it tasty and healthy! One trick is to blend the recipe in stages to help make it smooth, but don’t forget to check out my note’s section after the recipe and nutrition information for additional tips.

Try this recipe and let me know what you think in the comments below!

Shamrocks & Gold Smoothie Recipe

Makes 4 Cups
Printer-friendly PDF Copy of Shamrocks & Gold Smoothie Recipe (Share the second recipe with a friend or it works great when you need multiple copies for a wellness event.)

Ingredients:

• 2/3 cup 100% apple juice*
• 1/2 cup fresh baby spinach**
• 2 cups frozen pineapple chunks, no sugar added
• 1 cup low-fat vanilla yogurt***
• 1 banana

Directions:

1. Add apple juice and spinach leaves to blender. Blend first to help make it smooth and avoid leafy chunks.
2. Place the remaining ingredients in the blender.
3. Blend until smooth and serve.

Nutrition Information per Serving (1 cup):
135 Calories, 1g Total Fat, 0g Saturated Fat, 35mg Sodium, 31g Total Carbs, 24g Sugars, 2g Dietary Fiber, 2g Protein

Kayla’s Notes:
*You can substitute low-fat or nonfat milk or 100% white grape juice for 100% apple juice. Adding milk instead of 100% fruit juice will lower the calories and sugar while adding extra calcium to help strengthen bones.

**You can use kale instead of spinach. Kale does have a stronger flavor than spinach. I really like using spinach since it has little to no flavor.

***To make the smoothie even healthier, use nonfat vanilla yogurt or nonfat vanilla Greek yogurt instead of low-fat vanilla yogurt.