I Made the Green Smoothie Reese Witherspoon Drinks Every Day. Here’s What I Thought.

Amanda TarltonUpdated: Jun. 20, 2022

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Could Reese have discovered a green smoothie that tastes... good?! I put her recipe to the test.

Breakfast is easily my favorite meal of the day. Pancakes, omelets, hash brown casseroles—you name it, I love it.

But while all of the above are delicious, they aren’t exactly the picture of healthy eating. In other words, there are rarely any vegetables to be found in my breakfasts. That’s why, when I saw Reese Witherspoon post about her go-to green smoothie on Instagram, I knew I had to give it a try in hopes of health-ifying my a.m. meal.

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A post shared by Reese Witherspoon (@reesewitherspoon)

Reese says she got the recipe from fellow actress Kerry Washington and has been drinking it every day for breakfast for the last nine (!!) years. Armed with produce galore and Reese’s “secret ingredient” (which happens to be dancing), I fired up my blender.

Here are my honest thoughts on the green smoothie and whether or not you should try it for yourself.

How to Make Reese Witherspoon’s Green Smoothie

Fair warning: You’re going to need a lot of veggies for this one! Here’s how to make your fresh produce last longer so it doesn’t go bad before you whip up your smoothie.

Ingredients

2 heads romaine lettuce
1/2 cup spinach
1 apple
1 pear
1 banana
1 lemon
1/2 cup coconut water

Prepping the ingredients

The most time-consuming part of this whole recipe is simply preparing all of the ingredients. You have to chop the lettuce, core the apple and pear, peel the banana, and cut the rind off the lemon (leave the seeds and all the pulp though!). Of course, I also thoroughly washed all my produce beforehand and made sure to choose fruit that was already very ripe so it would blend easily.

Making the smoothie

Once everything was washed, chopped and peeled, I piled it all into the blender, starting with the solid food and then pouring in the coconut water on top. I blended it up for about 3 minutes to make sure there were no unwelcome chunks. Reese also noted that sometimes you have to push the veggies on top down while you blend so they don’t get left behind (I only had to do this once).

Here’s what I thought

As someone who really doesn’t drink smoothies very often, I was skeptical that Reese’s drink would both taste good and keep me full. The former was surprisingly true—you don’t taste the spinach or lettuce at all and instead get the fresh, fruity flavor of the apple, pear, banana and lemon. I had no problem drinking the whole thing because it was very delicious.

However, while Reese said she doesn’t get hungry after the smoothie for hours, I found myself starving less than an hour later. Next time, I would add protein powder or nut butter (both of which Reese says she sometimes uses) for more staying power. You can also add these other ingredients for a high-protein smoothie.

The other great thing is that her recipe makes enough for two smoothies. You have two “breakfasts” in one—pour the leftovers into a tumbler and store in the fridge.

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