3 healthy ways to get more greens into your day - Sweet Green Lemon Pesto, Green Rice with Lime, and a Green Ginger Peach smoothie.
Summer has officially begun, and I don’t know about you – but I’m already eating more ice cream, popsicles and other “fun” summery foods. Not that I see anything wrong with an occasional indulgence – but I like to balance things out by adding a little more green wherever I can.
Today I’ve partnered with Evolution Fresh to come up with 3 healthy recipes to help you get more greens into your day. Their cold-pressed green juices are packed with kale, spinach, cucumber, lettuces and herbs, among other flavorful ingredients. Obviously the easiest way to get more green is to just drink the juice (and it’s delicious)… but I had fun thinking outside of the box (er, bottle) to create these simple summery recipes:
1. Make a sweet green lemony pesto:
Pesto is already pretty green, but this one uses green juice in place of most of the olive oil to make an overall lighter version. Sweet Greens and Lemon juice make it every bit as zesty delicious.
2. Cook rice with green juice instead of water or broth:
I have to say that I’m so in love with this trick. I used green juice in place of water or broth to cook my rice. It adds extra nutrition (over 1 pound of green vegetables’ worth!) but the flavor is very mild so you’re actually eating more greens than it feels like. Essential Greens with Lime is perfect for green cilantro rice – I like to serve this with tacos or grilled veggie kabobs. After the rice is done cooking, I season it with salt, pepper, a drizzle of olive oil, a few squeezes of lime and chopped cilantro. Top your plate with a scoop of salsa.
3. Make a sweet green summer smoothie:
We have the most amazing peaches right now, so I blended those with blueberries, spinach and Sweet Greens and Ginger. For a spicier kick, add a bit of freshly grated ginger.
(Giveaway is now closed).
3 Healthy Green Juice Recipes
- 6 tablespoons pine nuts, toasted
- 1 garlic clove
- two large handfuls basil or a combo of basil and mint
- 1 teaspoon lemon zest + a bit of zest
- ¼ teaspoon Dijon mustard
- ¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
- ¼ cup Evolution Fresh Sweet Greens and Lemon
- 1½ tablespoons olive oil
- sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 1 cup uncooked basmati rice
- 1 ¼ cups Evolution Fresh Essential Green with Lime
- Extra-virgin olive oil for drizzling
- squeezes of lime juice
- sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
- ½ cup chopped cilantro
- ¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
- ½ cup Evolution Fresh Sweet Greens and Ginger, plus more as needed
- 2 ripe peaches, pitted and sliced
- ½ cup fresh or frozen blueberries
- a big handful of spinach
- small handful of ice
- In a food processor, pulse together the pine nuts and garlic. Add the basil, lemon zest, Dijon mustard, red pepper flakes, a few generous pinches of salt, and a few grinds of pepper. Pulse until combined. With the food processor running, pour in the juice and olive oil and blend until smooth but still herb-flecked. Taste and add more olive oil, salt, pepper, and lemon zest to your liking.
- Rinse your rice thoroughly until the water runs clear. In a rice cooker, combine the rice, juice, a drizzle of olive oil and a pinch of salt. Cook your rice according to your rice cooker’s instructions for white rice (about 25 minutes). When the rice is done, transfer to a bowl, fluff it with a fork and add a squeeze of lime, a drizzle of olive oil, cilantro, red pepper flakes, and salt and pepper to taste.
- Blend all ingredients until smooth. Add more juice as needed to get your blade moving.
This post was created in partnership with Evolution Fresh. All words and images are my own. Thanks for supporting the sponsors that keep us cooking!
Lemon and lemon blog is really the best juice blog community anywhere, I really like to read juice related posts everyday. I am also so greatful to find https://bit.ly/2o8UOPY. It helped me a lot not only to increase sales on my juice bar but to maintain it. I hope it may help others too.
Can’t wait to try! Gonna share it at affimity.com
smoothies!
I love adding spinach to smoothies, chia pudding, and everything possible. I also like to pack myself salads for lunch so I HAVE to eat them 🙂 Thanks for the great recipes!
I always add spirulina to my smoothies along with 1 cup of spinach in the morning. I also love making pesto and always add some sort of leafy green in order to give it bulk but still a lot of flavouring. And then there’s the hummus! Adding greens to hummus is the best and it makes it all pretty. 🙂
i love that cookbook meant for kids where you hide veggies in a lot of the foods you make them without them ever knowing. i also like to make different salads and keep different dressings so i don’t get tired of the same thing. i use my juicer all the time.
I hide them in my quesadillas. An easy, healthy dinner.
One thing that I’ve started to do is to add greens to pasta…I put a huge heap in the strainer and when I drain the pasta, the greens wilt from the heat. This way I can get away with using less pasta and the serving still looks huge!
A new summer favorite of mine is sauteed big beautiful collards with coconut milk, scallions, red pepper flakes, touch of lime, with avocado on top- yum!
I like greens in salads, juices and, smoothies, but I also like sneaking them into baked goods – either by blending them into the batter or using green juice to replace some of the liquid. I also make pesto using whatever greens I have on hand and put that on everything!
Kale salad! Seriously, mixing chiffonaded kale with dried fruits, cheeses, and roasted nuts is delicious. The key is slicing the kale into thin strips (otherwise it is too stringy to eat raw)
Add some chopped up greens to pasta, pasta salad, rice, eggs, smoothies…whatever you make think about throwing some extra greens in there! Spinach is usually good because it’s mild, but kale adds texture and crunch.
Greens mixed berries plain Greek yogurt tablespoon of honey 1/3 cup of orange sorbet blend and serve! Yumm……
anytime I’m feeling really lacking in energy I just start adding kale or spinach to everything and anything, eggs, smoothies, any soup or simmering grain.
I sneak in veggies by adding heaps of spinach to morning eggs – a green blanket over my toast!
There are two ways I really love to eat my greens:
– blended in with any kind of pesto I make (you never notice a handful of spinach!)
– sauteed onion and kale on top of toast, topped with a fried egg and hot sauce. a favorite fast dinner!
Love sneaking greens into soups, especially since they wilt down so much. Any time I’m making soup, I’ll just throw a few handfuls of whatever greens are in the fridge in the batch for the last few minutes.