So, I have this thing for avocados.
The creamy deliciousness of this unique fruit (yep, it’s a fruit) is something that I find myself craving pretty much every single day of the week.
However, as much as I love them, there are only so many days in a row that I can eat avocado toast.
I need some new ways to get my fix, to change things up once in awhile.
The one that I am currently obsessed with is this smoothie. It’s a totally new way to enjoy my beloved avocado, without having to worry about careful slicing, toasting bread, and all that jazz.
I know, putting avocado in a smoothie might sound totally weird. I mean, I’ve used it in drinks like this before, but usually it’s combined with other ingredients that mask its flavor.
Instead, this recipe does everything possible to totally highlight the flavor of the fruit instead.
And I can’t help myself now! I love adding avocado to smoothies like this one, or in our banana avocado version when I want even more fruity sweetness.
When it comes to making delicious things, it’s an added bonus when they’re simple to prepare. This is the simplest recipe ever. And it only requires a handful of ingredients:
- Avocado – obviously. The creaminess of this ingredient and its fresh flavor serve as the base for this recipe, after all.
- Coconut milk – I like to use the full fat variety, but you can also use light coconut milk if you prefer a lighter texture. If you want to make the recipe even more lightened up, you can use coconut water instead.
- Lime juice – the tanginess from the lime helps to bring a little acid to the party. You can also use orange juice, depending on what you have on hand or your flavor preference.
- Honey – to sweeten things up, the honey comes in to bring it to just the right level. You can also use agave, if you prefer to make this smoothie vegan. Whatever you choose, be sure to keep it handy, because you might want to add more than what is listed in the ingredients list. Feel free to adjust to taste!
- Vanilla extract – the smooth flavor of vanilla complements the fruit, as does its natural sweetness.
- Hydrolyzed collagen – this is an optional ingredient, but there are lots of benefits to including it. Most notably, it packs a protein punch. Just make sure that you get one that has few simple ingredients since it’s not regulated by the FDA, and skip the flavored versions.
- Ice – this is the part that makes the smoothie cool and icy. Feel free to increase the quantity, to adjust the texture to your liking.
My biggest tip for making this recipe is to be sure that you layer the ingredients in the blender as they are listed. That way, the ice on top will weigh down the other ingredients, helping your smoothie to come together in the best way.
You can find more smoothie solutions here, with tips to make the best breakfast beverages possible.
I promise, this drink does not taste like guacamole, hahaha. It’s creamy and kind of like a sorbet in texture.
Basically, I think it’s the best kind of green drink that doesn’t have any leafy greens involved. Sometimes, you just get tired of the leafy greens. after all.
You can devour it for breakfast, or enjoy it as a healthy afternoon snack when you need a burst of energy to make it through the rest of the work day. It’s particularly incredible because it’s oh-so-cooling.
Chill out, sit back, and sip away!
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Icy Avocado Smoothie
- Total Time: 5 minutes
- Yield: 2 servings 1x
Description
An icy avocado smoothie is delicious, creamy, and healthy, making it ideal for breakfast or even as a healthy afternoon snack.
Ingredients
- 2 cups coconut milk (or coconut water)
- 1 1/2 Tbsp fresh lime juice (from about 1/2 lime), or juice of 1/2 medium orange
- 3 Tbsp honey or agave syrup (or more, to taste)
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 1 Tbsp hydrolyzed collagen (optional)
- 1 ripe avocado, pitted and peeled
- 1 cup ice
Instructions
- In a Vitamix or other high-speed blender, layer coconut milk, lime juice, honey, vanilla, collagen, avocado, and ice, with the liquid ingredients added closest to the blade and the frozen ingredients added the furthest away. Blend until smooth.
- Taste for sweetness and add more honey if desired. Serve immediately.
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Category: Smoothies
- Method: Blender, No-Cook
- Cuisine: Breakfast
Keywords: avocado, smoothie, dairy-free, coconut milk
Cooking By the Numbers…
Step 1 – Juice Limes, Prep Avocado, and Measure Remaining Ingredients
Juice about half of a lime or a little more, until you have 1 ½ tablespoons total of lime juice. If you are using an orange instead, juice about one half.
Halve the avocado, and then remove the pit. Remove the avocado flesh from the peel.
Measure out the remaining ingredients as listed on the ingredients list.
Step 2 – Blend
Add the coconut milk, lime juice, honey, vanilla, collagen, avocado, and ice to a high-speed blender or Vitamix. Layer the ingredients in this order, to make sure the smoothie comes together with the best possible results.
Blend until smooth.
Taste for sweetness and add additional honey or agave syrup, if you wish.
How Do I Pick a Ripe Avocado?
Picking a ripe avocado is a frequently repeated quest that can frustrate me in a heartbeat.
Here are the steps that I have learned, so you can be sure you pick the best avocado for this recipe:
- Check the outside color first. Those that are darker in color are generally more ripe. Be careful not to select ones with any large indentations, as they are likely bruised.
- Place the avocado in your palm and gently squeeze it. Check the firmness. It should be soft, but not mushy. If the fruit is slightly or moderately firm, you will need to allow it to ripen for one to three days before you use it for this recipe.
You can read more about choosing and storing avocados here, or learn how to ripen them at home.
Are you looking for even more smoothie recipes? Here are some of our favorites:
Are you avocado obsessed, or are you just an occasional eater? Tell us in the comments below. Once you cool off with this recipe, be sure to give it a rating to let other readers know how much you enjoyed it.
Photos by Meghan Yager, © Ask the Experts, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. See our TOS for more details. Originally published by Shanna Mallon on February 18, 2016. Last updated: March 1, 2022 at 15:57 pm. With additional writing and editing by Allison Sidhu.
Nutritional information derived from a database of known generic and branded foods and ingredients and was not compiled by a registered dietitian or submitted for lab testing. It should be viewed as an approximation.
About Meghan Yager
Meghan Yager is a food addict turned food and travel writer with a love for creating uncomplicated, gourmet recipes and devouring anything the world serves up. As the author of the food and travel blog Cake 'n Knife, Meghan focuses on unique foodie experiences from around the world to right at home in your own kitchen.
As the calendar inches closer to spring–those manic months–I feel myself wanting to stay in this slow season of contemplation. Your blog post was first-rate company for my morning coffee–and a call to prayer. I started my “online journal” to practice craft and think via fingers tapping on a keyboard. Next thing you know, I’m constantly checking readership stats (I didn’t even know how to do that when I began.) Thank you for the gentle nudge. p.s. Madeleine L’Engle is my hero–I met her when I was a child–and The Art of Travel is TOPS.
This is the first blog post that I’ve read in months. I’ve totally taken a step back from my online life but I can never resist your words and so much that you’ve written here really resonates with me.
I think, for me, I feel like I’ve spent the last decade+ living my life online through social media, blogs, message boards, whatever. Thousands of people that I’ve never met know all sorts of intimate details about my life – things that the people who are closest to me in real life probably don’t even now. If you google my name, the first page of image results shows me on holiday, with my husband, at my mother’s 50th birthday party (which was a long time ago now!). More and more, I feel the need for privacy these days though. I don’t want to share things into the gaping chasm of the internet. I want to keep everything close to me, where I can touch it and feel it. There is very little that I can say online that is not better said to the person sitting next to me on the couch. And so, I’ve stopped sharing (and consuming to a certain extent) for now at least. This may change in the future, I have no idea. I hope that one day I find a middle path – as you’ve articulated here – not least because blogging/bloggers have brought so much richness to my life. Meanwhile, I’m going to read the posts you’ve linked to and see what that means for me.
Yes, this is one of those blogs posts that puts into words the thoughts floating around in my own head – though I hadn’t quite mulled them over yet.
The blogging world seems so fast-paced and I can’t quite keep up with it. I’m torn between going at my own pace and knowing that if I want readers, I should be posting twice a week. But it seems I can’t summon a blog post more than every other week (in the meantime there is work, exercise, cooking healthy meals, spending time with friends, a boyfriend, and a family member who is sick, working on my fiction, and consuming the kind of rich content that you said, allows for me to write my own content of meaning). I feel like I’m not productive enough, that in order to succeed I have to hustle more. At times, I overwhelmingly feel the pressure of the rat race but mostly, I realize that in the end, the only thing that makes me happy is the writing. That should be the focus, like Lilias Trotter so wonderfully expressed in her life’s work.
My first blog post spoke of the advice I heard from an Italian when I was working on his farm and asked how to best water the zucchini patch. “Slowly, slowly,” he told me. That was the answer to most questions that I would throw at him. It is now my mantra. With everything in life, do it slowly, slowly.
I think it is important to be diligent about the amount we consume – really of anything, but particularly of social media. For me, blogs feel like a different category than all the rest, but perhaps it’s just because I’ve written mine since 2007 and I’m partial to them. I am diligent about the number of blogs I read, but I wouldn’t give those up for anything. I have several very important relationships (real, tangible ones) that began from connections through my writing.
I quickly get overwhelmed with everything else, so I don’t really participate. I enjoy instagram, but I maintain a private account and limit my intake. I made the conscious decision to maintain my blog as my own writing outlet, it’s independent and generates no revenue. I know many read it, but I don’t even like to know that number. I prefer to write like no one reads it at all – although I do love, love, love the occasional discussions that arise in the comment section.
Slowing down and looking up from our devices is always a good practice. I will always be grateful of the relationships that have grown from pushing myself outside of my comfort zone a bit, but never at the expense of the relationships close at hand.
As I think about your words, I wonder if that’s why I gravitate mostly to those blogs about food or books or art – I feel like they enrich the relationships that I have in my family – they inspire me to create and find beauty in my own real life. All the rest just feel like extra noise, and I’m not interested in the competition.
Yummy looking smoothie!
We’ve got a Vitamix, too. Love it.
Ahhh how refreshing.
I love your smoothie recipe, because most of time I dont like to put too many different kind of ingredients in my smoothie, I am definitely gonna try the recipes you have here, I love the pics, I love all the stories, it just kept me reading more and more. Thanks a lot, btw I love hydrolyzed collagen, cause I have been taking it for a while, normally I got from wecarenaturals, haha next time I guess I will buy from perfectsupplement. Great recipes, great ingredients. Thanks a lot.
Thank you, Jeanne!
Who needs avocado toast in your life when you can have this smoothie? Well, I do. I’ll take avocado any way I can get it! And the smoothie was awesome!
★★★★★