Elderberry and Honey Smoothie Recipe for Kids
Some mornings a spoonful is easy. Other mornings you have a child who has decided, firmly and without explanation, that spoons are no longer something they do.
This is for those mornings. It takes about three minutes, it hides nothing because there is nothing to hide, and in our house it gets finished.
Why it works
Elderberries are naturally rich in antioxidants and vitamin C, which is why they have been a winter favourite in family kitchens for centuries. Raw honey brings the sweetness and a prebiotic that helps nourish gut health. Together they are the whole reason Drink Purple tastes like berries rather than medicine.
Blend that through banana, yoghurt and frozen berries and it stops being something you convince a child to take. It just becomes breakfast.
Elderberry and honey smoothie
Makes one large or two small
- 1 tablespoon Drink Purple elderberry and raw honey syrup
- 1 ripe banana, fresh or frozen
- 1 cup frozen mixed berries
- Half a cup Greek yoghurt, or a dairy free yoghurt
- Half a cup milk of your choice, more if you like it thinner
- A handful of baby spinach, optional and genuinely undetectable
- 1 teaspoon chia or flaxseed, optional
Method. Put everything in the blender. Blend until smooth, about thirty seconds. Add a splash more milk if it is thicker than you want. Pour and serve straight away, while it is still cold and purple.
A few things we have learned
- Frozen banana makes it thick enough to eat with a spoon, which some kids prefer to drinking it.
- Make it the night before and keep it in the fridge in a lidded cup. It separates a little, so give it a shake.
- Pour it into ice block moulds and you have a purple icy pole for the afternoon.
- If your child watches you make it, they are far more likely to drink it. Let them press the button.
How much syrup
The tablespoon above is an adult serve. For children the amount is smaller, so use half a teaspoon for ages 1 to 4 and 1 teaspoon for over 4, and share the smoothie between you. There is a full breakdown in our guide to how much for each age.
Drink Purple is suitable from 12 months and up. It is not suitable for babies under 12 months because it contains raw honey.
The point of it
A smoothie is not a magic trick, and neither is a syrup. Sleep, food and time outside still do most of the work, and we wrote about all of that honestly in our guide to natural immune support for kids.
But if the daily purple sip is the bit that keeps falling over in your house, this is a version of it that everybody actually looks forward to. That counts for a lot in July.
Need a bottle? The 350ml lives in the fridge, the 60ml Mini lives in the bag, and everything for the kids is together in our kids immunity collection.
Fewer sniffles, more giggles.
