Green breakfast smoothie with avocado and mint, made ahead

Six-forty on a Tuesday morning, blender going, one kid still in her netball bib from the night before because she ‘forgot’ to change. This is roughly how most of my breakfasts get made lately, standing at the bench with one eye on the clock and the other on whoever’s about to knock the jug off the counter. The green breakfast smoothie is the one that’s survived the longest in our rotation, mostly because it doesn’t taste like the colour it is.

Why this smoothie earns its spot on a busy bench

I’ll be honest, I resisted green smoothies for years. They photograph beautifully and taste like a compost heap half the time, which is a shame because the actual nutrition case for them is solid. Avocado gives you the creamy body without needing a scoop of ice cream to get there, and it carries a good hit of monounsaturated fat that helps you absorb the nutrients from the spinach sitting right next to it. Mint does the heavy lifting on flavour, it cuts through the vegetal edge of the spinach so the whole thing tastes closer to a mojito than a health tonic. My eldest actually asked for seconds the first time I made it. My youngest won’t touch anything green on principle, so more on that below.

The other reason I keep making this one is fibre. Between the spinach, the chia and the banana, you’re getting a genuinely useful amount before 8am, which according to the Eat for Health guidelines is exactly where most Australian households are falling short. Most of us know we should eat more fibre. Fewer of us know it can turn up in a smoothie that takes four minutes.

What actually goes in it

Nothing exotic here, and nothing you need to drive to a health food shop for. I buy baby spinach in the big bag from Coles because it’s cheaper per gram and doesn’t wilt as fast as the small punnets, and I freeze bananas in sliced portions the moment they go spotty rather than letting them turn into fruit fly bait on the bench. The mint I grow in a pot on the back step, it’s genuinely one of the few herbs I haven’t managed to kill, which is saying something given my record with basil.

Ingredients

• 1/2 ripe avocado
• 1 frozen banana, sliced before freezing
• 1 cup (about 30g) baby spinach leaves, firmly packed
• 6-8 fresh mint leaves
• 1 cup (250ml) milk of your choice (I use full-cream, oat milk works well too)
• 1/2 cup (125g) plain Greek yoghurt
• 1 tablespoon chia seeds
• Juice of half a lime
• 1 teaspoon honey or pure maple syrup, optional
• 4-5 ice cubes, only if your banana isn’t frozen

Method

1. Pour the milk and yoghurt into the blender jug first, this stops the spinach and mint from getting stuck under the blades.
2. Add the avocado, banana, spinach and mint leaves.
3. Add the chia seeds, lime juice and honey if using.
4. Blend on high for 45-60 seconds, until completely smooth with no green flecks visible, scraping down the sides once if needed.
5. Taste and adjust, a squeeze more lime if it’s tasting flat, an extra mint leaf if you want it sharper.
6. Pour into two glasses and drink straight away, or portion into jars with lids for the fridge overnight.

Serves 2 (doubles well for lunchboxes, see below)

Getting the fussy ones on board

My youngest won’t touch anything that looks like it came from the garden, so for her I pour the smoothie into an opaque cup rather than a glass, problem mostly solved. If your kids are more curious than suspicious, a straw and a small handful of frozen berries scattered on top does the trick of turning green into something more like a milkshake with secrets. I’ve also had luck calling it a ‘shamrock smoothie’ around St Patrick’s Day, novelty buys you at least three mornings of goodwill.

Making it ahead without the sad separated layer

This smoothie doesn’t love sitting in the fridge overnight, the avocado can oxidise slightly and the whole thing separates into layers that need a good stir before drinking. What works better is freezing it in silicone muffin trays or small containers as smoothie ‘pucks’, then blitzing a couple with a splash of milk on the morning you need it. It also freezes well as full portions in jars, just leave a couple of centimetres at the top for expansion. I keep a batch in the freezer specifically for the mornings when netball training runs early and there’s genuinely no time to chop anything.

A variation for when the avocado’s not ripe

Avocados are their own small tyranny, rock hard one day and past it the next, so on the mornings mine haven’t cooperated I swap it for a quarter of a cup of rolled oats soaked in the milk for ten minutes first. You lose a bit of the creaminess but gain some extra fibre and a thicker texture that holds up better in a lunchbox thermos. This is also the version I make when I’m trying to use up the porridge oats before they go stale, waste not and all that.

Where this fits into a proper morning

I’d argue a smoothie on its own isn’t quite breakfast, it’s a good start but I like something to chew alongside it, even just a slice of toast or a small handful of nuts. If you’re rebuilding your morning routine from scratch, I’ve written more on that over at building a morning routine that actually sticks, and if smoothies are your gateway back into eating better generally, healthy eating when life gets busy covers the wider ground. For another green option that leans juicier rather than creamy, our ultimate green juice is worth a look, and on the mornings you want something baked instead, the coconut and blueberry baked oats for real weekday mornings has become a fixture at our place too.

The nutrition information from Healthdirect is pretty clear that most of us aren’t short on protein, we’re short on fibre and vegetables generally, and a smoothie like this is one of the easier ways to close that gap before the day gets away from you. It’s not a miracle cure, it’s just an easy win on a morning that doesn’t have room for much else.

I made this again last Sunday before an early netball match, standing in the kitchen in my coaching polo with the blender running while my youngest complained about the colour from the next room. Some things don’t change. The smoothie still gets drunk though, which at 6:45am on a game day is really all I’m asking for.

— Nicole Barnes, Golden Door Living kitchen