Fruit ‘n’ Veggie Rainbow Popsicles – Just 4 ingredients and coloured by nature

Between this recipe and my 3-layer chocolate-vanilla-raspberry popsicles, we are set for summertime snacks, treats and even breakfasts! Yes, these popsicles are even breakfast appropriate. They are essentially smoothie popsicles – anything you would typically throw into a morning smoothie (e.g. fruit, avocado, kefir, even protein powders) can be tossed into a mould and eaten in solid popsicle format. If we make too much morning smoothie, or someone doesn’t finish theirs, we just bring out the popsicle mould and freeze it for later – no waste here!

Similar to my love of natural colourings for icing, gummies, or other treats intended to appeal to kids, I like my frozen treats to be coloured naturally as well. The base recipe here is 4 ingredients: almond milk (or coconut, etc.), fruit (I used mango) a dash maple syrup and sea salt.

Since I make my own almond milk (just water and nuts), this recipe is truly homemade with no extra crap and weirdness.

For this weekend’s batches, we layered in some extra colours – red from raspberries (though cherries, strawberries or a dash of beet puree would also be great) and green from… well, greens (we tried three different types: basil, parsley and cilantro, though spinach, sorrel, kale or mint, etc. would work great as well)

Fruit 'n' Veggie Rainbow Popsicles - Just 4 ingredients and coloured by nature

 

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Only 4 simple, real food ingredients and coloured naturally by your favourite fruits and veggies! When it's hot out, nothing could be more refreshing!

Serves: 8

Ingredients

• 1 cup homemade almond milk (or coconut milk, or other creamy beverage)
• 1 Tbsp maple syrup
• pinch of sea salt
• Mango, fresh or frozen (or your choice of base fruit)
• Optional flavours/layers:
• FOR GREEN: Handful (about ½ cup) of greens (e.g. spinach, parsley, mint, basil, etc. - or a mixture of these)
• FOR PINK: Approximately ½ cup of berries (fresh or frozen), or a dash of beet puree

Instructions

1. Add milk, sea salt and syrup to a Magic Bullet or a food processor (you can also mix it together in a bowl, but I try to avoid having to do extra dishes...)
2. Add chosen fruit to food processor. For base colour/flavour, I like to choose something with a sweeter taste, but a more neutral colour, like mango or banana.
3. Pour base mixture into popsicle moulds. You can make single colour/flavour pops by filling molds to the top - OR if you would like to layer in more colours and flavours, simply fill moulds only about ⅓ - ½ of the way and RESERVE about ⅓ - ½ of the base mixture.
4. To your base mixture, you can also add in berry or mango pieces, to create a chunkier effect (or as my daughter calls it "polka dot")
5. For a three layer/flavour popsicle, split the remaining base mixture into two portions, approximately ¼ - ⅓ cup each..
6. For the green layer, add a handful of greens and blend thoroughly until no large leafy bits remain (small ones are fine).
7. For the pink layer, add berries (I used ½ cup frozen raspberries) or a dash of beet puree and blend thoroughly.
8. Freeze for 6 hours or overnight.
9. And repeat... or maybe that's just me 😉

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The colours will intensify upon freezing, so don’t be worried if your colours aren’t especially vibrant at first. And honestly, who wants neon yellow and green food anyway?!

Don’t forget to retain the stems and tough bits of your greens to add to your compost broth (I keep a container in the fridge for all good veggie scraps) … no waste here!!!

My daughter also commented on the fact that we can use the moulds and sticks over and over (and over and over…) again – instead of having the garbage/wrapper on store bought pops. Yup, proud mama right here.