Strawberry Smoothie Dairy-Free

Not gonna lie, perfecting our strawberry smoothie was a bit of a task. 

While I wanted to keep it as simple as possible, in true Milk Allergy Mom fashion…

strawberry smoothies do require a few extra ingredients to accomplish the taste we like. 

Milk allergy? No thank you to yogurt in our smoothies. Even though there’s dairy-free yogurt available, it’s expensive! So we had to find a creamy element without using yogurt. 

As a result, for creaminess, we opted for frozen banana. We always have bananas ready to go in our freezer. Easy peasy creamy.

However, we don’t use a lot of banana in this smoothie. I didn’t want it to necessarily be a strawberry banana smoothie.

We were shooting for more of a strawberries and cream flavor.

Once we got the strawberry and banana ratio right, the banana doesn’t overwhelm the strawberries. Perfect.

Next up, we wanted a creamy flavor.

To accomplish that, we use mostly dairy-free milk as the liquid in this smoothie. 

Plus, that’s less sugar and more nutrition than juice. 

But we also wanted a little tang to this smoothie taste…so the recipe calls for a little lemonade, too.

Last up, I always like to amp up our smoothies with some protein powder.

Adding protein makes this a quick and easy dairy-free breakfast option. 

Who doesn’t need that?! 

And when the protein powder is vanilla, it’s the perfect final touch this smoothie needs.

Kill two birds with one stone. Protein plus vanilla!

I love the balance of tangy lemon with the delicious, mellow vanilla. So tasty. 

Strawberry smoothies can often be one-dimensional, thin, not creamy, and not very sweet. 

But this recipes solves all those dilemmas…while also being easy, minimal ingredients, and dairy-free!

See our favorite strawberry and cream smoothie recipe below. 

 

DAIRY-FREE MILK FOR SMOOTHIES

I really like to use my coconut milk for this smoothie. 

If I have leftover liquid canned coconut milk, that works, too.

But to add more protein for my boys, we use oat milk in their smoothies most of the time.

We’ve also used almond milk, although it’s thinner and less creamy. 

Soy or your other favorite dairy-free milks would be fine, as well. 

Remember, the great news with this recipe is that you can make a creamy strawberry smoothie without expensive dairy-free yogurt. That’s a win.

LEMON IN SMOOTHIES

I tried to omit lemon from this smoothie, to simplify. 

But the whole family just liked it better with lemon. 

Without this citrus, the strawberry smoothie fell a little flat. A little bland. 

The recipe calls for lemonade because strawberries are generally less sweet. 

So the sugar in lemonade is the perfect amount of added sugar AND citrus zing. 

However, I do like to keep lemon juice ice cubes stocked in my freezer, and I don’t hesitate to blend a couple of those into this smoothie when I’m out of lemonade. 

Using lemon juice yields a less sweet smoothie, but I don’t mind that at all. 

You can always add a splash of honey if using straight up lemon juice, but you don’t have to. 

Cater to your taste for zing and sweetness. 

STRAWBERRIES FOR SMOOTHIES

Frozen fruit is the best for making thick, cold smoothies. 

And thankfully, it’s easy to find frozen strawberries in bulk. 

Hubby gets them with our favorite foods at Sam’s Club. 

I even find organic frozen strawberries when shopping for my Aldi staples.

Organic is my favorite!

With frozen fruit, strawberry smoothies can be made all year long. 

FAVORITE BLENDER

This is our heavy duty blender (affiliate) that makes daily smoothies so fast and easy. 

It’s truly a food allergy mom staple in the kitchen. 

This is the tamper we use (affiliate) to make thick smoothies like this one easier.

Now here’s the recipe!

STRAWBERRIES & CREAM SMOOTHIE DAIRY FREE

Makes 26 ounces.

If your blender isn’t high powered, make sure your frozen banana is cut into coins.

Here’s our favorite vegan protein powder.

INGREDIENTS

1 cup dairy-free milk
1/2 cup lemonade or lemon juice
1 and 1/2 cups frozen strawberries
1 frozen banana
handful of ice cubes
1 scoop of dairy-free vanilla protein powder (or splash of vanilla extract)

DIRECTIONS

Place all ingredients in the blender. 

Blend until smooth.

This smoothie will be thick so you may want to use a tamper or blend it twice, letting it sit a couple minutes in between blends for a little defrosting. 

 

Hope you enjoy this strawberry cream smoothie as much as we do! We think it’s perfection. 

Here are more dairy-free breakfast ideas you may like, as well.

This was originally posted in July 2014.