Kid-Friendly Juice Recipe 

Do you have a little one that doesn’t exactly love vegetables? It’s not uncommon for kids to dislike greens. Leafy greens can be especially hard to get into your child’s diet. A juicer or blender, the right combo of produce, and an imaginative approach might just be the thing to get your kids to love their green veggies. Here are some green juice basics, tips, and a simple yet delicious juice recipe to get started.

Green Juice Basics

The flavour balance is key to making a tasty green juice. A good rule of thumb for a green juice is to balance it with the right combination of fruit and green vegetables. The Green Dream recipe below has apples, pears and grapes for sweetness and leafy greens for added phytonutrients.

One tip for juicing leafy greens is to feed them into the juicer alternating with harder fruits. This helps ensure that no leafy greens get stuck in the juicer and that you get the maximum amount of juice extracted. Now, some people don’t have juicers. If that’s the case, you can use your blender with a strainer.

Best Greens for Kid-Friendly Juice

Leafy greens pack the most nutritional punch in a green juice. One of the easiest to use and the best tasting is spinach. You can’t go wrong with some baby spinach as it’s one of the mildest and most tender greens out there. You can purchase it already washed and ready to go. Other typical leafy greens for juicing are kale, chard, and beet greens. 

Here some other great options:  

• Lettuce; Mild, refreshing, and can help mellow strong flavours.
• Cabbage; A ton of health benefits and is often overlooked for juicing.
• Cucumber; Refreshing and extra juicy.
• Zucchini; a nutritious and mild addition to any fruit or veggie juice.
• Broccoli; skip the compost with stalks from dinner prep and add them to your morning juice.

Below is one of my favorite green juice recipes that tastes great and is easy to make. This recipe would be perfect to try with your kids:

Green Dream Juice

Ingredients:

¾ cup water

⅓ cup diced apple

⅓ cup diced pear

⅓ cup halved white grapes

½ cup baby spinach 

Instructions

1. Dice the fruits and halve the grapes. (best option is to go for seedless grapes)
2. Use juicer Or blend all the ingredients in the blender.
3. Strain the mixture from the mush.
4. Serve chilled.

Tips for Getting Kids to Drink Greens

Start Slow

It is best to start off with a fresh juice that is close to something your child already likes. Even juicing plain apples is a good place to start. Then you can add greens and other veggies as little ones realize that the juice tastes just as good.

Get Them Involved

Get them involved! Make the experience fun for them and they’ll actually like drinking their greens. They can help shop for and wash ingredients. Have them drop the fruit into the juicer and watch it whirl around. 

Look for New Juicing Ideas

Rather than creating the same juice recipes, they’re accustomed to, perhaps try some new ones. You can find plenty of inspiration from juicing books. Switching up ingredients and trying different recipes could be fun and exciting.

Presentation is Everything

Make juice time fun for little kids with special cups or bottles. Serving fresh juice in something fun or new might actually make veggie juice exciting! Coloured reusable straws might add to this effect. Juice is best served cold so fun-shaped ice cubes will make the juice taste and look better.

Crafty Names and Veggie Games

Get creative and give your drinks fun names. There are plenty of superheroes and characters out there that have green in the name or are green. For example, drinking green juice can make them as strong as the hulk. Find something that your kids will get excited about and name your green juice after it. Try a juice guessing game by adding something new to the usual juice and have them guess what it might be.