Healthy Breakfast Smoothies for Kids

Ensuring sure your child eats a nutritious breakfast is of utmost importance. When hectic mornings prevent you from spending a lot of time preparing a meal, consider whipping up a healthy smoothie for your child as an alternative to a bowl of cereal. Kids enjoy helping make their breakfast and drinking a delicious treat before the school day. Make your child a peaches-and-cream, banana smoothie, apple-cinnamon smoothie or a strawberry-pineapple smoothie for breakfast this week.

This healthy smoothie, found at AllRecipes.com, is prepared with milk, yogurt and instant oatmeal to create a tasty and nutritious breakfast. Fill your ice cube tray and clean your blender the night before to save on time. When you are ready to prepare the smoothie, combine 1 1/4 cups of milk, 1/4 cup of vanilla yogurt, one banana cut into chunks, one packet of peaches-and-cream-flavored instant oatmeal and five ice cubes in a blender. Secure the lid and then blend until smooth. Use honey to sweeten the smoothie if desired. Cut down on calories and fat by using skim milk and low-fat yogurt. Once the smoothie is blended, pour it into glasses and enjoy. This recipe makes two servings and takes about five minutes to prepare.

If your child likes apples, consider making her an apple-cinnamon smoothie like the one at Healthy-Recipes-For-Kids.com. The night before, wash and peel one apple. Cut the apple into small cubes, being careful to discard any seeds. Cover the apple and place it in the refrigerator for use in the morning. To prepare the smoothie, combine 1 cup of milk, 1 cup of vanilla yogurt, the cubed apple, 1/2 tsp. of ground cinnamon and five ice cubes in the blender. Blend until smooth, then pour and serve. To reduce the fat and calories in this smoothie, use low-fat milk and yogurt. This recipe serves one child and takes less than five minutes to make if you prepare the apple the night before.

This tropical smoothie, described at SmoothieWeb.com, is a favorite of kids who enjoy strawberries, pineapple and orange juice. The recipe uses frozen fruit, allowing it to be prepared at any time of year. You will need 3/4 cup of frozen strawberries, 4 cups of pineapple juice, 1 cup of orange juice and 1 1/2 cup of vanilla frozen yogurt. Combine all the ingredients in your blender and blend until smooth, then pour into glasses and serve. Replace the frozen strawberries with fresh when they are in season and use fresh-squeezed orange juice if you desire. To cut down on calories, use low-fat frozen yogurt. This recipe makes approximately four servings and takes less than five minutes to prepare, slightly longer if you choose to use fresh strawberries or fresh-squeezed orange juice.