Actually Erica: My Tropical Smoothie Recipe!

Hey guys! Today I thought I would share with you a super easy recipe for my Tropical Smoothie. I only use a handful of items in this, so it is much easier and affordable to make as compared to my Green Smoothie. This is super light and yummy, all of the flavors from the fruit really come through. When you get more comfortable with making smoothies you will see that basically anything goes. Use whatever you have on hand, when in doubt just toss it in. Nothing has to be measured or exact, you basically can't go wrong here!

I blend my smoothies in a blender, I do not juice. If you are wondering what the difference is, to make a long story short you retain all skin/pulp from your fruits and veggies in a blender and you are left with just the juice in a juicer. There is so much fiber and nutrients in the skin of fruits and veggies, I think it's the best to blend. And while this doesn't really pertain to this recipe in particular, I thought it was important to mention.

I have a big Ninja professional blender, I got this at Walmart for less than $200 a couple of years ago. A great, more affordable option than the Vitamix. This thing will pulverize anything you put in it.

Ingredients I typically use:

Pineapple (I use 4-5 precut spears)

Milk (around 1 cup)

1 Banana (frozen)

Greek Yogurt (Plain, non-fat, around 1 cup)

Chia Seeds (1-2 TBSP)

optional: ice (if your banana isn't frozen)

Truvia (if your pineapple and banana aren't at optimum ripeness/sweetness)

My favorite yogurt to use in smoothies. The ONLY ingredients in this are milk and live and active cultures - that's it. Use whatever yogurt you want, but always make sure you check the ingredients. When you use flavored yogurts (honey, vanilla, etc.) you start seeing sweeteners, artificial flavors, things of that nature and those are the things you want to stay away from. You will get plenty of flavor from the fruits we add in.

For my Tropical Smoothie I love using the Almond Breeze Almond Coconut milk. The coconut flavor goes perfectly with the pineapple and banana.

You can obviously cut up your own pineapple, but I just buy these pre-cut spears from my grocery store. So much less of a hassle and no mess to clean up.

I keep frozen bananas in my freezer. I buy a bunch and let them get to optimum ripeness, then just peel them, put them in a freezer bag, and toss them in the freezer to use when I need them. Where they are frozen they add the perfect chill to your smoothie. If you don't have any frozen ones on hand you could always toss in a fresh banana and 1/2 a cup of ice or so. That will give you a similar effect, but I definitely prefer the frozen banana.

I put Chia seeds in ANY smoothie I make, not for the flavor (as they have none) but for the health benefits. They have more omega fatty acids than salmon and more calcium than milk, are a whole grain food with fiber and protein, all while being non-GMO and naturally gluten free. They are loaded with antioxidants and almost all of the carbs in them are fiber. And where they are excellent sources of calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, and protein they are great for bone health. Chia seeds have a nice little crunch to them that I really enjoy in my smoothie, but if you prefer yours to be smooth then you might want to skip them. If you are interested in seeing other ways I use them, check out another blog post here.

Toss everything in your blender and blend away! After you have blended everything go ahead and taste it, if it's not sweet enough for you add in your favorite natural sweetener (I prefer Truvia). If I put any in it the most I add is 2 packs for the whole blender. If you add any sweetener then blend again till everything is mixed and you are done!