Tropical Green Smoothie Made with Coconut Milk

Let’s talk about how to make THE best tropical green smoothie in just 5 minutes! We’re using kale leaves, green apple, pineapple, ginger, lemon juice, and coconut milk. And besides tasting like a creamy tropical DREAM it’s also dairy free, paleo friendly, and naturally sweetened!

In this house, we love a refreshing beverage.

And I am definitely a all-year-round type of smoothie girl, but when the weather finally starts warming up they become more regular in our breakfast / snack rotation.

How about you? Do you rock smoothies the whole year around or just when the the snow melts + sun starts shining?

If you love a homemade dairy free smoothie as much as we do be sure to check out our recipes for this 5-Minute Mango Turmeric Ginger Smoothie, 3-Ingredient Strawberry Banana Smoothie, a gorgeous Beet and Berry Smoothie, or this 5-Minute Frozen Mango Smoothie!

No matter what time of year I am blending up a smoothie, I always makes sure it’s made with ingredients we love that taste good together.

I don’t always add veggies to the mix, but if the flavors are going to work I will throw something green in the blender. If not a green leafy vegetable a few pieces of bright orange carrot like in this Turmeric Mango Citrus Smoothie are always good.

Green smoothies have been having a moment in the spotlight for awhile now and for good reason.

When they are made with wholesome ingredients, and ACTUALLY TASTE GOOD (aka not like grass), they are worth obsessing over.

And we are currently crushing on this tropical green smoothie. It’s basically the queen of the smoothie party that is happening in our kitchen right now.

I mean, check out that crown!

How to make the best tropical green smoothie

As long as you have a decent blender, this smoothie is a BREEZE to make. The best quality of a Vitamix or any high speed blender is its ability to turn any fruit or vegetable into smoothy, creamy, smoothie BLISS.

Here are the step by step instructions to making this smoothie:

1. Prep all of the smoothie ingredients: peel and cut the pineapple (or for a time saving short cut, buy some pre-cut pineapple at the grocery store!), cut the apple, peel and thinly slice a little chunk of ginger, wash a handful of kale, juice a lemon (or squeeze it right into your blender container), and pop the top on a can of full fat coconut milk.
2. Add a few pieces of ice to your blender along with the rest of the ingredients and blend everything UP! Vitamix recommends adding the ice and harder-to-blend ingredients first so they are closest to the blades. Then the blades can grab onto those ingredients first and you won’t end up with any weird chunks in your smoothie.
3. Depending on your blender you may need to use a tamper, or add a tiny bit of water at a time to get things moving smoothly.
4. Pour into 2 glasses and serve!

Ingredients in this tropical green smoothie

The flavor of this tropical green smoothie is bright, fresh, and well balanced. It has plenty of tropical notes and tastes sweet enough that you could drink it every day, but not SO sweet that it reminds you more of a milkshake than a smoothie.

I think it’s the magic ginger + lemon combo.

Ya feel me?

The perfect mix of sweet + tart ingredients combined with the soft creaminess of coconut milk makes this recipe one that you’ll come back to again and again.

The ingredients are:

• Green kale – You can substitute another dark leafy green like spinach
• Banana
• Green apple
• Fresh pineapple
• Ginger
• Lemon juice
• Coconut milk
• Water
• Ice
• Hemp seeds
• Tiny pinch of sea salt – Trust. I add just a smidge of sea salt to all of my smoothies + blended drinks. It doesn’t make the smoothie taste salty, but it does round out all the flavors in the most perfect way.

A few notes on the recipe + some substitutions

• If you want to save yourself some time in the morning this smoothie can be made the night before and stored in the refrigerator until you’re ready to enjoy. Just give it a good shake before drinking!
• Don’t have kale on hand? You can easily substitute another green like baby spinach!
• To keep fresh greens on hand at all times for green smoothies store them in the freezer! Prepped and washed kale that has been thoroughly dried freezes perfectly in the freezer to use for smoothies whenever the craving strikes. You can also easily pop a clamshell of baby spinach into the freezer to have at the ready for smoothies, too.
• You can substitute frozen pineapple for fresh pineapple. If using frozen pineapple you may want to skip or reduce the amount of ice in the recipe so that the smoothie doesn’t end up being too thick.
• The pineapple can also be swapped for for mango, or even peaches.

If you enjoyed this recipe, we’d love it if you would take 5 seconds to rate and review it below! It’s also super helpful for other readers if you share any modifications you made to the recipe. 

Thank you for sharing your kitchen with NK. We’re so grateful you’re here!

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