Can You Freeze Smoothies?

5 minutes

More and more people are turning to smoothies to quickly and easily get vitamins and nutrients – particularly for breakfast. All you have to do is add the ingredients and blend – it is that easy! But, can you make it even easier?

How To Freeze Smoothies

The ability to freeze smoothies makes all the difference between a calm morning and a chaotic day. Bulk preparing a few week’s supplies of smoothies can buy you plenty of time during the week.

So how do you go about freezing your smoothies? Well, there are actually two approaches to take:

How to Freeze Blended Smoothies

This is the ultimate make-ahead method. You’ll make your smoothies as normal and then freeze. This method is great for convenience but it can impact the overall taste of your smoothies which may degrade with time:

1. Make Smoothie: Blend the ingredients as you normally would. You place all your ingredients in the blender and start blending it. The ingredients are blended until they are in a drinkable form.
2. Portion into Bags: Pour the smoothies into airtight containers or thick freezer bags. As you seal them up, you need to try and remove as much air as possible. This helps smoothies to retain their flavour and fragrance without other odours seeping in.
3. Freeze: Place in the freezer, and you’re done.

This is not the preferred method for freezing smoothies. Instead, we would suggest freezing smoothie ingredients in packs.

How to Freeze Smoothie Packs

By making a smoothie in advance, you may lose some of the flavours. This method helps you avoid that:

1. Prepare Ingredients: First, prepare your ingredients. Get a large bowl and wash your berries, slice up your bananas, peel your kiwi, cube up your mango. You can use any fruit you want and then mix together carefully in the bowl.
2. Flash Freeze: Grab a few baking trays and tip the mixed fruit onto the trays, trying to spread it out so they’re not touching. Place into the freezer for a few hours.
3. Mix: Once all the fruit has frozen, tip it back into your bowl to combine. You want to mix the ingredients together so each bag has an even mix of fruit.
4. Portion and Freeze: You now want to grab some thick freezer bags and tip roughly 125g of fruit into each bag. This will be the equivalent to one smoothie portion. Pop these bags into the freezer.

Whenever you desire a smoothie, take out the ingredients from the freezer and put them in the blender. Add either one cup of liquid or half a cup of liquid and half a cup of yoghurt, and you are ready to blend!

4 Tips for Freezing Smoothies

Now you know how to freeze it, we’ve got our 3 top tips which we strongly recommend following when freezing smoothies to have the best results:

Create Smoothie Packs
Prepare a huge bowl of fruit, mix it up and then portion it into individual bags with one bag being enough fruit for one smoothie. You can then grab a bag, add some liquid and blitz for a smoothie. 

Don’t Defrost
There’s no need to defrost frozen fruit before blending. It will blending fine (if you have a good-quality blender) and will also keep your smoothie nice and cool.

Make Smoothie Lollies
If you’ve made a smoothie and want to try something different then consider decanting it into a lolly mould. They make delicious and nutritious ice lollies without the nasties. 

Think Outside the Box
You don’t have to limit yourself to a handful of fruit. You can freeze vegetables, such as spinach, alongside nuts and seeds in a freezer bag.

How Long Can You Freeze Smoothies?

Many smoothies have a dairy base. So, you need to be careful with how long you store it. If stored in a Ziploc bag, smoothies will have a one-month shelf life roughly.

Mason jars or Tupperware containers are ideal for storing smoothies. The seal of these jars is tighter when compared with freeze bags. With mason jars, you can extend the shelf life of a smoothie to 3 months!

You can take another extra step towards making sure you do not forget about the smoothies. Label all bags or jars with the date. So that next time you open your freezer, you know how much time is left before the smoothies go bad.

How Do You Defrost Smoothies?

The defrosting process for smoothies is the easiest one you will ever see. All you need to do is move a single-serving smoothie or jar in the fridge. You let it thaw overnight back to its creamy consistency.

So if you want one for breakfast then place it in the fridge the evening before.

If you’re using the prepared smoothie packs then you don’t even need to defrost them. Just toss into your blender with some liquid and blend as normal.

Separation may occur in the thawing stage. Just give it a vigorous stir with a spoon and it should be incorporated once again.

Can You Refreeze Smoothies?

You can, but it does not mean you should.

The freeze, thaw, and refreezing process can affect the integrity of the smoothie. The smoothie loses its moisture, becoming flat and dull. Since it’s a fruit-based product, it also opens itself to the possibility of fermentation.

That is why it is recommended to only thaw the smoothie amount you will be drinking the next day.

Do Smoothies Freeze Well?

You will face no issues with freezing a smoothie, as long as you take the right measures. Many people wonder about smoothies losing their nutritional value after freezing. It is natural to ask the question then.

After all, the point of making smoothies is to get an easy way to consume lots of nutrients and vitamins.

The fact is they will lose some nutritional value after freezing. That is how it goes with most products that are frozen.

However, this loss of nutritional value is almost negligible. It is better to lose some than not get any nutrition by not having the smoothie at all.

Related FAQs

If you’ve still got questions about freezing smoothies or smoothies in general, then these may help: