A couple of years ago when I polled Instagram asking what kind of smoothie recipes you wanted to see on Ambitious Kitchen, many of you wanted some no banana smoothies, which I totally get. It seems like almost all creamy smoothies out there have bananas in them, am I right?
Well surprise all you cool cats and kittens (please tell me you get that reference), this green smoothie is proof you don’t need bananas to get a creamy and nutritious smoothie that’s still sweet enough to drink!
This beautiful green smoothie was inspired by my famous Immune Boosting Wellness Smoothie, and it has quickly become an AK reader favorite. It’s full of tropical flavors and is great for breakfast thanks to fruits, veggies and healthy fats to help keep you satisfied all morning.
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Ingredients in the best green smoothie recipe
This green smoothie recipe happens to be both vegan and dairy free, making it a great choice for just about anyone. Plus, there are no sweeteners added. Yep, that’s right, this green smoothie gets plenty of sweetness (and vitamin c) from tropical fruit so there isn’t any need to add unnecessary sweeteners. Just the fruits and vegetables, Mom!
- Frozen pineapple: did you know that pineapple is great for digestion? It contains an enzyme called bromelain which helps fight inflammation in the gut and body. I say, eat up!
- Frozen mango: instead of frozen mango you can feel free to use 1 frozen banana. I do like to stick to frozen fruits as they help keep smoothies cold and frozen.
- Ripe avocado: if you like smoothies with a creamy texture, avocado is a great add-in. Not only does it help enhance the color of this green smoothie but it also provides healthy fats, potassium, fiber and plenty of B vitamins. Don’t worry, thanks to the tropical fruit and ginger, you won’t even taste the avocado.
- Fresh ginger: this was another reader request and so delicious in green smoothies! Be sure to use fresh ginger (not powdered) and if you don’t have a high powered blender, I recommend grating the ginger to ensure even blending.
- Organic spinach: a great veggie to add to any smoothie. If you’re looking to get more greens in your smoothie, try adding a few cups of spinach is the perfect way to do so!
- Milk: feel free to use any milk you’d like in my smoothie recipes according to your preferences. Almond milk tends to have a neutral taste in smoothies, coconut milk will add a more tropical and creamy flavor, and regular milk will add a boost of protein.
Simple ingredient swaps
In general, I suggest trying to stick to the fruit and liquid ratios to ensure this green smoothie stays nice and creamy. However, there are some easy ingredient swaps that will still keep this green smoothie delicious:
- Customize your fruit. If you’re out of pineapple or mango, feel free to simply add more of the other fruit or swap in a frozen banana.
- No avocado? No problem. This green smoothie will still be delicious without it, and you could add some yogurt for extra creaminess.
- Swap your leafy greens. Feel free to use kale in place of the spinach.
- Out of fresh ginger? I absolutely love the freshness (and tummy soothing properties) that ginger gives to this green smoothie, but if you don’t have any it will still be good without it.
Are green smoothies really that good for you?
Everyone’s health and nutrition needs are different, but because this green smoothie is packed with vitamins, minerals and even healthy fats I’d say YES it is very good for you! If you’re looking for ways to up your fruit and vegetable intake, this is the perfect breakfast or snack to enjoy.
Can you taste the greens?
Nope! The best part about this green smoothie recipe is that you get to sneak in tons of healthy greens that you won’t even be able to detect. This simple green smoothie recipe is made without banana and tastes tropical and refreshing thanks to the mango, pineapple and ginger.
Adding extra nutrition to green smoothies
You can enhance any green smoothie by adding additional nutritious ingredients to really make it your own. Don’t be afraid to experiment a little! Here are a few suggestions that you can add to this green smoothie:
- Matcha: if you’re a green tea lover, you can add a teaspoon of matcha to your smoothie for green color, antioxidants and earthy flavor.
- Flaxseed meal: this is one of my favorite ingredients to add to smoothies for a little boost of fiber and minerals, and is especially great for nursing mamas as flaxseed can help increase milk supply. Usually a tablespoon is plenty! Here’s a brand I love.
- Chia seeds: feel free to add in a tablespoon of chia seeds to your smoothie for a boost of healthy fats and fiber.
- Hemp seeds: if you’ve been wondering what to do with those hemp seeds lurking in your cupboard, feel free to throw in a tablespoon into your smoothie for a boost of healthy fats, omegas and minerals.
- Protein: make this a post-workout smoothie and boost the protein by adding 1/2 cup greek yogurt or 1 scoop of your favorite protein powder. I recommend Vital Protein collagen peptides or Bob’s Red Mill Plant Based Vanilla Protein Powder.
- Mint: do you love minty flavor? Add a few fresh mint leaves!
Tips for making green smoothies
Have you had a chance to check out my post about prepping smoothies and how to increase their nutrition?! If not, it’s a great resource! Here are a few more tips I like to share in regards to making the best creamy, healthy green smoothie:
- Use frozen fruit. Using frozen fruit is best as it helps keeps the smoothie cold and thick. Sometimes ice doesn’t blend as well, so it’s best to skip unless absolutely necessary. If you only have fresh fruit, try adding 1 cup frozen cauliflower.
- Add more liquid. Don’t be afraid to add more liquid if your smoothie is too thick or won’t fully blend. High powered blenders tend to blend frozen fruit much better, so if you have a regular or personal size blender, you may need to add more milk.
- Start low, go high. Start the blender on low speed, then gradually increase to high to help blend all ingredients. Finally end with the blender on low speed.
- Swap your greens. Feel free to use kale instead of spinach if that’s what you have on hand.
Meal prep this smoothie
That’s right, you can prep this smoothie ahead of time, freeze it, and enjoy it later! Get all of my tips and tricks for meal prepping smoothies here.
Favorite smoothie tools
Check out more of our go-to kitchen essentials here.
More smoothie recipes to try
- Carrot Cake Smoothie
- Good Morning Coffee Smoothie
- Almond Cherry Smoothie (my favorite smoothie ever!)
- Peanut Butter Blueberry Banana Smoothie
- Snickerdoodle Tahini Date Smoothie
Get all of our delicious healthy smoothie recipes here!
I hope you love this delicious green smoothie recipe! Be sure to leave a comment and a rating so I know how you liked it. And don’t forget to check out our guide on how to prep smoothies ahead of time. xo!
Ambitious Kitchen
Cookbook
125 Ridiculously Good For You, Sometimes Indulgent, and Absolutely Never Boring Recipes for Every Meal of the Day
The Best Green Smoothie
Ingredients
- 1 cup frozen pineapple chunks
- ½ cup frozen mango chunks
- 1/2 medium ripe avocado
- 1 inch knob of ginger, peeled
- 2 cups organic spinach
- 1 cup unsweetened almond milk, plus more as necessary
- Optional: 1 tbsp hemp seeds or flaxseed meal
Instructions
- In a large high-powered blender, add in all ingredients and blend on high for 1-2 minutes or until all ingredients are well combined. If necessary, add in more milk to thin the smoothie and blend again. Serves 1.
Recipe Notes
Nutrition
Recipe by: Monique Volz // Ambitious Kitchen | Photography by: Eat Love Eats
This post was originally published on July 8th, 2019, republished on March 16th, 2021, and republished on March 6th, 2023.
96 comments
Green smoothies are a favorite in our house! My husband drinks one every day it seems like! Peaches are delicious in green smoothies too!
Love them! Such a great breakfast or snack – and LOVE peaches.
So delicious! The avocado makes it creamy. Love love love the ginger. Using crystallized ginger instead would give it a little extra sweetness.
Absolutely! Love that idea 🙂
Hi, loved the recipe! Just wanted to know whether we need to use only the flesh of the avocado, or it can be used with the peel.
Hi! I recommend just using the flesh part and scoop it out from the peel. Enjoy!
Didn’t have spinach so just did without and added a scoop of vanilla protein. So, freaking, good. Thank you Monique. I have to stop myself from making another immediately.
I’ll be making this again. YUM.
Perfect! So glad you love this one!
This was such a welcomed change to my usual berry/spinach smoothie!
I just happened to have everything on hand and I am so glad I switched things up! I did add Arbonne vanilla protein, flax meal, and hemp hearts – so tasty!
Perfect! So glad you found this one – I love mixing it up with a delicious green smoothie too 🙂
any good substitute for the pineapple in this recipe? I’m allergic…
A frozen banana or extra mango chunks would be great!
Would whole milk be an okay substitute? Looks good!
The smoothie will be a bit thicker and richer, but that should work just fine!
I can’t wait to try this recipe and thank you for the great tips! Question..do you ever use nutritional yeast in your smoothies?
Hope you love this one! I haven’t tried putting nutritional yeast in smoothies – it has a bit of a cheesy flavor to it 🙂
This was yummy Monique!! I added a bit of honey and a bit of coconut oil.
Delicious! Glad you enjoyed 🙂
Excited to make this!! Wondering if I could use greek yogurt instead of avocado to still get some creaminess? Love to know what you think!! Thank you!
I think that would work well! Let me know how it goes 🙂 enjoy!
Made the smoothie as written and OMG this is literally the BEST green smoothie I’ve ever had! No more spending tons of $$$ on smoothies at local smoothie bars when I can make it right at home. It tastes just as good, if not better. Plus, it’s such a an easy and quick recipe too 🙂
So happy you tried this one! Much better than expensive, store-bought kinds 🙂
Picky fiancé approved! So creamy, healthy, and delicious!
Amazing! So happy to hear that 🙂
I absolutely loved the ginger addition in this smoothie. It was honestly one of the best green smoothies I’ve ever had!! 11/10 and I def recommend for a snack after working out
So good! Glad you loved it!
Very nice and bright! Will be saving to try again,
Glad you enjoyed!
Such a quick, delish, refreshing smoothie!
Glad you loved it!
Yum! This smoothie is so hearty! I drank it one morning and was full for most of the day. I played around with the ratios a little because it was so filling, and I added half the recommended avocado. I struggled with the ginger proportion a bit because the first time I made it the ginger taste was so powerful I couldn’t taste anything else. So I tried different amounts of ginger throughout the week as I made it. Any recommendations for how to measure 1 inch of ginger considering the width of the ginger could vary?
Overall though, very filling in a way that makes you feel good because of all the greens!
Glad you enjoyed! I typically go by the size of the tip of my thumb (if the ginger is wider I’ll cut it a bit shorter, etc.) but feel free to adjust based on your taste preferences 🙂
Ahh yes, okay I definitely put like 3-4x that much ginger in! Haha That explains the powerful taste. Thanks for the tip, I’ll adjust better next time!
Hi, does this recipe yield one or two smoothies? Also, how long do you store in the refrigerator to keep fresh? I would imagine a glass bottle or mason jar with an airtight lid is necessary. Thx!! 🙂
Almost forgot— which high powered blender would you recommend? We have a NutriBullet but are tired of making individual portions and would rather make a huge pitcher to serve our family of 3 (2 adults + 1 toddler). Any suggestions or links would be great 🙂
Hi! This yields one smoothie. If you’re making more, I’d suggest freezing any leftover per the instructions within the post (rather than keeping it in the refrigerator). And I have a few blenders linked underneath the recipe but love this one: https://rstyle.me/+kq_lsK2M6qfTkItYeDJC3A
Started bot to swipe the IG post, but I’m glad I did! With a little tweaking, this will be diabetic friendly. Thanks!
Perfect! Hope you love it!
This smoothie looks so delicious! I’ve never thought about adding fresh ginger to smoothies and I love the idea of adding avocado. I have the ingredients added to my grocery list. Thanks so much for sharing!
The flavors are amazing! Hope you get a chance to try 🙂
Love this & thank you thank you for making these recipes for us to enjoy…I am a huge fan of
everything quick & easy yet healthy & of course yummy good!!!
Absolutely! So glad you love this one!
Yum! Just made and it was amazing. I love using smoothie recipes as inspiration, even if I don’t have all the ingredients, because I find I just make the same ones over and over and it can get me out of my smoothie rut. Using what I had, I put in mango, frozen banana, spinach, hemp seeds, ginger, collagen, coconut butter (for healthy fat, since I didn’t have any avocado), and organic milk. Sooooo tasty! The ginger adds the BEST fresh punch.
Smoothies are perfect for customizing! So glad you loved this one!
Great recipes……Thank you, will try them later…….looks delicious.
Enjoy!
I don’t have fresh ginger. Is it better to use ginger powder or to just omit the ginger all together?
I would simply omit!
This website saved me from just doing whatever in the kitchen!
I’m glad you found this!
This is my second day drinking this smoothie and I love it! Adding matcha to the smoothie makes it taste so good. I’ll have to add greek yogurt when I want a little more protein 🙂
Sounds delicious! Glad you love this one 🙂
I’ve made many green smoothies, abd this one is the easiest, always the items I have around my house and is my go-to smoothie outside of my pb&j smoothie and AK’s cherry smoothie
Creamy, dreamy delicious green smoothie. I enjoyed every sip😋😋👌🙌
So happy to hear that!
10/10 smoothie recipe! This is our go to breakfast most mornings. I have the recipe memorized. We always add a pretty good amount of matcha.
So happy to hear that! Perfect breakfast 🙂
This was one of the best smoothies I’ve ever made. 5 stars!
Went heavy on the ginger, and omitted the pineapple and avocado as I was out. Excited to try different variations- can’t wait to make this again tomorrow!
Love it! Glad you enjoyed!
This is getting me through my wisdom teeth recovery! Love the creaminess and the mint addition is sooo delish. I still had to add extra splashes of almond milk in even in my Vitamix! Thanks for this great recipe!
I’m so glad! Feel better!
This smoothie tastes amazing!
So glad you loved it!
This is my new favorite breakfast smoothie. It’s so so delicious. I add all the works you’ve suggested to this smoothie and I can’t get enough of it! Thank you for sharing!
Perfect! So glad you love it!
Would recommend reducing the avocado to a 1/4 of an avocado. I like the creaminess/silkiness the half avocado gives this smoothie, but as the avocado has a neutral flavor, this smoothie is pretty tasteless. Additionally, due to the avocado, this smoothie is way too thick – to the point where is feels stuck in my throat – and as the thickness is from the avocado, and not frozen fruit/ice, it never melts to a thinner consistency.
Absolutely feel free to reduce the avocado! With the rest of the ingredients I’ve always found this recipe to have great flavor, but it’s very easy to customize, too.
Just made this for lunch today. So good and creamy! My toddler loved it too. Definitely saving for later!
So glad it was a hit!
I absolutely love this recipe! I’ve been making it for weeks sans the ginger and it’s the perfect start to my day. I have wanted to incorporate more veggies into my diet and this is a fantastic way to do it. I love my smoothies thick and creamy and this hits the spot every time.
I’m so glad! One of my favs, too 🙂
We’re new at smoothies. I so appreciate all of your notes. This was excellent and is a keeper!!
Excited that you tried this one and loved it! And glad to hear the notes were helpful 🙂
Love a no-banana smoothie and these DELIVER! The ginger is perfection.
Awesome!! So happy you love this one 🙂
Felt like every time I did a Berry spinach smoothie I really tasted the spinach and the color was so ugly!!! Loved this new recipe as a post workout snack, and will definitely add Greek yogurt next time for more protein
Awesome! So happy you’re loving this one, Saba 🙂
This smoothie recipes smells, taste delicious and is affordable and has so much added benefits.
So glad you love it 🙂
Could I use frozen spinach for this?
That should work fine! I’d recommend 1/4 to 1/2 cup 🙂
My favorite green smoothie!! My kids even love it!
Yess! So glad this recipe is a hit for the whole family ❤️
Love this recipe; very versatile. Added a fresh orange because didn’t have mango and subbed canned coconut milk (didn’t have almond milk) & it brightened up the flavor! Love all your recipes….thank you!
Added a fresh orange because didn’t have mango and subbed canned coconut milk (didn’t have almond milk) & it brightened up the flavor! Love all your recipes….thank you!
Yum that sounds amazing! Happy to hear it came out great 🙂
FANTASTIC!!! I only used a quarter ginger instead of inch.. GREAT!!
Absolutely delicious and so healthy!
You are correct this is the best green smoothie!
Delicious!
Perfect! So glad you agree!
The ginger is a great touch
Great
I loved the avocado smoothie. Yummy 😋
Yay! So glad you’re loving this smoothie and it turned out great for you 🙂
Great smoothie! My family has a big sweet tooth so I swapped milk for pineapple juice as the base to sweeten it up and now everyone will drink it.
Ah yay! This is great to hear, I am so glad you are loving this recipe and it turned out great for you!