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Healthy Coffee Banana Smoothie Recipe

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Why it works: Coffee and banana work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and 80 recipes mention both. Both carry ethyl pentanoate, which smells yeast, fruit. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 3
Prep10 min

Ingredients

Contains: milk (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Add the chilled brewed coffee, banana chunks, Greek yogurt, ground flax seed, honey or agave nectar, cinnamon, and nutmeg to a blender.

  2. Add the ice cubes on top.

  3. Blend on high for about 60 seconds until completely smooth and frothy, stopping to scrape down the sides if needed.

  4. Taste and adjust sweetness with a little more honey or agave if desired, then blend for 5 seconds more.

  5. Pour into glasses and serve immediately.

By cookincanuck. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Coffee + bananatop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together80 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl pentanoate (yeast, fruit).

  2. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Yogurt + honeytop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together659 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  4. Banana + honeytop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together395 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  5. Honey + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,446 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Flavor stand-ins for the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (coffee, banana, yogurt, honey, cinnamon):

  1. Cardamombetter flavor fit
  2. Gingerbetter flavor fit
  3. Cloveabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against coffee, banana, yogurt, honey, cinnamon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).