Blend up this healthy frozen strawberry smoothie (without yogurt or banana!) today for the perfect strawberry breakfast smoothie on the go! With frozen strawberries (or fresh), almond butter, and dates, this 5 ingredient healthy smoothie needs no added ice or sugar for a smooth and creamy breakfast smoothie sensation.
We absolutely love easy healthy breakfasts around here, and as you many already know, we’re pretty addicted to smoothies, which make great on-the-go breakfasts. I’m also an absolute fruit fanatic. I love fruit, especially berries, and so you’ll see a lot of berry recipes around here.
We’re still addicted to the Black Forest Smoothie for a decadent smoothie breakfast, and our Pineapple Berry Smoothie is always a summer favorite… but I was craving a smoothie just bursting with strawberry flavor.
So here you go: a delicious, healthy strawberry smoothie without yogurt or banana and without ice! This is the summer strawberry breakfast smoothie you need in your life this season. Trust me.
*This post contains affiliate links. If you purchase a product through one of our links, we receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. Visit our Disclosures & Privacy Policy for complete and detailed information.
5 Ingredient Healthy Smoothie
Everyone loves 5 ingredient recipes, right? I mean, if we can make something healthy, tasty, and easy, that’s a win around here. We love the occasional complex recipe, sure, but for everyday eating, we like keeping it simple.
Frozen (or fresh) strawberries.
Hence this 5 ingredient smoothie recipe! Here’s what you’ll need: We prefer frozen, as you’ll see below, because we like the consistency (it’s almost like a healthy strawberry milkshake for breakfast, and what could be more delightful and summery than that?). However, feel free to use fresh, ripe strawberries for this smoothie recipe if they’re in season and accessible where you are! You may want a little less almond milk if you go that route, depending on the consistency you like for smoothies.
Also, we basically stock up on frozen strawberries at Costco year-round, so we can make this strawberry breakfast smoothie anytime, giving us a wistful hint of summer even in the dreary winter months (yeah, we drink smoothies even when it’s cold out… I told you, we’re addicted)
Almond Butter
Almonds are an excellent healthy addition to most diets and are associated with bone health, heart health, and even aiding in controlling blood sugar, and we almost always have a jar of almond butter around for recipes (or just dipping apple slices into). Stick to an almond butter made from just almonds (or use homemade if you’d like) or, at the very most, almonds and salt.
That way, you’ll get the nutritional benefits of the almond butter: the healthy fats, proteins, minerals, and vitamin E, your body will appreciate – without the totally unnecessary added sugars, syrups or oils you might find sneaking around in almond butters on occasion. We like the Kirkland brand from Costco, but you can find quality almond butters online easily as well.
We also find that adding nut butter to smoothies helps them last longer for us; the fats and proteins keep us fueled up and satisfied, so we don’t need a morning snack or anything else the way we might with a lighter, fruits and veggies only kind of smoothie.
We personally recommend sticking to almond butter here; swapping it for peanut butter won’t give you the same flavor, though of course if you’re a PB lover or just out of almond butter, you can give it a try. It just won’t have quite the same sweetness or flavor profile.
Vanilla Extract
Just adding a bit of vanilla extract to this healthy strawberry smoothie recipe lends a touch of sweetness and warmth, really helping the strawberry flavor to shine. As much as I love almond extract (and we’re making this strawberry smoothie with almond milk and almond butter), stick to vanilla extract – the end result is tastiest this way.
Almond Milk
We’re making this strawberry smoothie with almond milk to keep it a plant based, vegan strawberry smoothie. Since dairy doesn’t agree with me, and I feel so much better without it, we use almond milk in this healthy smoothie and also make this strawberry smoothie without yogurt.
Of course, if you like and can consume dairy milk, you can certainly make this strawberry smoothie with milk of typical dairy variety instead. If you’re sticking to plant-based milks, I prefer to use almond milk because it’s on hand most often, but macadamia nut milk or coconut milk would also be tasty options in this healthy strawberry smoothie recipe.
Medjool Dates
There are several types of dates, but the ones we use most regularly (almost exclusively) are medjool dates, due to their rich, caramel flavor and their sweetening capabilities (as seen in these Healthy No Bake Cherry Chocolate Brownie Bites). Since we make this strawberry smoothie without sugar, we wanted to sweeten it just a touch but to do so naturally – with dates!
Dates offer a depth along with their sweetness that plain sugar just can’t touch, and we like them better than adding any sort of syrup like maple syrup or agave for smoothies too.
Dates are nutrient dense fruits; they’re rich in several antioxidants, have a decent concentration of bone-health related minerals like manganese, potassium, and copper, and contain some helpful fiber as well! Yes, they’re caloric; if you’re watching glucose levels, you may want to keep an eye on your date consumption, but they’re nutritionally dense and a great source of energy to start a busy day.
If you want an intense date-flavored smoothie, where their flavor really shines, you’ll have to make our Spiced Date Smoothie, which tastes like an exotic, caramely cinnamon roll with fall and winter spices. It’s amazing. This Banana Date Smoothie also utilizes these energy dense fruits for a delicious breakfast.
Of course, as important as what’s in this healthy frozen strawberry smoothie is what isn’t here. This is a strawberry smoothie without yogurt or banana, and it’s a frozen strawberry smoothie without ice added!
Frozen Strawberry Smoothie (without Ice)
We love the consistency of this frozen strawberry smoothie. By using frozen strawberries and a high powered blender, we get a milk-shake like consistency that feels absolutely luscious on these warm summer mornings. Because we make it without ice, the flavors don’t get watered down at all, letting the strawberry goodness shine through.
However, you have to have a blender that can handle frozen fruits. We absolutely swear by our Vitamix Blender; we’ve had it almost seven years (it’ll be 7 in October of 2020) and have had no problems whatsoever. It blends everything to smooth, creamy perfection.
Our first, basic blender couldn’t handle frozen fruits, ice, or even smoothly pureeing things like date or grape skins or strawberry or raspberry seeds. It left some smoothies with a gritty texture. They’re not cheap, but they have a fantastic warranty, and if you like smoothies, sauces, creamy soups, and ridiculously easy cleanup, it’s absolutely worth it. There’s a whole line of Vitamix options, and this blender is what we’ve had for so long.
Tricks for the Perfect Milkshake-like Consistency:
If you don’t have a high powered blender, you can toss the ingredients in your blender the night before, and let your strawberries thaw a little overnight in the fridge. This can help everything blend smoothly in the morning
If your blender tends not to get date skins smoothly pureed, prep the smoothie the night before, and make sure your dates are in the almond milk overnight. This will soften the date skins and make them easier to blend.
Use soft dates to ease blending as well. You may notice the softest dates have a little bit of white on them; this is called sugaring, and it’s perfectly fine! It’s just the date releasing some of it’s sugar; these are generally the sweetest, softest dates, and they need to get used up more quickly anyway.
To ease and quicken blending in any blender: add everything but the frozen strawberries to start; blend that until smooth. Then, add the strawberries in a cup at a time, blending between each addition, to make the blending go more smoothly and quickly for this healthy frozen strawberry smoothie without ice!
Time to make this Healthy Frozen Strawberry Smoothie
Blend up this healthy frozen strawberry smoothie (without yogurt or banana!) today for the perfect strawberry breakfast smoothie on the go! With frozen strawberries (or fresh), almond butter, and dates, this 5 ingredient healthy smoothie needs no added ice or sugar for a smooth and creamy breakfast smoothie sensation.
Do you have a favorite healthy smoothie recipe or a summer strawberry recipe we must try? Let us know in the comments below, and be sure to follow us on Pinterest!
