Tropical Passion Fruit Smoothie Recipe

A perfect smoothie can be one of the best ways to consume fruit. Sure a bowl full of strawberries, blueberries, and bananas is delicious, but something magical happens when you blend the same fruit together. A good smoothie hardly even requires sugar to transform fruit into something that feels like a creamy, luxurious dessert. The fruit does all the heavy lifting, making smoothies as nutritious as they are bursting with flavor. Certain smoothies can even transport you to the sandy shores of somewhere beachy. This tropical fruit smoothie recipe developed with Michelle McGlinn blends sweet passion fruit, coconut, banana, and vanilla for a flavor that will remind you of a creamy piña colada. 

Passion fruit is the key ingredient here, so don't leave it out: It's what offers the burst of tropical flavor and a nice crunch from the little seeds. Similar in flavor to mango but with a tartness reminiscent of pineapple, it's a unique fruit that finds itself a perfect home in tropical smoothies. Best of all, it takes less than 5 minutes to make a batch of this tropically inspired treat, so you can sip these sweet smoothies all summer long.

For the best results, grab a few bananas, peel them, and freeze them until solid. If you don't want to wait for the bananas to freeze, you can use about a cup of ice cubes to thicken the smoothie instead. You'll also need frozen passion fruit pulp or puree, which can be found in the fruit section of the freezer aisles. You'll find passion fruit near mango, tamarind, and papaya. From there, you'll just need pineapple juice, vanilla extract, coconut milk, and coconut cream. The coconut cream adds creaminess but very little sweetness; if you want an even sweeter smoothie, use cream of coconut instead, or add in a drizzle of honey.

Add all ingredients to a blender in the order listed.

Blend until smooth, about 30 seconds to 1 minute, using a tamper to push the solids into the blades.

Divide smoothie mixture between 2 glasses.

Serve immediately.

If you're lucky, you might find fresh passion fruit at the grocery store. Normally, we would encourage you to use fresh fruit for the best flavor, but in this case, it may not be worth the effort. One passion fruit only yields about 1 ½ tablespoons of pulp, so you'd need nearly 2 dozen fruits just to make this smoothie. It would take some time to scoop the pulp out of dozens of passion fruits and, since for best results you'll need to freeze the pulp, that would add even more time to the process. If you want to go this route, make sure the passion fruit is ripe by checking its weight, color, and texture.

You can easily get fresh passion fruit flavor into your smoothie without all the work. You can use passion fruit puree, which is blended pulp with the seeds removed, or you can use prepared pulp, which is simply the inside of passion fruit that's been lightly blended or crushed together. Puree will be seedless, yielding a smoother blend, while pulp will have small, crunchy seeds (and whether you like that or not is a personal preference). One option we don't recommend, though, is passion fruit juice, which has water and sugar added. Because the flavor and consistency of passion fruit juice are so different, the recipe might turn out watery and overly sweet.

There are a lot of good blenders on the market, and in general, any blender can do the job when it comes to smoothies — especially if you're keeping it simple. You might find, though, that a small, single-serving blender will have a harder time with tougher-to-blend items like frozen bananas, ice, or seeds. If you use a blender with a smaller, less powerful blade, a smoothie with frozen elements won't be blended as smoothly and might even damage the blades. We recommend using a high-capacity, high-power blender that has a removable cap for sliding in a tamper. 

The tamper is the key for recipes like these, where frozen pulp can sit unblended on the blades and never become incorporated into the drink. Firmly push the tamper into the solid fruits, pressing them into the blades. Once the fruit catches, you'll feel a release on the tamper as the blending resumes. Continue pushing the ingredients from the sides of the blender into the blades until the smoothie runs without bumps or pauses. If you're still having trouble, check your power settings — you should be at the highest power for most of the blending time.