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Do you want to get healthier? I know you’ve heard green smoothies are the way to go for getting nutrition-packed veggies into your daily diet. I’ll share my favorite shortcut with you – making homemade green superfood powder for your green smoothies!
Reading: dried greens for smoothies
My green smoothie story
Years ago, when I was battling hemiplegic migraines, I came across Dr. Terry Wahls’s work and her diet plan including 9 cups of veggies and fruit per day, to provide the mitochondria in your cells with everything they need to function properly.
It sounded like a great idea, but I couldn’t imagine eating that much of anything, every single day… much less actually taking the time to prepare it all, wash dishes, and clean up.
So I started making myself smoothies every morning. I included berries, half a banana, and a ton of greens in each one, but there were a few problems.
Greens are GREAT but…
- They take up a ton of room in the fridge.
- If you don’t use them in time, they get nasty and slimy and then you’ve wasted them.
- They have a lot of water in them, so when you add them to your smoothie, they change the texture. And not, in my opinion, for the better.
What’s the solution?
Before I knew it, I solved all three of those problems, by making my own green superfood powder for smoothies!
I’ve been doing it for years now, making a huge batch every few months, and adding it to smoothies, sauces, soup, muffins, brownies, cake, meatloaf or hamburgers, and eggs!
(My 4 year old son’s favorite eggs are “green eggs” – scrambled eggs with the green superfood powder whisked in. They’re BRIGHT GREEN. So fun!)
And this isn’t just kale powder or spinach powder either. I use as many greens as I can to get a variety of micronutrients in every spoonful.
Some great greens to dehydrate when you’re making homemade Green Superfood Powder for Smoothies:
- Spinach
- Kale
- Watercress
- Collard Greens
- Turnip Greens
- Beet Greens
- Carrot Tops
- Bok Choy
- Chinese Cabbage
- Broccoli or broccoli stems
- Celery leaves or ends
- Any other edible greens you have on hand or have access to!
How to make dehydrated green superfood powder for smoothies:
Step 1: Wash your greens. For a short cut, you may buy pre-washed greens from the store, but if you’re buying local greens from farmers, that’s not an option.
I fill up the sink with water and a good splash of vinegar, and swish everything around in there really well, then spread on kitchen towels to dry a little.
Step 2: Fill your dehydrator.
Read more: are green smoothies good for you
I don’t worry too much about overfilling the dehydrator. I cram in so many greens! I’ve even done 3 big boxes of baby spinach at once before. This load was 3 bunches of green chard, 3 bunches of red chard, and 3 bunches of kale. I use this dehydrator and have for years – it’s AMAZING. And so so big. So I can do a lot of greens at once.
The dehydrator doesn’t create a lot of nutrient loss since it works at a low temperature, but I’m looking forward to using my new home freeze dryer for future batches. With that method I’ll have 0% nutrient loss!
Step 3: Dry your greens.
Since I use the entire thing – including thick stems, sometimes this can take a while. Thin leaves dry relatively quickly, but you want to make sure the thick stems are completely dry and brittle, so they snap when you try to bend them.
I usually do them at 115 degrees for 24-48 hours. Since my dehydrator is out of the way in the laundry room, it doesn’t bother me to have it running for so long.
Step 4: Check for dryness and load into your blender.
Depending on your goals, different blenders may be suitable. If you’re adding the greens to a sauce in place of herbs and don’t mind them being bigger, any blender will do. But if you want them to go into baked goods, smoothies, and soups without changing the consistency of your recipe much at all, you’ll want SUPERFINE powder. In that case, I highly recommend the vitamix blender I have, or the blendtec which I know a lot of friends of mine use.
In my opinion, there’s really NO substitute for a powerful high-speed blender. Before I bought it, I had a cheap blender that was nearly worthless, then an immersion blender I loved (and still do love)… but once I took the plunge and bought the Vitamix, there was no turning back. I use it for SO MUCH stuff.
Step 5: Blend.
You may have to use the tamper to push the greens into the blades at first, but once it gets going, it’s ON. I hold a kitchen towel over the top, to keep the dust from escaping into the air through the teeny openings, just to keep things a bit cleaner.
Read more: Try These 20 Delicious & Healthy Smoothie Recipes for Weight Loss
Step 6: Carefully dump out of the blender onto a piece of waxed paper.
After turning it over, I tap the sides of the blender with the handle of a spatula, to release as much of the powder as I can. I don’t want to waste any! I also tap the lid with the spatula handle, over the wax paper too.
See how fine the powder is? It’s almost like chalk dust it’s so finely blended. I LOVE the way it turns out! Just think of all of the possibilities of recipes you can use this in! 
Step 7: Transfer the powder into a jar for storage.
The homemade green superfood powder will stay fresh for many many months as long as you were sure to thoroughly dry your greens! Whenever I have a new kind of greens (like if I cook some beets and want to dry the greens, or have leftover stems from cooking chard or something), I just follow the same steps above and add them to the same jar, then shake really well to combine.
Yay for varied nutrient profiles!
These are the lids I use for my jars for storage – way more convenient than two-part canning lids when you’re removing it and replacing it so often to access what’s inside. And they’re cheap enough that it’s a no-brainer to use them for everything.
Step 8: Share this post.
Share this post to your favorite healthy-living group on facebook (you’ll be a hero!), pin it to Pinterest so you don’t lose it, and make sure to hit “Stumble” so others can find this tutorial.
The good Karma will only come back around to you in the end!
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