Can You Blend Frozen Fruit?

Making smoothies with frozen fruit is fast, easy, and cheaper than making them with fresh fruit. But can you blend frozen fruit? Or are there too many drawbacks.

It’s become a rather popular question for people who get into juicing and blending. Can you use frozen fruit instead of fresh fruit?

Most people want to know if they can substitute frozen fruit when they blend because frozen fruit is cheaper and easier and more convenient.

Consider the cost of blending and making a smoothie with frozen blueberries verses fresh berries. On the one hand, fresh berrries are thought to be super healthy and fresh. On the other hand, they are expensive (unless you’re not buying organic) and delicate.

Frozen berries (and other frozen fruit) is more affordable and easier to store.

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Can You Blend Frozen Fruit In Your Blender?

So, if frozen fruit is easier and cheaper, the obvious question to ask is if you can blend frozen fruit in your blender?

The answer is yes. You certainly can. It’s quite easy to do so, granted you follow a few steps.

First, the type of smoothie you want to make will dictate how you use your frozen fruit. If you are comfortable with smoothies that are thicker than normal, and almost borderline slushlys, then you can simply use a small amount of liquid and you can use the same frozen fruit.

It’s perfectly fine to blend frozen fruit as long as you know that it’s hard like ice. This means that it will need to blend longer and you can swap out the ice. You don’t need ice in your frozen fruit smoothie because the frozen fruit functions like ice. It makes the smoothie cold and gives it a nice consistency.

You can let the frozen fruit thaw a bit, but that’s only if you don’t like the cold consistencty that ice gives a smoohtie.

What Types of Frozen Fruit Can You Blend?

Here’s the fun part. What types of frozen fruit can you blend? Anything you want.

If you see a bag of frozen fruit for sale in the supermarket, then you can use it.

I personally like to use frozen fruit mixes. So, frozen fruit mixed berrries is one that I particualry like. It’s a great value and also easy and conveiant.

You can use a bag of tripple mixed berries to make your frozen fruit smoothies.

You can also use frozen pineapples. Or frozen Mango slices.

There are even items designed spscifically for making smoothies. These will have greens and fruits. A pouplar one is a berry and kale mix.

You can even take regular fruit and freeze it and then blend it. For instance, they normally don’t sell frozen bananas in the supermarket. But perhaps you’ve purchased too many bananas and want to save some by freezeing them. Well, you can certainly do that and then you can later use those frozen bananas to make a nice frozen fruit smoothie.

There have been a great deal of studies regarding frozen fruits and vegetables and wheather or not they are healthy.

Without going into a great deal of technical data and information, the concensors is that frozen fruit is just as healthy as fresh fruit. The premise has to do with how it’s flash frozen. If the fruit is frozen using a flash freezing method, which is how most of the fruit is frozen nowadays, then there is not destruction of nutrients.

The other important thing to remember when buying fruit to use in your blender is that you always want to get organic fruit. (studies linked at bottom).

Organic fruit has been shown time and time again to be superior to conventional fruits grown with pesticides and other harmful chemicals. Not only are organic fruits safer and healthier, they are oftentimes going to taste better.

It’s really a very simple equation. Organic fruits are healthier and in many cases, when you buy them oragnic, they are not even more expensive than regualr fresh fruits. So, why wouldn’t you use organic frozen fruits for your blender given the oppertunity.

So, here’s my go to list of frozen fruits to use:

Cherries
Berries
Mangos
Pineapples
Peaches
Berries and Kale Mixtures

Do You Have To Add More Liquid When Blending Frozen Fruit?

The next question concerns wheather or not you need to add more liquid when you are blending frozen fruit.

As briefly alluded to in the above section, it depends on the type of smoothie that you want. If you are comfortable with a slusly consistency, then you do not have to add more liquid than normal.

Or, alternatively, if you are prepated to let the frozen fruit thaw in the fridge prior to blending your smoothie, you do not have to add more liqud than normal.

It all depends on how you would like to process the frozen fruit in the blender.

Think of it this way. The frozen fruit is in a solid state. The liquid in the fruit is solid when it’s frozen, like ice. So, when you blend it, it’s akin to blending ice. If you overblend, then it will begin to melt, but that is not what I recccomend.

I suggest that you either let the fruit thaw a bit, or else you add a touch of extra liquid when you are blending the smoothie.

My suggestion is to add more liquid than you normally would if you are only using frozen fruit in your smoothie.

So, for instance, if you were to normally make a smoothie with coconut water or almond milk and berries, then add more liquid to your blender when blending frozen berries.

However, if you add somethign such as yogurt, or even microgreens that are not frozen (like baby spinach or baby kale) then you don’t have to add quite as much extra liquid.

It’s a feel thing and something that you will get used to after a few batches.

How Long Should You Blend Frozen Fruit?

When it comes time to actually blend frozen fruit, it is important to take into account the texture you want from your smoothie, as well as the heat created from the blender.

If you overblend your frozen fruit you risk creating too much heat.

That’s why I do suggest that you add extra liquid. It helps fasten the blending process. And this lessesns the ammount of heat that you end up creating with the blender.

Remember, excess heat can destroy nutrients. So, you should either add more liquid, let the frozen fruit thaw a bit, or simply be satisfied with a more slushy consistency.

And always consult with the manual that comes with your blender. It will tell you how long you should use the blender for without pause. It’s important to not operate the blender non-stop for longer than the manual states. That could end up not only harming the fruit, but damaging the blenders engine.

Do You Have To Thaw Frozen Fruit For Smoothies?

Technically, no, you do not have to thaw frozen fruit for smoothies. You can put frozen fruit right into the blennder. Especially if you own a high end blender such a Vitamix or even a high powered blender such as a Ninja or Nutribullet.

As I mentioned above, you can compensate by taking the frozen fruit and placing it in a bowl in your fridge and letting it thaw (or letting it thaw on your table at room temperaute).

If you do decide to let your frozen fruit thaw before blending it, then make sure you are thawing it in a bowl. There will be juice from the frozen fruit that you want to collect and add to the blender.

What happens when fruit is flash frozen is that the cells breakdown, this doesn’t harm the nutrient quality, but it does create a liquid that will leak out of the fruit as it thaws. And that liquid is healthy juice from the fruit that you should want to include in your blender, so make sure that you catch it in a bowl.

Here are some additional articles that I wrote that cover frozen fruit smoothies and how to blend frozen fruit.