Perfect Strawberry Smoothie – A Couple Cooks

This recipe unlocks the secret to the perfect strawberry smoothie! It’s deliciously thick, perfectly sweet, and bursting with fresh flavor.

It’s more difficult than you think to make a perfect smoothie without a recipe. Our strawberry smoothie recipe uses just 5 ingredients to make the creamiest texture and a pure, sweet berry flavor. Make it, memorize it, and make a perfect healthy smoothie on repeat!

Jump to the recipe—now.

Why this recipe is the perfect strawberry smoothie

It’s my job to make the best smoothie recipes on the internet. I’ve created over 65 smoothie recipes focusing on natural fruits and vegetables and healthy proteins like yogurt, while avoiding sugary juices. Along with my co-author Alex, we’ve made green smoothies, vegetable smoothies, fruit smoothies and energy smoothies.

But when it comes to picking favorites, it all comes back to this strawberry smoothie recipe for both of us! Here’s why it’s perfect, to us:

• Light and creamy texture. It’s easy for smoothies to turn out too icy or thick. This one is light and creamy, with just the right icy and airy texture.
• Subtly sweet, fruity flavor. Often smoothies are too bitter or overly sweet. This strawberry smoothie is lightly sweet, with just the right berry essence.

Ingredients for this strawberry smoothie

Here’s what you’ll need to make this strawberry smoothie! Strawberries have a lot of nutritional punch for very few calories (per Cleveland Clinic), making them one of our favorite ingredients to incorporate in smoothies. We were careful to choose healthy ingredients for this smoothie: no overly sugary juices or syrups. Here’s what we selected:

• Frozen strawberries: It’s easy to find and store frozen berries, and they add a great icy texture to this smoothie. If you prefer using fresh berries, use a frozen banana instead of one at room temperature.
• Fresh banana: Many smoothie recipes call for frozen bananas, but we don’t often have them on hand or have the time to wait for freezing. So we customized this recipe to use a fresh banana!
• Greek yogurt: Greek yogurt gives this recipe a protein boost and helpful probiotics. (If you love yogurt, you could add a touch more.) It also makes for a perfect creamy texture.
• Ice: Here’s the most important part — ice is essential to a perfect strawberry smoothie! It makes just the right frothy texture. We’ve tried it without and it really makes a difference. Do not omit it!
• Milk: You need just the right amount of liquid in a smoothie to get it to blend. Not enough and the blender gets stuck (the worst!), and too much it tastes milky. You can also use non-dairy milk.
• Maple syrup: Adding a hint of maple brings out the sweetness in the berries. If you eat a low sugar diet you could omit, but it doesn’t quite taste sweet enough with no sweetener.

Add-ins and options

Of course, you can mix in whatever you’d like to customize your healthy strawberry smoothie! But if you want it to be perfect, you’ve got to use flavors that work. Here are some ideas:

• Almond butter. Almond goes well with strawberry. Use about 1 tablespoon, 2 for a stronger almond flavor (it will also dull the color a bit).
• Vanilla. Use ¼ to ½ teaspoon vanilla to heighten the flavors.
• Mint or basil. Add a few fresh mint or basil leaves for an herbaceous spin.
• Cocoa powder. Craving chocolate? Go to Chocolate Strawberry Smoothie.

Things not to add? Handfuls of spinach leaves! They turn this smoothie into an unappealing shade of brown. If you want a green smoothie, go to our Green Smoothie.

Strawberry smoothie variations

Craving a flavor twist? Don’t stop at strawberries! This versatile smoothie base can be transformed into a tropical paradise with a handful of mango or pineapple. Mix in blueberries for a tart and tangy upgrade, or add even more banana for extra sweetness. We’ve created separate recipes for each variation:

For a strawberry recipe without banana, try this one from smoothie expert The Blender Girl.

Ways to make it plant based

You can make this strawberry smoothie plant-based or vegan by doing the following:

• Make our strawberry banana smoothie. Try our Strawberry Banana Smoothie: it’s vegan and uses only 2 ingredients!
• Omit the yogurt and use non-dairy milk for the milk. We like using oat milk or almond milk. Oat milk is usually a little sweeter and creamier, so it’s our default for smoothies. You could also try coconut milk, which adds a nice coconut essence, or soy milk. To compensate for the yogurt, add a splash more milk as necessary to get it to blend.

Storing leftovers

Smoothies are best eaten immediately. But this strawberry smoothie actually lasts 1 to 2 days refrigerated, stored in a sealed container or a mason jar with the lid on. It may separate, which is perfectly natural. Just shake it up and you’re good to go!

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This strawberry smoothie recipe is…

Vegetarian and gluten-free. For vegan, plant-based and dairy-free, see the recipe for variations.

A few favorite smoothies

We’ve got lots more where this came from! Here more smoothie recipes to try:

• Berries: Strawberry Banana, Mixed Berry, Blueberry, or Blueberry Banana Smoothie Full of sweet fruity flavor!
• Greens: Kale, Avocado, Green or Spinach Smoothie The flavor is so irresistible, you’ll forget you’re eating all those healthy ingredients.
• Sweet: Vanilla Protein or Peanut Butter Smoothie They taste a little like milkshakes…but they’re healthy smoothies!
• Fruits: Banana, Pineapple, Mango, Fruit, or Watermelon Smoothie Juicy and lightly sweet: perfectly refreshing.