Chocolate PB Banana Protein Smoothie

Today I'm sharing a great snack/breakfast/post-workout meal. I love green smoothies if they don't taste “green”. Do you know what I mean? I've had some green smoothies where I feel like I'm gagging over them – they taste like spinach or kale juice etc. Not my thing. I love adding as much spinach as I can without getting that “green taste”. Spinach is full of fiber and lots of vitamin A and it makes me feel good to get in as many veggies as I can each day. I always add lemon to my green smoothies because it really cuts that green taste – like I don't taste the spinach even though it's there. 🙂 Sneaky….I get my kids to drink it too!

My friend, Jen, shared this recipe with me recently. I loved it and had to share! She doesn't add the banana and she adds a good helping of chia seeds and more peanut butter than I've listed in the recipe. I tweaked it a bit to be a little lighter on the fat and a little more carbs. You can use this exact recipe and the food log created on MFP – or tweak it to what you like or need to fit your goals.

Yield: 1 serving

Chocolate PB Banana Protein Smoothie

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Prep Time 5 minutes

Total Time 5 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 cup water
• 1/4 inch slice of lemon with most of the rind on it (this cuts the “green” taste of the spinach – but doesn't add a lemon flavor)
• 1 serving Ideal Lean chocolate peanut butter protein powder
• 70 g baby spinach
• 50 g ripe banana, with brown specs (about 1 medium size banana)
• 20 g peanut butter (I used Members Mark All Natural)
• 1-2 cups ice cubes

Instructions

Add ingredients to the blender in this order: water, lemon, protein powder, spinach, banana (using a ripe banana will make a lot of difference in the taste – use one that has brown specs, like you would for banana bread), peanut butter and ice. Blend until smooth. Adding them in this order helps push all the spinach down to blend without needing to scrape the sides of the blender.

Optional ingredients:
Chia seeds (great way to add healthy fat and lots of fiber)
Use PB powder instead of peanut butter for less fat (Although, I like the taste with real PB for the added fat) OR add more PB 🙂
You can add more spinach (up to 85 g – much more it might taste “green”)

Notes

MFP Reference:
“Biceps After Babies Chocolate PB Banana Protein Smoothie” (MFP has these specific brands in the food)
Cal 285 C 23.6 g F 11.5 g P 26.5 g
PRO TIP: Serving size for this recipe is 1.

Feel free to make your own “meal” of your adaption of this smoothie, (with your protein powder, and more or less banana/peanut butter etc). Just log the ingredients you use in MFP under whatever meal you choose, then save that day's meal as a “meal” in MFP. Doing this will allow you to easily add it to your log without entering each individual ingredient the next time around.