Do you love peach season as much as I do? This peach smoothie recipe comes from my book, The Herbal Kitchen, and it’s a wonderful way to celebrate this delicious summer fruit. Kids love making smoothies too, so you can get the whole family involved in making this yummy and healthy treat!

Though I don’t recommend drinking cold beverages in winter, smoothies can be truly refreshing in summer, especially when you incorporate nourishing and healing ingredients. Let’s take a closer look at what’s in our herbal peach smoothie…

Peaches

You can make your herbal drinks special by incorporating seasonal fruit. In summertime, that means peaches! Peaches are filled with vitamins, minerals, and anti-inflammatory antioxidants including vitamin C, vitamin A, beta carotene, and potassium.

Peaches are also an important ally for soothing summer heat, irritability, and agitation. Eating the fruits can cool and moisten the body and calm heat-related nausea. Peach fiber benefits digestive health and the fruits also contain prebiotics, which feed our beneficial gut bacteria.

Plus they taste absolutely delicious, so who can resist blending them into a peach smoothie?!

Lavender

Relaxation is what usually comes to mind when we think of lavender, and lavender tea is a stress tamer. This peach smoothie uses lavender tea as the base and the aroma really complements the flavor of the peaches.

A strengthening tonic to the nervous system, lavender helps with irritability and restlessness, which can sometimes arise in the heat of summer. This herb calms anger and agitation and invokes an uplifted feeling of well-being. Softening the impact of stress is something most of us could use these days and lavender helps heal the body and calm the mind.

Did you know you can make tea with lavender leaves as well as flowers? Click here to learn more about when to harvest lavender and how to use lavender leaves.

You can also purchase dried lavender flowers at Mountain Rose Herbs.

Honey

Besides giving the peach smoothie a sweet taste, honey enhances the absorption of nutrients and helps to deliver the medicinal qualities of food and herbs deeper in the body. Honey is also antibacterial and antioxidant.

Try to find a beekeeper local to your area that sells honey, and purchase honey that is raw and has not been heated. Raw honey is full of healing enzymes that are destroyed in the heating process. Some of the honey available in stores is processed and heated, and many commercial honeys are not labeled with the information of whether they are cooked or not. When you buy honey from someone local, you can ask them about their processing methods and whether they heat the honey.

You can also enhance the medicinal qualities of the honey by adding herbs to it. I especially like using rose hip honey in this smoothie recipe, but feel free to experiment with other kinds too.

Ready to seriously herbify your kitchen pantry? Check out My Herbal Kitchen

I would love to hear from you! Do you look forward to peaches in the summertime? What are your favorite herbal smoothie ingredients? Please share in the comments below.

Print Recipe

Summer Peach Smoothie

Servings: 1 smoothie

Author: Kami McBride

Ingredients

1 tablespoon dried lavender
1 cup water
2 tbsp honey
2 cup fresh peach slices (about 1 1/2 medium peaches)
Dash of powdered clove
2 sprigs of fresh peppermint
Small handful of ice (see note below)

Instructions

First make a lavender tea. Place the lavender and water into a covered saucepan. (I use stainless steel Revere pots; glass and enamel pots also work well.) Over medium-high heat, bring water and herbs to a boil, and then immediately remove from the heat. Let herbs steep for one hour.
Using a metal strainer, remove the herbs from the tea.
Put tea and honey in the blender and blend to mix.
Add peach slices and ice to the blender and blend well.
Add clove and peppermint and blend.
Drink right away or store in the refrigerator overnight.

Notes

Too much ice can be hard on the stomach and hinder digestion, so I recommend using just enough ice to give your smoothie the thick, crunchy texture you are looking for.