Real Food Tropical Smoothie Popsicles
Stay cool this summer with a family-friendly sweet treat! These real food Tropical Smoothie Popsicles are homemade popsicles filled with nourishing mango, banana, and coconut milk with a splash of lime and just a touch of honey. Leave out the honey altogether if your fruit is super ripe!
While you will have to wait 8 hours to finally enjoy this sweet treat, it takes less than 5 minutes to blend up the ingredients and get them into the freezer, truly the definition of easy. In fact, I made these with my students recently at my Curious Chefs Cooking & Food Science Camp and they were asking to make more the next day!
So, why should we make the effort to freeze our own popsicles?
The quality of many popsicle brands is inferior to what we can create in our own kitchen. If you take a glance at a box of popsicles, sugar (or a form of sugar like high fructose corn syrup) is the first ingredient. Many brands of ‘real fruit’ popsicles have added sugars. Several months ago I realized a ‘real fruit’ brand I had purchased had artificial sugars hidden in the ingredient list.
Homemade Popsicles, A Healthy Sweet Treat
Making popsicles at home is a great way to control the sugar and the quality of the ingredients. You can use simple, real food ingredients because let’s face it, I don’t think anyone needs any Red 40, maltodextrin, Glycerin, Blue1 or many of the additives in traditional store-bought popsicles.
Grab your kids and head to the kitchen to make this fun summer treat. Then snap a photo of your finished product and share the recipe with your friends!
Tropical Smoothie Popsicles
Ingredients
2 very ripe mangoes, peeled & cut into strips (or 16oz frozen mango)
1 very ripe banana
15 oz can coconut milk, full fat*
1 ½ tbsp lime juice
1 ½ tbsp honey
Instructions
Combine all ingredients in a food processor or high powered blender and puree for 1 minute. Scrape down sides and puree 30 seconds longer or until no longer lumpy. Pour into popsicle molds and freeze for at least 8 hours.
When ready to serve, dip the bottom of popsicle mold into a bowl of warm water for ~60-90 seconds and then gently pull them out.
*light coconut milk can be used but avoid brands with additives and choose brands listing coconut milk as the only ingredient
Makes about 12 popsicles (depending on the size of the popsicle mold)
Nutrition per Popsicle
Calories 98; Total Fat 6g; Saturated Fat 5.5g; Sodium 5mg; Carbohydrate 11g; Fiber 0.3g; Added Sugar 2g; Natural Sugar 7g; Protein 1g
