Skip the sports drink for this healthy chocolate post-workout shake! It’s made without bananas and blended into a frosty and refreshing treat perfect for active teens and kids.
When made with the right ingredients, smoothies and shakes offer a delicious vehicle to replenish essential nutrients and electrolytes lost during long periods of physical activity.
In this recipe, I share my secret to a chocolatey shake packed with healthy ingredients and 16 grams of protein, so your kids feel refreshed and refueled.
Best Post Workout Shake with No Banana
One sip of this frosty post-workout shake, and you’ll know exactly why it’s a favorite option to refuel after workouts and sports practice! It’s the perfect solution for a banana-free smoothie and offers delicious flavor with nutritional benefits from flax seeds, chia seeds, peanut butter, and chocolate milk!
Craving more? Check out more of my top picks for post-workout smoothies here.
Benefits of Chocolate Milk After Workout
Surprised to see chocolate milk as a healthy ingredient? It’s a pleasant surprise, but chocolate milk offers calcium and the perfect 3:1 ratio of carbohydrates to proteins that our tired muscles need lots of activity.
And nothing tastes so good as ice-cold chocolate milk when you’re hot and tired from running around.
Nutritional note: check the nutritional label for added sugars content. Some chocolate milks have up to 48g per serving while others are in the more modest range of 20g.
After Workout Shake Ingredients
This chocolate shake is made with low-fat chocolate milk and pantry staples for a healthy and convenient choice to refuel. Here’s the short ingredient list:
- chocolate milk: regular chocolate milk works best, but you can also use your favorite dairy-free alternative.
- oats: to give it a shake-like consistency.
- peanut butter: is a great thickening agent and makes this shake peanut butter chocolate flavored.
- ice cubes: gives it the ‘frosty’ effect.
- chia seeds: a great source of omega-3 and 6 fatty acids.
- flax meal: adds fiber along with additional omega-3 and 6 fatty acids.
I prefer to use Nesquick chocolate milk; each 8-ounce serving provides only 11g of added sugars and 8g of protein, compared to 14g of sugar in popular sports drinks that offer no protein.
However, if you can’t use dairy, non-dairy chocolate milk works great! Most are fortified with vitamins, and soy chocolate milk has up to 5 grams of protein.
How to Make a Kid-Friendly Post Workout Recovery Drink
Grab your blender, and let’s blend up this frosty post-workout chocolate milk!
- Blend
Add the ingredients to a blender and blend until smooth. *If you want a thinner consistency, add additional chocolate milk or water. - Drink
Pour into a glass and drink up!
Want to pack this for your kids? Transfer the shake to a chilled thermos and stow it away in the lunch bag with an ice pack. It will stay cold for hours, and once other kids find out what’s inside the container, you’ll be the popular parent.
And while we’re talking lunch, here are some helpful, healthy lunch ideas to pack for active teens. Each recipe is full of protein to keep them energized and satiated all afternoon.
Optional Add-ins
Both the chia and flax seeds are optional add-ins, but I find they help thicken the shake while adding great nutritional benefits. If a nut allergy is present in your family, swap the peanut butter for a nut-free alternative such as sunflower seed butter or soy butter.
Here are some great peanut butter alternatives for you to check out in this video:
More After-Workout Snacks
Snack-time is a big deal around here, and below, you’ll find plenty of great post-workout snacks for active adults, teens, and kids. Each idea can be made ahead and easily packed into the lunch bag or gym bag.
- Grab the Gold Bars
- Coconut Brownie Energy Bites
- Pineapple Green Smoothie
- Cookie Dough Snack Bars
- High Fiber Chocolate Bites
Post-Workout Shake with Chocolate Milk
Ingredients
- 1 cup chocolate milk
- ¼ cup oats
- 1-2 tablespoons peanut butter, or non-nut butter
- 4 ice cubes
- 1 teaspoon chia seeds, optional
- 1 teaspoon flax meal, optional
Instructions
- Place all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. Add a little water or additional milk to make this shake thinner.
Notes
The recommendations below may include affiliate links.
Sheri Lyn Mix says
We always start with homemade yogurt, kale, avocado, and banana and then throw in whatever fruit we have on hand (and I don’t tell them but there is zucchini in just about everything I make).
M Breaux says
I love the Nesquick idea we ALWAYS have those on hand and I am also looking for a way to sneak healthy stuff in the boys food. Our go to smoothie is 8 oz of milk, twelve ice cubes in a blender, for the base then you can add whatever you want usually it’s two tablespoons peanut butter and two tablespoons of chocolate syrup.
Kim Teasdale says
My go to smoothie is 100% whet chocolate protein, Greek yogurt, chocolate peanut butter, bananas and matcha. Sometimes I will add some blueberries.
Kim
Heather Hutchinson says
My favorite smoothie is anything that has peanut butter in it. Peanut butter is one of my favorite foods, and it’s healthy (well some more than others) so as long as that’s an ingredient, I’m good!
Susan says
I love that you didn’t try to take Spain out of the kid!!
Sometimes, in all the re-vamping of our diets, we forget that we like food to taste good and to just enjoy ourselves.
I have bought Nesquick chocolate milk powder, without all the additives, but found it when skiing in Whistler and never again. But really, it doesn’t matter to me, as long as there is a balance like this delicious milkshake, it is worth the momentary lapse!!
This is now our favorite smoothie and trust me, we didn’t try to squeeze in extra spinach, tofu, kombucha, hemp, baobab or maca and it tasted d-i-v-i-n-e!
Thank you lovely, and thank you Spanish exchange student!
X
Laura Fuentes says
Loved the “I didn’t try to sneak in extra…” lol He is having a great time and we are having a blast with him.