In a recent post, I talked about my super-sneaky way to get more greens into my daily diet. While I will keep using my fave vegan greens powder to add more greens on the cheap, I have now found another cheap trick with which I am quickly falling in love: frozen spinach.
Fresh spinach is a pretty common ingredient for green juices, since it is quite the nutritional powerhouse, but not everyone can afford to buy organic fresh spinach for their daily juicing needs.
Conventional spinach just has way too many pesticides -- landing it on the Dirty Dozen list of foods to buy organic -- so I really can't recommend saving money by going non-organic on this one.
But I can recommend going frozen. Sure, fresh is better when you can, but frozen can be cheaper and way more convenient, and I'm all about making it easy and affordable to eat as healthy as possible.
I picked up the organic frozen spinach pictured below for $2.49. The conventional store-brand option was $1.99. I am more than happy to pay an additional 50 cents to go organic here.
Fresh spinach is a pretty common ingredient for green juices, since it is quite the nutritional powerhouse, but not everyone can afford to buy organic fresh spinach for their daily juicing needs.
Conventional spinach just has way too many pesticides -- landing it on the Dirty Dozen list of foods to buy organic -- so I really can't recommend saving money by going non-organic on this one.
But I can recommend going frozen. Sure, fresh is better when you can, but frozen can be cheaper and way more convenient, and I'm all about making it easy and affordable to eat as healthy as possible.
I picked up the organic frozen spinach pictured below for $2.49. The conventional store-brand option was $1.99. I am more than happy to pay an additional 50 cents to go organic here.
I've been throwing a handful in my daily smoothies -- like this one and this one -- and loving it!
I dig how I easily upped the nutritional value of each smoothie, and they still taste fantastic.
Here is the recipe for the Spinach-Strawberry-Pineapple smoothie I whipped up today:
Spinach-Strawberry Smoothie Recipe
11 ounces of coconut water (juice or regular water can substitute for this)
1 banana
1/2 cup frozen strawberries
1/2 cup frozen pineapple
1/2 cup frozen spinach
You can stop there, but I also added:
1 tablespoon flax seed meal
2 teaspoons chia seeds (pre-soaked)
If you don't have a powerful blender, you may need to add a bit more liquid.
Here's what it looked like in the blender...
I dig how I easily upped the nutritional value of each smoothie, and they still taste fantastic.
Here is the recipe for the Spinach-Strawberry-Pineapple smoothie I whipped up today:
Spinach-Strawberry Smoothie Recipe
11 ounces of coconut water (juice or regular water can substitute for this)
1 banana
1/2 cup frozen strawberries
1/2 cup frozen pineapple
1/2 cup frozen spinach
You can stop there, but I also added:
1 tablespoon flax seed meal
2 teaspoons chia seeds (pre-soaked)
If you don't have a powerful blender, you may need to add a bit more liquid.
Here's what it looked like in the blender...
On a side note, this entire vegan smoothie was pretty cheap to make. I found the frozen strawberries, frozen pineapple, flax seed meal and coconut water at the dollar store. The bananas came from my fave roadside produce stand where I get them six for a buck, and the chia seeds came from the bulk bin at Winco -- where they are about half the price I've seen them selling for elsewhere.
Do you have cheap tricks for adding more greens to your juicing? If so, let us know in the comments below!
Do you have cheap tricks for adding more greens to your juicing? If so, let us know in the comments below!
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