Savory smoothie recipes
Fruits are the traditional first choice for smoothies, but let’s take a look beyond convention and start experimenting with the veggies and herbs in savory smoothie recipes
When investigating the Foodpairing® tree of milk and turning our heads towards the vegetable category, you’ll spot cucumber –use the category filter in the listview to get a list of best matching vegetables. Cucumber consists of more than 90% of water, so instead of adding crushed ice to get the smoothie cold, just refrigerate the blended cucumber before use. Next we add olive oil for the body, cilantro and chives for some kick and sherry vinegar to brighten the flavours. All ingredients were found with the help of the Foodpairing® Explorer.
Recipe
- 335 g cucumber
- 3 g of cilantro
- 18 g chives
- 175 g milk
- 10 g sherry vinegar
- 75 g olive oil
- pepper and salt
Dice the cucumber. Chop the chives and cilantro. Blend all ingredients. Add the olive oil in a continuous trickle. Season to taste, pass through a fine mesh and refrigerate.
Serve with garnishes like shrimp or mussels.
Next recipe was also made staring from the Foodpairing tree of milk, it’s a savory smoothie with tomato and basil:
Recipe
- 255 g canned tomatoes*
- 3 g basil
- 100 g milk
- 20 g mozzarella water
- 25 g mozzarella
- pepper and salt
Blend all ingredients. Season to taste, pass through a fine mesh and refrigerate.
* canned tomatoes give more taste to the smoothie than fresh one.
Furaneol is one of the molecules tomato and strawberry share. The same goes for raspberry and tomato, applying this neat little combo in a veggie smoothie is just magic. For the base we selected mozzarella but cottage cheese would also be great, added some fresh basil to give it a nice twist. When you get the proportions right one can enhance the fruitiness of tomato by adding strawberries or raspberries without losing the characteristic tomato flavor.
Recipe
- 255 g canned tomatoes
- 3 g basil
- 150 g milk
- 40 g raspberries
- 10 g ketchup
- pepper and salt
Blend all ingredients. Season to taste, pass through a fine mesh and refrigerate.
Let’s talk milk. Milk is easy to infuse, this is because of its colloidal (fat + water) properties. Infused milk allows for new aroma incorporation in a smoothie without using the actual flavoring ingredients; which could otherwise present textural, taste or other technical difficulties. Traditional examples are vanilla, cinnamon or anise infused milk. But please do go wild with the infusions, our favorites are shrimp, bacon, chicken skin and smoke infused milk. In our previous article about smoothies there is a smoothie with oat infused milk. Here is a more challenging recipe with bacon flavored milk.
Recipe
Bacon flavoured milk
- 5 dl milk
- 150 g smoked bacon
Bring the milk to the boil. Dice the smoked bacon and add to the hot milk. Cover with plastic clingfilm. Let infuse for at least 1 hour. Sieve
Smoothie
- 150 g bacon flavoured milk
- 100 g cooked peas
- 1 g mint
- pepper and salt
Blend all ingredients. Season to taste, pass through a fine mesh and refrigerate.
Instead of using plain olive oil in the cucumber smoothie, we can create more depth by using an infused oil. Here’s an example with red bell pepper and tomato.
Recipe
Chorizo oil
- 1 garlic clove
- 40 g chopped onion
- 100 g diced chorizo
- 200 g olive oil
Fry the garlic with the onion and chorizo in some oil. Add the remaining amount of oil. Let simmer for 5′ minutes. Cover with plastic clingpaper and let infuse for at least 1 hour. Sieve.
Smoothie
- 100 g red bell pepper
- 140 g milk
- 20 g canned tomato
- 5 g chorizo oil
- pepper and salt
Blend all ingredients. Season to taste, pass through a fine mesh and refrigerate.
