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It’s no secret Vitamix is the best blender for smoothies. Some say the brand is the Rolls Royce of blenders, and there’s no denying that, for sure. From powerful motors to the hardest blades, the brand is also one of the few if you need a good blender for ice and frozen fruit recipes.
Sad to say, however, every success has its critics and blending community is no different. You’ll find a few with negative remarks, but if you do know how to use a Vitamix blender well, you can achieve a lot. Just some months ago, I didn’t know you can produce a thick creamy topping for cold brew coffee from nonfat milk, which has a thinner consistency.
In any case, the eggheads say learning never stops. So, in this article, I’m going to share few tips on how to make a smoothie in a Vitamix. Of course, I’m sure you’ve already prepared several recipes, but did you manage to blend chia seeds with or without a tamper?
The 5 Things Why Vitamix Blenders are Great Smoothies Machines?
Not long ago, the famous Starbucks jumped ship to Vitamix after years of working with Blendtec. If you go to many smoothie and ice cream shops, you’ll find a similar trend, even though they use commercial machines.
As I mentioned earlier, Vitamix has the most consistent smoothies, rich in taste, and smoothest at best. The 5 features that facilitate this are:
- A high-performance motor: Unlike Ninja and those other blenders under $100, Vitamix relies much on the muscles of the motor and less on the blade. The motor has high-grade components that can withstand the toughest pummeling without bogging down.
- Strong, stainless steel blade: The edges are not as razor-sharp as Ninja blenders, neither are they blunt-dull like Blendtec. So, the Vitamix has a kind of a blending advantage over either, and the reason the smoothies are the silkiest.
- Exclusive Vortex-style blending: the patented Vitamix container blends as it folds and pulls the ingredients back to the blades. Hence, ensuring faster and more consistent mixtures.
- Strong gear shaft: Vitamix fits his blender with an all-metal drive system to ensure it can handle frozen fruits and ice more efficiently. This also helps ensure the longevity of the machine as the plastic drive system tends to wear out fast.
- Variable speed setting: I’m sure you’re probably wondering what I mean here, but the truth is that ramping up and down can be very helpful. The best scenario is where you need to add ingredients during blending.
How to Make a Smoothie in a Vitamix at Home
Making a smoothie, or the overall blending experience, with a Vitamix blender is relatively straightforward. The blender is powerful and the blades are slightly sharp and very strong. So, you necessarily don’t need to further chop down the ingredients as the regular blenders require. Stuff like carrots, onions, and bananas can be used whole, and fruits like apples cut into halves.
Anyway, back to making a smoothie, many of us have become too attached to a Vitamix tamper that we even use when we don’t need it.
For instance, a smoothie isn’t something you need to have a tamper at hand if you’re not making a veggie dessert. But even with those thick smoothies, there are some tricks you can use to ensure everything, including the seeds liquefies completely.
Here are seven easy tips to making a smooth and delicious smoothie in a Vitamix:
1. Load the blender jar in the right order
When making your smoothie, the way you arrange the ingredients into the blending container is very crucial. You need to start with the lightest that will create the liquid base fast, then place the denser and frozen ingredient on top so that they can help push the in-between ingredients down. Also, having the light foods at the bottom will enable the motor to start with the right momentum without any hardship.
Ps. load the Vitamix container in the order of liquids first, followed by soft fruits or vegetables, leafy grains, and finally frozen fruits or ice.
2. Balance the dry ice/ Frozen fruits Ratio
Even with dry ice and frozen fruits at the top, you have to make sure the two are in perfect proportions. This will ensure you get a consistent blend that you can easily drink through a straw.
3. Run at the highest Speed
When making a smoothie, you have to fight your fears and ramp the blender up to the highest speed. As one sweet girl said, using the Vitamix “is like a racehorse”. The machine wants to run on the fastest, and you should let it be if you’re to make a consistent blend. It doesn’t matter whether you have the simplest Vitamix 5200 or the sophisticated Vitamix A2500 and A3500.
4. Add the seeds into the Vortex
When the bender has finished with the top ingredients, you’ll notice a vortex from the spinning blades. At this point, you can now add your chia seeds, flaxseeds, or any other seeds that you wanted to gift your body.
The reason we’re adding the seeds in this stage is to make sure the vortex folds them right into the blades. So, they won’t need to compete with the greens on who gets to be pulled into the blades first. Hence, preventing them from running into the sides of the container, which would otherwise require you to use a tamper.
5. Would you want the smoothie extra thinner?
In case the ice and the frozen fruits result in a thicker texture, you can add small amounts of liquid to thin it out. So, you can remove the lid plug and measure one or two ounces of milk, water, or juice to add into the mixture. The lid plug does have half-ounce and one-ounce fill markings, thus shouldn’t be hard to get the right quantity.
6. Has the smoothie become excessively Thinner?
Meanwhile, if your smoothie has become too light, you can add a bit more frozen fruits or ice to thicken. If you have neither of the two remaining but there’s some frozen yogurt in the box, your smoothie still has a chance. You could even put a whole avocado ( skinned and pit) to give the blend more creaminess.
7. Give the Smoothie an extra Sweetness
If the concentration of the lemons or any other citrus fruits that you’ve used has made a smoothie less sweet, a little sweetener can balance it off. So, a half or one spoon of honey, maple syrup, dates, grapes, or sugar will be great. Just make sure you add in small doses not to make the smoothie too sugary again.
Final Thoughts
If you’re not a fan of raw fruits, in particular those bitter, making a smoothie will still give you their respective nutrients. Like I said when we were making a strawberry banana smoothie recipe, you can cut off the refined ingredients by switching to alternative fruit options.
If it’s sugar, bananas, grapes, honey, and dates are all amazing natural sweeteners. Nonfat milk can also make a great cream after whipping in the Vitamix Aer disc container for a few seconds.
Anyways, I hope the article was helpful and you can now share your Vitamix smoothies with pride. In case you might want to try more smoothie receives, the Vitamix website has quite many, which you can also find in the provided Cookbook. Enjoy!