Easy Banana Berry Smoothie

I recently found some of my old recipes from when Danielle and I taught cooking classes at our previous job, and it brought back a lot of fun memories. I still partner with community groups and schools to teach classes, so I’ll be revisiting some of these recipes going forward!

One simple recipe that was a surprising hit with kids over the years was this basic Banana Berry Smoothie with a secret ingredient most people had never tried: kefir.

Kefir is a fermented milk (sounds delicious, right? Stay with me!) that is similar to a drinkable yogurt in texture, with a tang like plain unsweetened yogurt. It is highly concentrated with probiotics with a common store brand having 10 billion per serving, vs a widely available probiotic yogurt brand containing 10 million per serving.

While some people don’t love to drink kefir on it’s own, it works wonderfully in smoothies. The tang balances the sweetness of the fruits beautifully, rounding out the flavour where plain milk can leave it feeling just a little “blah”.

As always, smoothies are versatile with making adjustments to ingredients to suit your taste preference.

If you’re new to making smoothies, here are some tips:

Often, the most important thing is to stick with similar amounts of fluid vs solids. Depending on your blender, you may need to stop and stir, and gradually add 1-2 tbsp more fluid at a time. Using fresh fruit will need less fluid than frozen, and if you like a thinner smoothie, add a touch more. Take your time, measure out your ingredients, and write down your adjustments so you can make it the same each time!

Banana Berry Kefir Smoothie

• 1 cup Frozen Mixed Berries

• 1 small-medium banana, peeled

• 1/2 cup plain greek yogurt

• 1/4 cup orange juice

• 1/4 cup plain kefir

• 1-2 tsp chia seeds or ground flax seeds (optional)

Directions: Add your ingredients to your blender, start low if you have adjustable settings and increase as needed; blend until smooth.

Fun fact: two of the top food blogs (The Kitchn and America’s Test Kitchen) recommend completely opposite methods for how to layer your ingredients, so experiment with your specific blender to see if one way works better for you.

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Let us know YOUR favourite smoothie recipe in the comments or on our social media - we’d love to hear from you!