It is time to share another favorite frugal recipe of ours with you today! Like we mentioned before, one thing our family loves is to make fresh fruit and veggie smoothies. We make smoothies several times a week and they are so amazingly good and healthy that we love to repeat! Plus, many of our smoothies that we share use many fruits and vegetables that are in season which means we can buy them for less!
Well, we have a heartier version of our fruit smoothies that include Wheat Germ to last on our stomachs longer and is an even more effective meal replacement. This one also has a lot more veggies included and makes it a great lunch item!
To make smoothies, you can use a blender, hand blender, Vitamix or even a food processor.
Today’s smoothie recipe is Veggie and Wheat Smoothie! This is enough for a full 16 oz. glass for Alex and myself and four 8 oz. glasses two-third’s full for the kids! So it is a good amount – just adjust the recipe accordingly for your family! Even though there are lots of veggies and then wheat germ added, it tastes like a fruit smoothie with only subtle flavors of the veggies. Again, another way our kids have no idea they are eating something super good for them!
First, here are the ingredients needed – each item is approximate, I don’t actually measure the items out, just place ingredients in our blender:
- 1.5 cups Carrot
- 1 Roma Tomato
- 3 cups fresh spinach
- 2 cups pineapple (these are in season right now, but we do use our frozen stock-pile of pineapple)
- 2 cups strawberries (these are in season right now, but you can always stock-up now and freeze for future use)
- 2 oranges
- 2 bananas
- 1/2 cup raw wheat germ (or toasted, any type is fine and Amazon has a great price on the Bob’s Red Mill Wheat Germ 32oz. bags and free shipping)
- 3 Tablespoons of Flaxseed (optional – we love to include Flaxseed and hide it where ever we can, it is actually quite affordable and goes very far. Amazon has a super stock-up price on them here!)
- Then add whatever amount of ice you would like for your desired thickness!
- I also add a couple of tablespoons of water to the bottom before adding the ingredients as this allows my Vitamix to blend easier.
To Make:
- Add all of the ingredients in order to your blender/food processor
- Blend until smooth
- Serve immediately and enjoy!
Note: You can also turn these into freezer pops or even ice cubes for future use by using the fruit that is in season now!
A fruit smoothie for the whole family might seem to be pricey, but when we use many of the tricks we feature in our 30 Ways to Save Money on Produce, and the seasonal fruit sales along with those great deals on yogurt (we stock-up when it goes cheap and store in our freezer so that we can use it when we want!) they become an affordable lunch in this case. It actually is not a bad price for the whole family and certainly much cheaper than buying the frozen smoothies packs at the grocery store or having them made at a juice shop! BUT even better, we sneak veggies, wheat germ and Flaxseed into ours too and so they are even healthier!
See more of our Recipes to save even more money for a healthier budget and to live healthier lives too!
Products mentioned in this post:
