I used to be addicted to a certain frozen beverage, that was only available for about a month each year, from a large chain restaurant. It just happened to be neon green and minty. And I would drink them every chance that I had. A SMALL one has 530 calories. And 73g of sugar. That's like downing over 18 teaspoons of sugar in one swoop. Yikes. And then I saw the light. I cleaned up my diet. I ditched dairy. Yet, I still wanted that frozen creamy minty goodness. What's a girl to do?! Make her own of course. So my family had a "Shamrock Shake-it-Off" today. We sampled four different recipes and voted on our favorites. Here's what we tried out: *Note- for all recipes (& for all smoothies I ever make) I combined the liquid and spinach first, blended til smooth, and then added any additional ingredients* This is the peppermint flavoring I used. I could have used a little more in my recipes to be honest. It is not as strong as mint extract, so adjust to taste! Recipe #1
Total calories- 214 Sugar- 19g total (12g added sugar) Recipe #2
Total calories- 261 Sugar- 25g (18g added sugar) Recipe #3
Total calories- 102 Sugar- 8g (no added sugar) Recipe #4
Total calories- 344 Sugar- 16g (no added sugar) My family had a blast taste testing the four different shakes. They sipped each one and assigned it a rank, 1-4, with 1 being their favorite. The shake with the lowest score would be the winner. And our results.... Drum roll please.... #2! Followed closely by #4 (mmm chocolate), then #1, and finally #3. Of course my kids ended up liking the shake with the most added sugar, but I'm sure we could tweak the recipe even more to reduce the amount. And if you compare it to the fast food original, it's not that bad after all ;) #4 was also a fan fav and there are ZERO grams of added sugar in it, SCORE! Are you ready to try a Shamrock alternative? Let me know which one you try and what you think! Or share a recipe if you make up your own!
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