Each morning I find myself wondering what to do with that extra 20 minutes of quiet time before the baby wakes up. 

Oh wait. I don’t have extra time in the morning. I’m usually running out the door with my school bag, a diaper bag, my lunch (if I remember), my pump bag with all the parts and a cooler, a baby, and a rag to clean up the spit up all over my shirt. On a good day I’ll remember to grab a stale granola bar for breakfast.

So last week while looking longingly at the ice cream in the freezer aisle, those smoothie freezer packs caught my eye. They seemed so convenient- pop in the blender with some milk, and I’m out the door with a nutritional {yummy} breakfast in hand. The problem? They’re kind of expensive considering I could grab some frozen berries and yogurt for much less. Couldn’t I make this a DIY? I’d put together my freezer packs on Sunday and be set for the week.

 

Now I’m all for Sunday meal prep, but no one wants to spend all of Sunday in the kitchen. This took about 10 minutes in the morning to get the ice cube trays packed with yogurt and coffee, and about 10 minutes in the afternoon to chop and throw everything in baggies. Total prep time: 20 minutes. That’s my kind of food prep!

Tips for prepping

• Freeze the yogurt in an ice cube tray! This is one less ingredient to measure out in the morning, and the little cubes of yogurt actually held together when putting in the freezer bag. No mom needs another mess to clean up in the kitchen, so put the yogurt in a bag and cut off the end to help squeeze the yogurt into the tray neatly.

• Brew a pot of coffee and freeze that into cubes. If you pop some coffee cubes in your smoothie, you’ll have that extra flavor and won’t have to worry about carrying a coffee in one hand and a smoothie in the other.

• I didn’t add peanut butter to my freezer packs, but if you want to save some time, I’m sure this would work out just fine.

The basic formula

You don’t need to use these exact recipes. Basically you’ll need 1 1/2 cups of fruit, 1 cup of greens (optional), 1/2 cup Greek yogurt, and 1 cup of milk or almond milk. Add protein powder, chia seed, flaxseed, coffee, peanut butter- whatever you like. 

To save time, freeze yogurt into cubes ahead of time.

Throw all the greens and fruit together in the bags and freeze. Frozen fruit works, it’ll help make your smoothie nice and cold! I’d throw the peanut butter in there too.

Measure your dry ingredients into baggies for the pantry- usually 1 tbsp of chia and flaxseed and 1 scoop of protein powder.

 

In the morning, dump the fruit into the blender with the dry ingredients and milk. Almond milk is our favorite, but you could use any milk or skip the yogurt and add juice.

I LOVE my single serve blender (only $15) because I can take the cup with me to work. To be honest, one day I totally forgot to make the smoothie and only had 2 minutes to spare. I brought the enitre blender with milk in it and the smoothie packs with me to work- problem solved!

Strawberry Banana Smoothie

2 yogurt cubes, 1 scoop protein powder, 1 banana, 1/2 cup chopped strawberries, 1 cup milk

Banana Mocha Smoothie

2 coffee cubes, 2 yogurt cubes, 1 banana, 1 tbsp peanut butter, 1 scoop protein (chocolate or mocha flavor is best!), 1 cup milk

Green Super Smoothie

1/2 cup spinach (snap stems off), 1 banana, 2 yogurt cubes, 1/2 cup applesauce, 1 scoop vanilla protein powder, 1 cup milk

What’s your favorite smoothie recipe?