This healthy shamrock shake recipe is a delicious treat to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day without resorting to green food coloring.
St. Patrick’s Day is a great excuse to eat more greens.
Rather than use food coloring to make a St. Patrick’s Day treat, I use spinach and fresh mint to color this delicious, healthy drink. My healthy shamrock shake is a green smoothie in disguise. Shhh – don’t tell my kids. 🙂
Actually, I’m just kidding. I always make it a point to let me children know when they’ve eaten something healthy like spinach. But I do sometimes wait until after they’ve eaten it to tell them.
Healthy Shamrock Shake Tips
This shamrock shake recipe is full of probiotics, fiber, potassium, and calcium. But it’s also full of sweet, minty flavor.
As with all smoothie recipes, I recommend you taste it as you go and adjust the proportions to your liking. If your banana isn’t very ripe, you’ll want to add a little more maple syrup. If you like it extra minty, throw in a few more mint leaves.
For a dairy-free version, use your choice of non-dairy milk in place of the yogurt and milk in this recipe.
Healthy Shamrock Shake Recipe
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup plain yogurt
- 1 1/4 cups whole milk
- 1 cup loosely packed fresh spinach
- 4 leaves fresh mint
- 1 large banana (very ripe)
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 to 2 tbs maple syrup or to taste
- Freshly whipped cream and chocolate shavings for garnish optional
Instructions
- Place the yogurt, milk, spinach, mint leaves, banana, and vanilla extract in a blender. Blend until completely smooth.
- Taste the shake and add the maple syrup if needed. Add more of any of the other ingredients to suit your tastes.
- Garnish with freshly whipped cream and dark chocolate shavings if desired. Enjoy!
Nutrition
Healthy Shamrock Shake Recipe Price Breakdown
This recipe costs a total of $1.55 to make, or $.52 per one-cup serving. Try this healthy shamrock shake recipe for a sweet treat to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day.
And don’t forget to enjoy some whole grain Irish soda bread or gluten-free Irish soda bread while you’re at it!
Kathy Hester says
February 4, 2016 at 9:39 pmI love mint in shakes! It even makes it taste a tad sweeter to me.
spabettie says
February 4, 2016 at 9:30 pmdefinitely my kind of Shamrock Shake! I have never had the … OTHER kind 😉
Nutmeg Nanny says
March 3, 2015 at 11:39 pmI love the idea of a healthy shamrock shake. This is so delicious!
Strength and Sunshine says
March 3, 2015 at 3:51 pmLoving the fresh mint leaves!
heathersfp says
March 3, 2015 at 10:42 amI have never had a shamrock shake, but I do love chocolate and mint – and I LOVE that his one is so healthy
Annemarie says
March 3, 2015 at 11:25 amChocolate + mint is one of my favorite combos too, Heather. So good!
GiGi Eats Celebrities says
March 3, 2015 at 9:29 amI have never had one of these shakes before… But man, your recreation looks absolutely PHENOMENAL!
Annemarie says
March 3, 2015 at 9:50 amThanks, GiGi. I actually haven’t had the McD’s version either, but I’ve seen the ingredient list. Scary stuff!
GiGi Eats Celebrities says
March 3, 2015 at 9:54 amUgh! I don’t even want to look! Ha Ha!
enjoyeverybite says
March 3, 2015 at 8:27 amThis is great! I’m actually working on a similar post 🙂 Definitely prefer the natural greens over food coloring and sugar-filled multicolored treats!
Annemarie says
March 3, 2015 at 9:51 amThanks! I stay away from food coloring too. Spinach works just fine. 🙂
Katie Serbinski says
March 3, 2015 at 7:51 amI love this!! And I know my readers will too. Definitely sharing on the Mom to Mom Nutrition Facebook page this week!!
Annemarie says
March 3, 2015 at 9:50 amThanks so much, Katie!
katiewebster says
March 3, 2015 at 7:28 amMy kids love green smoothies, and since they’ve never heard of a Shamrock Shake, they probably would prefer to hear that it was a smoothie. Ha ha. Love that you used real mint in this to give it the flavor!
Annemarie says
March 3, 2015 at 12:19 pmMy kids hadn’t heard of it either! Somehow I’ve kept them away from McDonalds for all these years. 🙂