I used to love to head to McDonald’s as soon as March hit to get the sugar-rush feeling from the Shamrock Shake. As I became more health conscious and more aware of calories/sugar, I realized the 63 grams of sugar and 460 calories with very minimal nutrition included, was just not worth it to me; and that is just the small size. If you spring for the large shake, you are looking at 103 grams of sugar. Just thinking about ingesting that much sugar makes me nauseous, no matter how good it may be. With all that being said, I did some trial and error of a ton of different shakes and settled on the one below. It is full of nutritious ingredients while still getting that festive green, minty flavor. With all the nutrients, it is more like a protein shake and can take the place of meal all while tasting like a familiar fav milkshake without the sugar crash after 🙂
The Recipe:
Vanilla protein powder (I use a scoop of Truvani vanilla plant based and sometimes I swap it for chocolate if I want more of a choco-mint flavor, I actually prefer the chocolate but if you want that traditional “green” shake, opt for the vanilla)
½ tsp vanilla extract
¼ tsp peppermint extract
1-1.5 cups of unsweetened vanilla almond milk- lately I’ve been replacing the almond milk with vanilla Flax Milk by a company called Malibu –it tastes just as good.
½ frozen banana
1 tbs of flax seed
1 tbs of peanut butter ( or another nut butter if you prefer)
Handful of spinach (gives it that festive green color naturally while boosting your veggie intake for the day!)
I put the ice and banana in first followed by the almond milk, then the rest of the ingredients to follow. I find that it blends best this way with my single cup ninja blender. Blend everything together and enjoy 🙂
Estimated Nutrition Facts:
404 calories
27 grams of protein