Clementine Sunshine Smoothie
Simple, delicious smoothie made with clementines and creamy yogurt or almond milk. This healthy smoothie offers over 200% of your daily value of vitamin C!
Updated by Kathryne Taylor on August 1, 2024
I’m just not that into smoothies. It’s nothing against fruit (really fruit, it’s me, not you). I just like to eat my food. This smoothie, however, is a different story. I’ve been fighting a head cold for over a week and I’ve been getting desperate for a solution. Every evening, I feel off-balance, like my head is underwater. I’ve had enough of this vertigo!
Since I refuse to go to the doctor for antibiotics, I’ve been spending quality time with this lovely contraption, taking probiotics and trying to consume as much immunity-boosting vitamin C as possible. Which is where this clementine smoothie comes into the picture. I drank at least four of these over the weekend and I am feeling better.
This smoothie is delicious, light and refreshing—closer to fresh-squeezed orange juice than a thick banana smoothie. It tastes similar to an orange julius or a dreamsicle or those orange Flintstone push-ups from my childhood. I couldn’t decide what to call it, but the sunshine in the photos seemed to match the bright clementine flavor in the glass, so I landed on clementine sunshine smoothie. Let’s go with it.
This four-ingredient smoothie is suuuuuper simple to make. So simple that I hesitated to post it, but then I thought about all the other people out there who are fighting winter colds, or worse. When energy is running low, we need the simplest of solutions, and this is one of them.
Each little clementine offers about 60 percent of your daily value of vitamin C. That means that this modestly-sized smoothie, which is made with four clementines, puts you at around 240 percent of fresh, bioavailable vitamin C. That’s twice as much as a glass of Minute Maid and it tastes better, too. Since you just blend up the ingredients in a blender, it’s even easier to make than fresh orange juice.
I offered a few totally optional add-ins in case you want to play around with this smoothie. I honestly love it most in its purest form, with just clementines, yogurt or almond milk and ice. This has become the new orange juice in my house, so I’ll be enjoying it even after I buck this cold! I hope you love it, too.
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Clementine Sunshine Smoothie
Simple, delicious smoothie made with clementines and creamy yogurt or almond milk. This healthy, immunity-boosting smoothie offers around 240 percent of your daily value of vitamin C! Recipe yields one modestly-sized, 10-ounce smoothie.
Ingredients
- 4 clementines, preferably chilled
- ½ cup ice
- ¼ cup yogurt or almond milk (plain or vanilla flavors work)
- Tiny dash sea salt
Totally optional add-in ideas (I prefer the smoothie as listed above):
- Chunks of frozen banana for extra creaminess (you can scale back on the ice if using frozen banana)
- ¼ teaspoon ground turmeric for exotic flavor and more immunity-boosting properties
- Drizzle of honey for extra sweetness
- One drop of pure vanilla extract for more of a dreamsicle flavor
Instructions
- Use your fingers to peel the clementines and pull each one in half. Pull out any excess pith in the center and discard it.
- Add the yogurt or almond milk to the blender, followed by the clementines, ice and a tiny dash of salt, which enhances the other flavors. Feel free to add any of the optional add-ins suggested above. Blend well, until the clementines have turned into juice and there are no chunks of ice left.
- There will probably still be some bits of pith in the smoothie. If you don’t mind some texture, pour into a glass and enjoy immediately. For a perfectly smooth smoothie, pour it through a metal sieve into your glass.
Notes
Recipe inspired by Gimme Some Oven’s Orange Julius recipe.
Nutrition
The information shown is an estimate provided by an online nutrition calculator. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice. See our full nutrition disclosure here.
I just made this with naval oranges and plain kefir (both what I had on hand) and it is delicious! And pretty :)
Glad to hear it, thanks Christina!
Just made this with my 3 yr old girl, and we both thought they were YUM! I used cashew milk because it’s what we had, and added the dash of vanilla. Thanks for posting. And P.S. – found your blog a few days ago and am loving it! So many fresh recipes to get excited about :)
Thanks, Malinda! So glad you found my blog and you both enjoyed the smoothies!
Hi Kate! Love your blog, just found it! I eat very much like you create, but you take it to 5 stars!!! ;-)
I make a LOT of smoothies, so I really enjoyed watching your take on this. Please don’t worry about making anything too simple. In my life, the simpler the better, I’m sorry to say, as a working single mom to 2 busy kids!
Thanks for all your effort and incredible recipes! <3
Hi Linda! Thank you for saying hello! I’ll try to come up with more simple recipes for you soon. Sounds like you are one busy lady!
This is exactly what I was looking for. I feel a cold coming on and was looking for tasty ways to get my Vitamin C. Perfectttt!
Hope you’re all better now, Alex!
Thank you for posting this….I have been making a lot of smoothies lately and can’t seem to find one that I like…..I have been wanting a cream-sicle one, sure hope this is what I have been wanting….
Just made a 3berry one today was ok, and I might make it again….but everyone I make and put banana in it, it still taste like banana smoothies , no matter what else I put in it !!!! I do not like bananas…..need to find some new flavors without bananas in them…..
I hope you love this one! Frozen bananas are nice because they lend creaminess to smoothies, but you can skip them most of the time!
Love this “creamsicle” smoothie! I added chia seed and a drop of vanilla…..deicious! Looking forard trying more of your recipes. Thanks!
Keys are sticking…….I meant “delicous” and “forward”!
Thank you, Nancy! Hope you enjoy the others just as much!
I’ve been making this everyday for the last week! To add a little different twist I’ve added some fresh ginger and a few pieces of frozen pineapple. Unreal!
wow.. Awesome & sound tasty.
Made this today as a post workout breakfast. I added the banana and tumeric. AMAZING!
Absolutely delicious! I took out the salt and added a bit of stevia to enhance the flavor and my whole family loved it.
This smoothie Looks delicious, My favorite smoothie ingredient is fruit! all kinds! thanks for sharing KATE.
Could you substitute the milk/yogurt for something else?
This smoothie looks Awesome! My favorite smoothie material is fruit! all kinds! thanks for sharing…
Hi Kate, when you make this for yourself, do you use almond milk or yogurt? And if almond milk, do you use sweetened or unsweetened? Thanks!
What a delicious, bright, and fresh way to begin a day.
I broke my ankle 3 weeks ago and have been stuck inside with a constant cold ever since! Figured I could use a vitamin C boost.
I’ve never thought to put clementines into a smoothie before but it’s so good! Thank you, Kate.
Oof, those nasty colds hit at the worst times. I hope this helped, Aimee!
I’m always looking for a new smoothie recipe and I love clementines. My local store only sells them in the wooden crate and as much as I love them, that’s just too many for me to eat by myself so this is a perfect way to use them up. I hope you feel better soon.
Let me know how it works out, Sandra :)
I JUST MADE A DOUBLE BATCH WITH 2 VANILLA GREEK YOGURTS -WHAT A TREAT!! A NEW WINTER FAVORITE – THANK YOU!
Yum, that sounds so good, Cathy!
I would like to know the Nutrition Information per serving. Thanks
Unfortunately, I don’t have nutritional info available for my recipes just yet. I’m looking for a solution, and will update about it once I find one. Thanks!
Sooooooooooo good!! Thank you!! Will be enjoying this regularly.
Love these! There used to be a place in my area that made similar drinks to this and they called them the Fuzzy Orange.
Ha! That’s a cute name. I hope you tried it, Craig.
Clementin, ice and milk it so simple but how delicious is it!
Right? Simple but full of flavor.
This is beautiful,let me make oranges juice today
Great! Thank you.
Great recipe! Made it for my kids and they absolutely love it!
Thank you, Jarvis!
This was awesome! I’m not feeling well and I have a million tangerines from my tree. Made it with whole milk vanilla yogurt and a scoop of unflavored collagen. Thanks!
I’m glad it helped you feel a little better! I love that you have a tangerine tree.
This smoothie is so surprisingly good considering how simple it is (and I didn’t even do the add-ins)! Helped me get through a bag of mandarin oranges when I had too many sitting around last year. I usually try to avoid yogurt in smoothies (because I eat too much of it anyway, ha), but I thought it really added a lot here. Thank you!!
You’re welcome, Lisa!
This smoothie + vanilla is FREAKING AMAZING. I have been suffering with a terrible cold and am so thankful I found this recipe. Thank you for posting it! This is going into my regular rotation. YAY!
I’m so glad you like this smoothie! Great one for the winter, helps to brighten the cold. Right :)
Turned out so yumm when i tried!!
I’m glad you loved it, Katty!
Can this be made ahead? Thank you
I don’t typically think smoothies work well prepared in advance blended. But, you could try have the ingredients prepped prior to blending.
I made it, but made a few subs due to what was in my house. I substituted pure vanilla w TJs bourbon vanilla extract, substituted clementines with mandarin organges added some ground flax seed, collagen powder and spinach. It was delicious, I think still very close to your original. It was of course green bc of the spinach but all orange in flavor!
Thank you for sharing, Ann!
Looks so delicious! I have made Banana Almond Smoothie from your post. But I have not tried this yet. Can you please suggest any substitution for sea salt?
You can skip it, but I don’t have a good substitution for salt.
An awesome twist to our traditional, caribbean, Morir Soñando, which I grew up with as a child in the early 70’s. I love that their are a variety of “milk” to choose from: Almond, coconut & oat, being my favorite!
I love this smoothie! It’s not filling, though so I ate almond butter toast with flax seeds and raspberries along with the smoothie.
I added banana for the perfect creaminess, and a bit of honey but I didn’t actually have clementines, so I subbed two medium oranges. I read other comments mentioning cinnamon, so I added that and, boy oh boy, that was an amazing touch!
I rarely leave comments on internet recipes, but this is so simple and delicious. I did just the basic with a few drops of vanilla and it was just lovely. I have been wanting fresh juice for awhile but only have the blender, so looked up to see if clementines work well and how to prepare them. This will definitely be a staple smoothie!
Such a delicious smoothie! Cured my sweet tooth too!
Drinking this little bright colored smoothie makes me happy! Perfect consistency. I added some vanilla as you suggested and loved the extra flavor.
tried with turmeric, didn’t taste good to me
Wow! I was tempted to try add ins but thought I’ll first try a sip as is… it is as is, AMAZING!
For a little twist, I’ll try add ons next time.. so delicious!
Wow! I was tempted to try add ins but thought I’ll first try a sip as is… it is as is, AMAZING!
For a little twist, I’ll try add ons next time.. so delicious!
*I added coconut vanilla yogurt.
I’m happy you loved it, Elle. Thank you for sharing!
I followed the recipe and used mandarin oranges, coconut almond milk and frozen bananas. It was delicious! Vitamin C is so tasty!!!
If you want a very strong orange flavor, just blend the peel also in the smoothie. It’s best if the peel is thin and not thick. The peel is edible and very nutritious.
So simple and super light and fresh! Love
Thank you for your review, Beth!
I had some clementines that have been sitting for bit. I made this smoothie for my athletic son and he enjoyed it! Thanks Kate!
Can I make the night before and refrigerate for the next morning?
I prefer smoothies best right away. If you try it, let me know what you think!