Muscle Building Smoothies: 5 Delicious Protein-Packed Recipes

As men age, maintaining and building muscle becomes increasingly important for overall health and vitality, and a great way to support this endeavor is with muscle-building smoothies.

These nutrient-packed beverages are convenient and customizable, making them an excellent choice for men over 40 looking to boost their muscle mass.

Working out is obviously important to gaining size and mass, but meal prepping is also key, and muscle-building smoothies are one simple method to make your planning much easier.

In our experience, we’ve found that having a readily available meal on hand can be a crucial element to success. It's easier to make better choices if you make them in advance. It’s also easier to grab a container from the fridge than to prepare a new meal every time we’re hungry.

Find a healthy combination of ingredients, bag them all up, and toss them in the freezer for long-term storage and easy access. When you're ready, just put it into the blender, and you've got a meal!

Simplify your meal prep with the five great muscle-building smoothies below!

Looking for the best all-in-one nutrition powder? Learn about SuperFuel, a specially designed protein powder for men over 40!

 

Our 5 Favorite Muscle-Building Smoothies

Of the high-protein smoothies that I have personally tried, these five worked the best for my taste buds. Everyone is different, so you’ll have to find what works for you. If you're using the best sources of protein, a smoothie will be a healthy addition to your diet and help you consume the amount of protein you're aiming for. These muscle-building smoothie recipes are a great place to start.

Breakfast Protein

Start the day off right with this muscle-building smoothie for breakfast. It’s commonly recommended to get at least 30 grams of protein in the first 30 minutes of the day, so a smoothie of this magnitude is perfect for breakfast. This recipe contains about 40 grams of protein, and that’s without using protein powder!

• 1 cup strong coffee, frozen into ice cubes
• 1 banana
• 1 cup almond milk
• 1/3 cup plain or vanilla Greek yogurt
• 1 tablespoon chia seeds
• 1 tablespoon hemp seeds
• Powdered eggs, raw eggs, or protein powder

Blue Berry Spinach

Using frozen produce is a great way to thicken up your smoothies. Bananas and blueberries are one the more delicious combination for almost any muscle-building smoothie.

This recipe is a little sweet for most people, so be generous with the spinach and light on the blueberries.

• ½ cup frozen blueberries
• 1 medium banana
• 2 tablespoons old-fashioned oats/seed of choice
• 1 tablespoon almond butter
• 1 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk
• 1 date
• 1 handful of spinach
• 1 scoop of protein powder

Peanut Butter and Banana Smoothie

Peanut butter and banana is a classic combo that cannot go ignored. Fortunately, there are lots of new and healthy types of nut butter on the market now. My local grocer even has a machine that blends fresh nuts into butter, which is amazing because you know there are no unwanted ingredients.

This muscle-building smoothie contains roughly 60 grams of protein per serving. Hemp seeds are a great way to boost your smoothies with high-quality protein and loads of other nutrients. Just be cautious if you start munching on them; they’re fairly dense with calories. Just two tablespoons of hemp seeds contain over 90 calories!

• 1 banana
• 1 tablespoon unsweetened peanut butter or hazelnut butter
• 2 tablespoons hemp seeds
• 1 scoop of protein powder
• 2 dates
• ¼ teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 cup of almond milk

Veggie Power

This is my personal favorite of the muscle-building smoothies. I love carrots, broccoli, and spinach, so I always have these around the house. They don’t exactly taste that great in a smoothie, so it’s a good idea to throw in a banana and some dates.

Peas are also a good addition if you can tolerate the flavor and texture. Personally, I would rather use pea protein powder than canned peas, but fresh peas taste pretty good if they’re available.

• 6 ice cubes
• ¼ cup baby carrots
• ¼ cup of broccoli florets
• 1 banana
• 1 handful of spinach or kale
• 1 apple
• 1 scoop of protein powder
• 1 date

The Mid-Day Refresh

This is a refreshing drink to cool down with. Watermelon or honeydew is also a great addition if you already have some sliced up. Don’t steer away from melon seeds or the peeling of the cucumber/apples. The extra fiber is great for digestion and bowel movements.

Pea protein is a fantastic form of protein that is commonly forgotten about. It’s a good idea to mix up your protein sources to get a wide variety of protein types. This will ensure your body has all of the requirements for rebuilding muscle, tissue, fluids, and hormones needed for healthy bodily functions.

• 6 ice cubes
• Lime juice
• Lemon juice
• 1 large whole cucumber
• 1 chopped apple
• 1 scoop of pea protein
• 1 cup of watermelon (optional)

Key Ingredients For Muscle-Building Smoothies

This is just a list of ingredients I have personally tried. Not all fruits and veggies mix well together, and not all of them work well in smoothies. The best route is to use minimal ingredients and stick to superfoods.

Ginger, for instance, is a commonly recommended ingredient, but it's far too potent for me to add. Tiny pieces are all that I can personally tolerate. I'm sure some people make some crazy smoothies, but I've found that even if I'm able to drink one loaded with a ton of nutrient-dense vegetables like Brussels sprouts, kale, and ginger, I still end up wasting a good portion of it.

My advice is to stick to as few ingredients as possible. The goal is to create a healthy meal that you enjoy. Don't go smoothie crazy!

Almost any combination of the following ingredients will work well for a smoothie. I tried to break the protein up by the typical serving for a smoothie, so the protein content is just a close approximation.

Base

• Pea Protein 1 scoop (33 grams) – 24 g
• Whey protein powder 1 scoop (33 grams) – 20 g protein
• Hemp protein (33 grams) – 17 g of protein

Vegetables

• Carrots (3 oz) – 1 g of protein
• Celery (1 stalk) – .28 g of protein
• Broccoli (1 cup) 2.5 g of protein
• Baby Spinach (1 cup) – 1 g of protein
• Kale (1 cup) – 2 g of protein
• Collard greens – (1 cup) – 2 g of protein
• Broccoli sprouts  (1 cup) – 2 g of protein
• Cucumber (1/2 cup slices with peel) – .3 g of protein
• Snap Peas (1 cup) – 2 g of protein

Fruits

• Avocado (1 cup sliced) – 4 g of protein
• 1 Average Apple – 0.5-1 g of protein
• Banana (1 medium) – 2.5 g of protein
• Blueberries 1/2 cup – 0.5 g of protein
• Strawberries (1 cup) – 1 g of protein
• Watermelon (1 cup) – 1 g of protein

Additives

• Hemp seeds – 5 g protein
• Peanut butter  (2 tbsp) – 8 g of protein
• Chia seeds (1 tbsp) –  2 g of protein
• Oats (1 tbsp) – 1.6 g of protein
• Spirulina – 4 g of protein
• Maca powder – 1 g of protein per tsp

Sweeteners

• Dates – 0.5 g of protein each
• Almond milk (1 cup) – 1.5 g of protein
• Greek yogurt (1 cup) – 23 g of protein
• Honey (1 tsp) – 0.05 g of protein

There's more to artificial sweeteners than meets the eye. Here's what you need to know!

 

Tips for Making Muscle-Building Smoothies

Be warned that small seeds don’t blend well in some blenders. Blackberries, strawberries, and seeded grapes are delicious, but they also have tiny seeds that manage to escape the smoothing part of the process every single time. The seeds can get stuck in the back of your throat and in your teeth when your drinking.

Bananas and melons have the perfect flavor profiles and texture for making delicious smoothies. Foods that have a mild flavor and smooth texture seem to work best with masking the taste of vegetables.

Throw seeds into the blender first, then the water, ice, and/or powders. Blend these well before tossing the vegetables and fruit in last. This will help mix everything together without clogging up the blender motor.

Alternatively, you could spend some money and buy a high-quality blender. It’s a great investment, especially if you’re using it to get fit. Some of the best blenders can cost as much as $200 or more, so be prepared when you start shopping. Almost any blender over $60 works pretty well, but there is definitely a noticeable difference between the cheap ones and the top-shelf brands.

Prepping Each Week

If you’re sticking to a diet plan or muscle-building regiment, you’re going to want to plan out all of your food consumption.

Choose one to three muscle-building smoothies to drink with your diet.

Combine the ingredients into freezer bags or plastic containers so you can easily access them throughout the week. For example, if you’re going to have a smoothie for breakfast every morning, pick one day of the week to prepare the ingredients into separate bags. Having a bag you can just grab from the freezer and dump into the blender makes the process much easier, increasing your chances of sticking to the plan.

Check out our SIMPLE and EASY meal prep ideas for men!

 

*Please know that weight loss results & health changes/improvements vary from individual to individual; you may not achieve similar results. Always consult with your doctor before making health decisions. This is not medical advice – simply very well-researched info on muscle-building smoothies.