Smoothie Tips.

November 25, 2006 6:07 PM

How do I recreate a Jamba Juice in my kitchen?

I'm a Jamba Juice addict, and get smoothies there constantly. I want to cut out the middleman and start making the same smoothies at home.

1) How can I get their recipes? They're posted in plain sight for the employees, so I'd think someone would have posted them online by now, but I haven't been able to find them. Failing that, what's another good resource for recipes?

2) Suggestions on what blender to use? My JJ uses Vita-Mix blenders, but I've also heard good things about BlendTec blenders.

3) Any tips on how/where to get good juice and frozen fruit cheaply? Time is not necessarily a factor, so I'm open to juicing al the fruit myself, but I assume that would be tough to do well (or maybe require expensive machinery).

posted by EnormousTalkingOnion to Food & Drink (14 answers total)

Frozen fruit: check your local restaurant supply stores. In the Seattle area there are Associated Grocers (I think ID and CA as well), and there are similar stores elsewhere that are open to the public. They are going to be a good source for frozen fruit, and it is likely to be pretty cheap.

Other ingredients: I'm not so sure. Whenever I try to make smoothies at home, they're good-but-not-JJ-good, so this will be a thread that I'll be following closely as well.
posted by rossination at 6:12 PM on November 25, 2006

Their sorbet is a huge part of the taste. you could find a fave recipe and make a lot of it (would require ice-cream maker though). Or just buy different sorbets (not ice cream). Frozen fruit is also key - I'd second restaurant supply groceries. Or use Alton Brown's freezing method - dry ice in a cooler - no link, sorry. The CO2 keeps the fruit from browning before it freezes.
posted by chupwalla at 6:17 PM on November 25, 2006

Warehouse clubs have big bags of frozen fruit.
posted by textilephile at 6:28 PM on November 25, 2006

I have a vita mix blender and it's excellent (I have the 5000). It'll blend just about anything. The only probs it ever gives me is if I try to blend something extremely dry (like cocoa powder) with something very thick (like maple syrup). I have to do that in small batches.

As for fruit (frozen or not), it does it no prob. Blendtec blenders are also very good and, depending on which model you get, can be cheaper than the vitamix.

I have no idea what a Jamba Juice is (I assume it's a juice chain of stores), but there are a gazillion books with recipes for smoothies and juices. There are books on both (ie, a whole book on smoothies and many on juicing in general).

That said, juicing and blending are two very different things. If you want a good juicer, the best for home are Green Star (aka Green Power) and Champion. These are both masticating juicers and are much more expensive than, say, a centrifugal juicer, but they do a much better job. For instance, my Champion can rend more juice from 5 large carrots than my my L'Equip centrifugal can get from 2 bags of carrots. If you've got a Craigslist in your town, check there. I bought both my Champion and Vitamix thru Craigs. $100 each.

If you can find a high end Green Star or Green Power on CL, that would be great. They're a bit better than the Champions as they can also juice wheatgrass.

If you list what kind of juices you like, I may be able to list some recipes, but again, I have no idea what a Jamba Juice is.
posted by dobbs at 6:28 PM on November 25, 2006 [1 favorite]

As for blenders, I have one of these. (no affiliation with that store at all, just the first link in google). It cuts through ice like nobody's business. I love the thing, although I make mixed drinks rather than smoothies. In the end, it's just ice.
posted by cschneid at 6:37 PM on November 25, 2006

There's a Jamba Juice recipe book. If you want to exactly duplicate the Jamba Juice experience, the book is probably worth the $10.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 6:58 PM on November 25, 2006

I found a couple recipes with a quick google search.
posted by Mr. Gunn at 7:49 PM on November 25, 2006

Here are a couple of recipes I got by using "search inside this book" in the amazon link provided by monju_bosatu:

Cherry Chicle
1 cup cherry cider
1 cup pears
1/2 cup strawberries
1 cup rasperry sherbet
1/2 cup ice
- calories: 500; calories from fat: 30

Orange Oomph
1 cup orange juice
1 cup strawberries
1/2 cup blueberries
1 cup pineapple sherbet
1/2 cup ice
- calores:430, calories from fat: 30

Pomegranite Pom Poms
1 cup pomegranit juice
1 cup strawberries
1/2 cup plums
1 cup rasperry sherbet
1/2 cup ice
- Calories: 490. Calories from fat: 40

By clicking "surprise me" while searching inside the book, I also learned that you need two pieces of equipment to replicate Jamba Juice smoothies:
* blender -- look for the highest quality, most powerful you can find to get the "same thick texture and silky viscosity of a Jamba Juice smoothie" (Bledtec and Vita-Mix are recommended).
* juicer -- Omega and Acme are recommended.
posted by croutonsupafreak at 8:10 PM on November 25, 2006 [1 favorite]

If the recipes are posted in plain sight you could photograph them with a telephoto lens. Healthy juice, plus you get to act out your spy fantasies.
posted by AmbroseChapel at 8:10 PM on November 25, 2006

I finds that whenever I add pectin to a smoothie or frap, I get a consistency much more like what I might buy at a cafe.
posted by solid-one-love at 9:55 PM on November 25, 2006

If you can get to a Costco, they have this frozen tropical fruit mix that works really well for this. It's got papaya, pineapple, mango and strawberries frozen together. (I can't remember what else, we've run out so I can't look in the freezer to see.)

We usually throw in about a cup or so with some honey, small amount of yogurt (doesn't really matter what kind), a (peeled) banana, whatever juice we've got lying around, and a few spoons of frozen orange juice concentrate in.

If you leave out the banana or the frozen oj, it's not going to be as good. This needs no ice because your fruit's already frozen.

Even though we've got a coffeeshop with great smoothies right next door, we tend to prefer these.
posted by lilithim at 12:14 AM on November 26, 2006 [1 favorite]

Since the OP didn't come back into the thread, here are some generic tips:

If using fresh fruit, use frozen grapes instead of ice. They work real well, freeze easy, taste good.

You can use lots of different things to sweeten: dates, honey, maple syrup.

Very cold coconut water tastes delicious--don't use warm coconut water. It doesn't taste delicious.

Put your frozen or hardest foods in first to get them down near the blades.

If you're going to buy pre-frozen fruit, make sure it's labeled "flash frozen" on the bag. Otherwise, you'll spend so much time breaking the pieces apart to make a portion, you'll get frustrated and stop making the drinks.

Almost all fruit can be frozen. Cut it into the right size pieces first (I do bananas in halves) and freeze them in freezer tupperware or bags (I keep a big bin of grapes in the freezer at all times).

Unless a liquid is being added simply for flavor, add liquids last (for instance, water or coconut water) to better gauge the consistency of your drink. I generally blend and only add those not-for-flavor liquids if needed.
posted by dobbs at 8:20 AM on November 26, 2006

I found that adding a bit of something dairy-ish gives it more of a "jamba" taste. Vanilla soymilk, regular milk, a bit of ice cream, etc. helps to recreate that taste. I was finding that most of the smoothies I made tasted like icy blended fruit (not a well-balanced smoothie), and this helped quite a bit. A little sweetener of any kind (as mentioned above) would probably help to balance it out a bit.

The pectin idea is also interesting.
posted by chimmyc at 11:05 AM on November 26, 2006

-way- late to this party, but I used to work at Jamba Juice, and still have a few recipes memorized, though admittedly I don't know exactly the size of the scoops they used - they were just pre-made scoops, with a big side for big smoothies and a little side for little ones.

A tip, though - the Orange Dream Machine has approximately .00000001% real fruit in it. It's got 4 ounces of orange juice and then some soy milk and a lot of orange sherbet/sorbet. And that's about it. ;) If you're looking for healthy, look at the other ones - my favorites were the yogurt blends, smoother and more liquid but yummy and not as overpoweringly sweet.

Anyhoo. Email's in the profile if you have a specific recipe(s) you want.
posted by po at 2:30 AM on December 1, 2006