Vegetable Smoothies (not fruit smoothies)

jrose1982
jrose1982 Posts: 366 Member
I'm on a low-carb diet and I'm trying to increase my vegetable intake. I typically have about 2-4 cups of leafy greens and one serving of a different vegetable every day. But I often skip that second vegetable for various reasons.
I've started adding spinach to my protein shakes and I'm wondering about other vegetable smoothie ideas.

The problem is that my searches have yielded - not what I would call vegetable smoothies - but fruit smoothies with vegetables added. Being on a low-carb diet, I can't eat a lot of fruit in one day. And the fruit that I do eat, I prefer to eat whole and by itself because that's how I enjoy it most. That said, I do add a 1/4 cup of berries to my protein shakes to sweeten it some. But that's about as much fruit as I'm willing to add to a shake or smoothie.

Do you have any recipes for good vegetable smoothies that aren't so heavily reliant on fruit or other carb-heavy ingredients? Like I said, some fruit is ok. But I'm looking for primarily vegetables.

Please only respond if your response is relevant to the question. I've already done the research; I've already decided it's what I'm doing; and I'm finding it works for me. So if you disagree with that decision for whatever reason, please keep it to yourself. Sharing it here is counter productive.

Replies

  • Sunbrooke
    Sunbrooke Posts: 632 Member
    It's not a smoothie, more of a whole juice, but I like to blend up about 1/2 c pressed down kale, 1 stalk celery, I mini cucumber (technically a fruit tho) with water and ice. I do usually add 1/4 c red grapes or half of a ripe pear, but if you are doing low carb, then you are probably used to not having any sweet flavor. You may try adding a little lemon juice if it needs something more.

    Another good one is one whole beet with a cup or two of spinach, water, and ice, but I don't know of beets have too much sugar.
  • jrose1982
    jrose1982 Posts: 366 Member
    It's not a smoothie, more of a whole juice, but I like to blend up about 1/2 c pressed down kale, 1 stalk celery, I mini cucumber (technically a fruit tho) with water and ice. I do usually add 1/4 c red grapes or half of a ripe pear, but if you are doing low carb, then you are probably used to not having any sweet flavor. You may try adding a little lemon juice if it needs something more.

    Another good one is one whole beet with a cup or two of spinach, water, and ice, but I don't know of beets have too much sugar.

    I can look up the sugar and adjust as needed. This is very helpful. Thank you so much!
  • taravernier
    taravernier Posts: 12 Member
    You would probably find that you would have better luck looking up juices. Most smoothie recipes have at least a fair amount of fruit. If you search for vegetable juices you will find a fair number of recipes and you can still do them in a high powered blender (called whole food juicing) to keep the fiber as well. I have been doing green smoothies for a few months and so have done a fair number of searches myself and it seems like most are 60/40 fruit to veg. I change them up to be more 40/60 but most still have a banana and a cup of fruit (the banana is killing me on my carb count too).
  • TheGymGypsy
    TheGymGypsy Posts: 1,023 Member
    I use this: https://aloha.com/home
    It's a powdered green juice that is processed in a way that it retains all the fiber and nutritional content of the vegetables. I usually have it with 1 cup almond milk and 1 scoop of vanilla protein powder. I use a banana as well but you could easily omit that.
  • think48
    think48 Posts: 366 Member
    I make my veggie smoothies with the see and dump method. I open my veggie drawer and dump things in. I have a Vitamix, so it can churn it all up. My usual default is kale, cucumber, green beans, snow peas, a kiwi or half a pear, celery, and anything else green in my veggie drawer. My husband loves them too.
  • climbing_trees
    climbing_trees Posts: 726 Member
    Ginger in veggie smoothies gives a great flavor :)
  • mjbself
    mjbself Posts: 15 Member
    My favorite from Nutribullet that is all veggies is:
    1c kale
    1/2 c sweet potato (steamed or boiled with skin)
    1 tsp chai seed
    1 tsp Cinnamon (reduce to a 1/2 if you are not fond if the taste)
    1" of ginger with skins
    1/4 avocado
    1 c almond milk
    1/2 c H20

    Its 298 calories and is pretty good. Sometimes I throw in a few baby carrots and its still pretty good,makes it a little sweeter.
  • jrose1982
    jrose1982 Posts: 366 Member
    These are all great. Thank you all so much!
  • jrose1982
    jrose1982 Posts: 366 Member
    Note for future: Celery in smoothies = not a good idea.
  • knra_grl
    knra_grl Posts: 1,566 Member
    I have seen some recipes with:

    beets
    sweet potatoes
    celery
    kale
    spinach
    avocado
    parsley
    you could actually use any leafy greens

    you could try squash

    add things like hemp seeds, flax seeds, chia seeds, flax oil etc etc etc