High-Protein Banana Berry Smoothie:
Quick and Easy Healthy Breakfast

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This delightful banana berry smoothie makes an excellent quick and easy high protein healthy breakfast.

You can enjoy this smoothie on its own as a natural meal replacement shake for breakfast. At 18 g of protein, that’s what I do.

Are you a high-intensity athlete or simply the type that needs even more protein and calories for breakfast?

If so, pair this shake with 2 or 3 scrambled eggs for a monstrous power breakfast. Skip the toast to keep it gluten free :)

How To Make This Smoothie

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Banana Berry Smoothie Ingredients

Here’s a more detailed breakdown of the ingredients I use for this banana berry smoothie:

Banana

I use 1 whole banana. Organic is ideal.

If you want a sweeter smoothie add one more banana.

Alternatively if you are watching your sugar you could make this without banana…but then it would no longer be a “banana berry smoothie” :P

Frozen Mixed Berries

I use a frozen berry variety that includes raspberries, blackberries, blueberries.

If the mixture included strawberries I would be even happier. However I can live without it because I get the humongous bag from Costco. It’s cheap and that way I don’t run out as fast.

If you have fresh strawberries, it doesn’t hurt to toss them in on top of the frozen berries :)

Almond Milk

I buy original unsweetened almond milk from Trader Joe’s to cut down on unnecessary hidden sugars.

Tip: the label must say “UNSWEETENED.” Either “Original Unsweetened” or “Vanilla Unsweetened” is fine.

Unfortunately, “chocolate unsweetened” just doesn’t exist.

If you are just grabbing the “original” or “vanilla” or “chocolate” without paying attention to the “unsweetened” part, check your label.

If you haven’t done this yet, you will be shocked just how much sugar is added.

I promise you that once you look at the label on a regular almond milk, you will always go for the unsweetened kind going forward.

I don’t notice any difference at all in taste once it’s in the smoothie, and why add all those extra calories?

If you say you want your smoothie sweeter (if the fruit itself isn’t sweet enough for you), add a bit of honey or other natural sweetener to taste.

I want YOU to be in control of how much sweetener you toss in, not the almond milk manufacturers.

Bonus points if you make your own almond milk using the Vitamix blender to cut out the almond milk manufacturers altogether.

I used to do this more often but lately haven’t been as disciplined. I promise I will post a video tutorial soon so you can see just how easy it is (and I really have no excuses!)

Peanut Butter

This ingredient’s easy. After all, you’ve been eating peanut butter since you were like 2 years old, right?

But wait! Before you reach for the Skippy or Jif brand peanut butter…do you know what’s in them?

From Skippy’s own website, here is a list of ingredients in their original peanut butter:

INGREDIENTS: ROASTED PEANUTS, SUGAR, HYDROGENATED VEGETABLE OILS (COTTONSEED, SOYBEAN AND RAPESEED) TO PREVENT SEPARATION, SALT

Now look what happens when you choose the LOW FAT version:
INGREDIENTS: ROASTED PEANUTS, CORN SYRUP SOLIDS, SUGAR, SOY PROTEIN, SALT, HYDROGENATED VEGETABLE OILS (COTTONSEED, SOYBEAN AND RAPESEED) TO PREVENT SEPARATION, MONO AND DIGLYCERIDES, MINERALS (MAGNESIUM OXIDE, ZINC OXIDE, FERRIC ORTHOPHOSPHATE, COPPER SULFATE), VITAMINS (NIACINAMIDE, PYRIDOXIDE HYDROCHLORIDE, FOLIC ADIC).

To avoid this, go for natural peanut butters whenever possible, and organic if you can afford it.

Where to find it? Even at bigger grocery stores like Ralph’s or Albertsons you can find a few different options for natural peanut butters, and of course health food stores like Trader Joe’s have a great selection as well.

Look for peanut butters with 2 ingredients: peanuts, salt.

Salt is optional of course….grab the unsalted version if you’re watching your sodium.

Oh, and stay away from the “low fat” nonsense. Peanut butter has fat for a reason…the healthy fats in peanuts have a place in your diet in moderation.

Chia Seeds

I could write an entire article about the benefits of chia seeds and I will soon be doing so.

The bottom line is that chia seeds are an excellent source of Omega 3. The equivalent of salmon for vegetarians…great stuff.

Click here to order my favorite brand of chia seeds on Amazon.

I would consider chia seeds an optional item. The reason is that they do not contribute at all to taste or flavor—neither add nor detract.

That’s why you can get away without them and it wouldn’t affect the recipe at all except just not as many health benefits.

The way I look at it, they add such amazing health benefits to the smoothie that why wouldn’t you want to add it?

Chocolate Protein Powder

The final ingredient is protein powder. I recommend a chocolate flavor because it gives the smoothie a nice taste.

Bonus points if the protein powder gets its flavor from cacao instead of added sugar or artificial sweeteners, as is the case with Garden of Life Chocolate Protein Powder.

In general look for a minimal amount of artificial or processed ingredients. Garden of Life again is great with that which is why it’s my favorite :)

If you don’t want Garden of Life, you can use any other type including brown rice protein, pea protein, hemp protein, or whey protein if you are not a strict vegan.

I’m vegetarian but not vegan. I usually eat Garden of Life raw vegan protein powder but since I’m currently out, I’ve been using up the rest of this whey protein powder so that’s what I use in this recipe.

That’s it for the ingredients. Read on for final blending tips.

Reminder: To download a printer-friendly version of this recipe and ingredients checklist click here.

Banana Berry Smoothie Making Tips

The final step is to actually blend the ingredients to make the banana berry smoothie!

If you’re using a Vitamix or equivalent high-powered blender, simply toss in all the ingredients in the order listed above.

Slowly move dial from 0 to 10, then flip the switch from Variable to High and allow to blend for roughly 30 seconds before it’s done.

If you’re using a more basic blender, you’ll want to blend in phases to avoid jamming up your blender and getting the ingredients all stuck and gross.

And that’s it! Hopefully this helps you see how easy it is to make this smoothie recipe.

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