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I'm Natalie Hodson here in the bodybuilding.com kitchen
showing you how to make Frozen Spinach Cups.
This is a really easy--more of a tip than a recipe.
I use this to thicken up my protein shakes, and it's great
because when you put it in a protein shake, you really can't
even taste it.
Now it does turn your protein shakes green so if you have an
issue with the color of your protein shake then you can add a
few blueberries to it and it turns it purple and then you
don't see the green color.
Spinach is a green, dark green leafy vegetable
which is really good.
It's high in vitamin A and it is really high in iron and calcium
as well.
So for the ingredients we're gonna use today, we're gonna use
spinach and usually I buy between a 6 to an 8 ounce bag.
Different brands have different sizes that they sell but just
one bag of spinach.
And then water.
And here I have 2 cups of water.
And we might not use the full 2 cups.
What we're gonna do is add the spinach and slowly add the water
until it's the consistency that we need.
And then you're gonna need a blender, and then we're gonna
use a muffin tin pan as well.
And what we're gonna do is once we blend everything together,
we're gonna pour the liquid into the muffin tin pan and then
freeze it that way.
Okay, so this recipe is really simple.
All you do is you put your spinach in the blender.
And I just take handfuls and put it in.
And you're gonna start by filling it about almost all the
way full.
My rule of thumb is about 1/2 cup of water
per 2 handfuls of spinach so I just kinda pour the water in.
There it looks like we used about 1 cup so we'll start with
that and then slowly add water as we need to.
And then you just put the lid on your blender.
It's gonna be kinda loud.
Alright.
So as you can see, it really blends down quite a bit, and so
what I'm gonna do is actually add some more spinach.
And so we're gonna add the rest of our spinach in here.
And then we're just gonna keep blending it.
I don't think I need to add more water, but I'm just gonna kinda
blend it.
If it gets too thick--you basically want it just like a
liquid consistency, maybe a little bit thicker.
Not quite as thick as a milkshake consistency.
Alright. I think this looks pretty good.
Basically you just want it ground fine enough so you don't
have big chunks of spinach.
And then what I do is I take this, and I just pour it right
into my muffin tin.
And I usually fill these pretty much all the way full
because what I do is, and I'll show you later, is I just use
one in each of my protein shakes.
Alright.
So it looks like this made about six.
And so we could double this if we wanted and make 12 and freeze
all 12, but today I think we're just gonna make all 6.
I'm gonna stick this in the freezer and then just let it
freeze for about 3 hours.
You can even leave it in there for longer if you aren't home
after 3 hours.
And then we're gonna pop these out and put them in Ziploc
baggies to keep them in the freezer to use for our protein
shakes later in the week.
So I just took these spinach cups out of the freezer.
They've been in the freezer for about 3 hours, and as you
can tell, they're rock solid so you can do one of two things.
You can just let them sit on the counter for a few minutes until
they're melted a little bit and you can pop them out or what I
like to do--it's a little bit faster--is I'm just gonna run
the bottom of the pan underneath some hot water.
Alright. That should do the trick.
And then what I like to do is just take a butter knife.
And obviously we're not gonna use all six of these spinach
cups in a protein shake at once, and so I just take Ziploc bags
and I put usually three or four of the spinach cups in a Ziploc
bag and I put them in the freezer.
So that way later when I go to make a protein shake, I can just
grab one out.
I also use these when I make smoothies, fruit smoothies for
my 2-year old.
It's one of the few ways I can get him to eat vegetables.
So I'm just gonna pop the spinach cup out.
That's what it looks like.
And just gonna go ahead--it's a little bit messy, but you can
just rinse your hands when you're done.
So I'll probably do three in a bag.
Sometimes I try to fit too many in there and I can't get it to
zip.
Oops.
I'm gonna just put two in this bag and we're gonna save one to
use in a protein shake today.
To make the protein shake, I like to use unsweetened almond
milk.
I like to use the kind with vanilla.
Just make sure you get the one that has 35 or 40 calories, and
read the ingredient list because some of the almond milks do add
sugar, and you wanna make sure it's the unsweetened kind
without any sugar.
But if you don't have almond milk, you could also use water
or regular milk.
I usually use about 8 ounces or so.
I just kind of eyeball it.
And then I'm gonna do one scoop of whey protein.
You can use these spinach cups with any flavor, any brand.
And then instead of ice, I'm gonna use my frozen spinach cup.
And then what it's gonna do is it's gonna thicken up the shake
and also add some good vitamins: vitamin A, calcium, and iron.
Just gonna blend it up.
Alright. That looks pretty good.
And then I'm just gonna pour it into my cup.
So it does turn the shake a green color, and if that kinda
weirds you out, you can add some blueberries to this and then it
turns it purple.
And actually my son won't drink them if they're green, but if I
add some blueberries and it turns them purple, then he has
no clue and he drinks them just fine so--tastes like a protein
shake.
You can't even taste the spinach at all.
So for this tip and for all of my other recipes, check the link
below and also continue to visit bodybuilding.com for nutritional
information and motivation tips.