One of the most popular detox smoothies in the United States is the Detox Island Green smoothie. It’s served at the Tropical Smoothie Café and continues to be their best-selling smoothie. The smoothie is a perfect combination of greens and tropical fruit.
Tropical Smoothie Café is a national fast-casual café concept inspiring a healthier lifestyle with locations all across the United States.
Their menu offers superfood, classic, indulgent, and supercharged smoothies along with supplements that may be added to each smoothie. Some of the supplements include Vitamin C, multivitamin, probiotic, pea protein, and collagen. You can also add things like extra spinach and kale, ginger, raw almonds, flax seeds, chia seeds, and peanut butter.
As you are probably aware, the vast majority of smoothies you get from cafés and juice bars are loaded with sugar. However, the Tropical Smoothie Café offers one smoothie that is different – the Detox Island Green smoothie. The smoothie is loaded with leafy greens, contains fresh ginger, and has no added sugar.
If you’d like to make your own copycat version of the Detox Island Green smoothie, here’s your guide.
Tips for Making Detox Island Green Smoothie
Ingredients
- Tropical fruit: the original Detox Island Green smoothie recipe calls for mango, pineapple, and banana. You can substitute any of these fruits for other tropical fruits, such as papaya or guava. If you don’t like sweet smoothies, swap the banana for an avocado. I recommend using frozen fruit to get a nice thick icy consistency without having to water down the smoothie with ice. You can buy already cubed and frozen tropical fruit or buy fresh and cut and freeze it yourself.
- Spinach and kale: all the fruit will mask any green flavor. Spinach particularly is a very mild leafy green. Kale is a little bit more assertive, so if you’re new to green smoothies, you can use baby kale or substitute it for more spinach.
- Coconut milk: while you can use any plant milk in this recipe, coconut milk gives the green smoothie that authentically tropical flavor. It also makes the smoothie rich and creamy. I used coconut milk from the carton, but you can use canned light coconut milk. I should mention that at the the Tropical Smoothie Café, they use just plain water and ice to make the Detox Island Green smoothie.
- Ginger: to make the smoothie detoxifying, you’ll need fresh ginger. Ginger is filled with antioxidants, cleansing the body of toxins and free radicals. It adds a lovely freshness and plays well with the fruits’ sweetness.
How to Make Detox Island Green Smoothie
If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you know that I blend exclusively with a Vitamix (and have been for more than a decade). So, it’s not surprising that I will tell you to use a high-speed blender when making this green smoothie. This doesn’t mean that you must have the newest, most expensive high-speed blender on the market. An entry-level Vitamix model is more than sufficient to make a smooth and creamy green smoothie.
If all you have is a standard blender (300-700 watts), you can still make this smoothie. However, in that case I would recommend blending the leafy greens with coconut milk until as smooth as possible first. Then add the rest of the ingredients, chopped to a minimum of 1 inch/2.5-cm pieces, preferably smaller.
Detox Island Green Smoothie Variations
I love this green smoothie recipe as is written, but feel free to play with it. Here are a few ideas:
- Fruit: the original Detox Island Green smoothie is quite high in fruit and therefore natural sugar. You can easily swap some of it for avocado (technically still a fruit, lol) or zucchini.
- Greens: mix up the greens. Try collard greens, Romain or Bok Choy in your next smoothie.
- Liquid: instead of coconut milk, use coconut water or any other plant milk.
- Add-ins: to make this smoothie even more detoxifying, add a squeeze of lemon juice, a few leaves of fresh mint, or even parsley.
How to Store Green Smoothie
- Refrigerating: transfer the detox green smoothie into an airtight container and refrigerate for up to 24 hours.
- Freezing: transfer the detox green smoothie into an airtight container and freeze for up to 1 month.
More Green Smoothie Recipes
If you love this green smoothie recipe, try any of these healthy smoothies next:
- Cucumber pineapple smoothie: tart-sweet, creamy, and refreshing. This pineapple cucumber smoothie is another green smoothie with a tropical vibe.
- Apple spinach smoothie: looking for a perfectly balanced green smoothie? This is it! Slightly sweet, slightly tart, slightly creamy – vibrant, and great for any time of the day.
- Kale kiwi smoothie: kale can sometimes be overpowering in smoothies, but this smoothie is different. While it’s packed with dark leafy greens, it tastes fruity, slightly sweet, and perfectly tart. It’s a great morning pick-me-up.
- Zucchini smoothie: it seems like almost all creamy smoothies out there contain a banana, right? Well, not this one! Thanks to an avocado and frozen zucchini, this green zucchini smoothie is creamy without any banana.
If you’d like to learn more about smoothies – how to make a custom smoothie, how to fix a not-so-good smoothie, how to build a better (healthier) smoothie, etc. – you can refer to this smoothie guide.
If you try any of these recipes, please, leave a comment and rate the recipe below. It always means a lot when you do.
Detox Island Green Smoothie
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup frozen mango cubes
- 1/2 cup frozen pineapple cubes
- 3/4 banana , sliced and frozen*
- 1 handful baby kale
- 1 handful spinach
- 1 Tbsp. ginger , grated
- 3/4 cup coconut milk **
Instructions
- Blend. Add the mango, pineapple, banana, kale, spinach, ginger, and coconut milk into a high-speed blender and blend on high until completely smooth.
- Serve immediately.
- Store. Leftover smoothie keeps well in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 1 day, though best when fresh. For longer term storage, freeze in an airtight container for up to 1 month.
Will frozen kale/spinach result in the same taste/ nutritional benefits as fresh ingredients would?
Yes! Frozen ingredients are perfectly fine. Several studies have found that frozen produce is nutritionally nearly identical to fresh produce.
Helpful information. Thanks for the healthy smoothie receipes.
You’re very welcome, Michelle 🙂