These Shake-&-Go Smoothies Make Eating Fruit & Veggies SO Much Easier — & They’re On Sale For Black Friday

I’m a reformed picky eater. I really only started regularly eating fruits and veggies a couple of years ago (I know), and while I’m way better at making healthy choices now, I’m still always looking for ways to sneak more fruits and veggies into my diet. So when I discovered kencko, I was intrigued. The subscription-based service is dedicated to helping people get the health benefits of fruits and veggies as quickly, easily, and sustainably as possible. Plus, for Black Friday, you can receive 30% off your fist order with code BUSTLE30 — kencko’s biggest sale of the year — from now until December 4.

While they offer a variety of products, I was mostly excited to try their single-serving, blender-free, organic smoothies. While eating fresh, whole fruits and veggies is my goal, I’ve definitely been known to buy more than I consume; I hate waste, and tossing food that’s gone bad always feels a little like a failure. The idea of having some pre-packaged, easily mixable smoothies on hand just made sense for me.

How Does kencko Work?

Ideal for anyone seeking healthy ways to supplement their current eating plan, kencko’s shakeable smoothies contain 2.5 servings of fruits and veggies per pack. They’re made with real, freeze-dried, USDA organic fruits and veggies, with no added color, additives, or refined sugars. Available in 13 flavors — conveniently (and deliciously) labeled according to color and their targeted health benefits, like Rubies (for recovery) and Peaches (skin health) — all the effort required is to mix with water or your milk of choice.

Kencko offers a few monthly subscription plans to suit your lifestyle and health goals: You can choose to receive a box of either 20, 30, or 60 smoothies (any of which you can cancel at any time), with prices starting at $2.49 per smoothie. And as an added bonus, your subscription comes with free nutrition counseling (!).

If you’re unsure about where to start, you can take their helpful Smoothie Quiz. You’ll answer a few questions about your eating habits and lifestyle, like your approach to supplements (I chose “curious”) and your normal fruit and veggie intake. Then, using their recommendations, you’ll go about building your box. I selected 20 smoothie packets, excited to try out flavors like Mint Greens and Mochas.

Taste-Testing kencko’s Fruit- & Veggie-Packed Smoothies

Looks aren’t everything, but I have to say, kencko’s neat, adorable packaging sure helped get me even more excited to try out their product. Aligned with kencko’s certified B corporation status (which means, among other things, that they meet certain standards of transparency and supply chain practices), the individual smoothie packets arrived in a compostable box. I also appreciated the chic bottle that came with it, which gave me everything I needed to enjoy my smoothies ASAP.

Get Glowing With Spicy Tomatoes

Featuring ingredients like tomato, celery root, red bell pepper, carrots, and berries, Spicy Tomatoes is full of digestion-aiding fiber, glow-boosting vitamin C, and vitamin A, which is great for vision. Following the directions, I filled the bottle with cold water up to the max liquid line, added the packet of powder, screwed the lid back on, shook for about 15 seconds, and let the mixture sit to allow for maximum rehydration before taking my first sip. The smoothie was a rich red color, the consistency smooth — not chalky in the slightest — with a rich, slightly spicy tomato flavor. The chilled temperature and spice reminded me of gazpacho, or a virgin Bloody Mary. Refreshing and surprisingly satisfying, it might not be filling enough to replace an entire meal, but it would be an excellent lunch accompaniment or a flavorful midday snack. I like a lot of spice, so I added extra hot sauce. Come weekend brunch, a little vodka might sneak in there, too.

Key Ingredients: Tomato, Celery Root, Red Bell Pepper | Calories: 70 | Fiber: 4g | Protein: 3g

Power Up With Ultra Greens

Ultra Greens was the smoothie I was the most excited to try. As a recent vegetable convert, I’m always looking for ways to sneak extra leafy greens into my diet, and this one is packed with kale, spinach, broccoli, green peas, and spirulina. The brand says that the iron and protein will battle fatigue and aid in rebuilding muscle, while vitamins A and C to help boost immunity. Meanwhile, three grams of fiber aid digestion, and five grams of protein naturally boost energy. Mixed with water, the smoothie was the same deep, vibrant green of its leafy ingredients; though, taste-wise, I admittedly found this smoothie less exciting than Spicy Tomatoes. The website recommends mixing it with plant-based banana milk to sweeten it, but since I like spice, I actually added some hot sauce, an addition that turned out to be delicious (though apple or pineapple juice would be delicious as well, if you like a sweeter taste profile). Due to the presence of leafy greens, the texture of this smoothie was slightly chunkier — leafier, if you will — than other flavors, but I was impressed with the silky-smooth texture.

Key Ingredients: Apple, Green Peas, Broccoli | Calories: 70 | Fiber: 4g | Protein: 5g

Mochas For Mental Focus

I love the flavor of coffee, but I’m one of those people whom caffeine really affects, so I don’t drink it regularly. Kencko’s Mochas smoothie is a gentler alternative: In here, there’s coffee, cacao beans, maqui berries, shiitake mushroom, chaga mushroom, and baobab powder, a blend that’s rich in toxin-fighting antioxidants, fiber, and polyphenols, which have all kinds of fun health benefits, from reducing inflammation to aiding cognitive function. I took the website’s suggestion and blended it with ice and oat milk; it had the rich caramel color of a latte, and I found it impressively creamy, with notes of fruit, chocolate, and coffee — like a grown-up, virtuous iced mocha, accompanied by a pleasantly subtle caffeine buzz. Without the addition of blended ice, some may find the texture of Mochas a bit on the chalky side, but overall, this smoothie was an instant win for me — a perfect breakfast smoothie (this would taste incredible alongside overnight oats for the easiest breakfast ever) or mid-afternoon pick-me-up. Since I’m sensitive to caffeine, I drank about three-quarters of this smoothie and felt that little jolt of energy. I placed the remainder in the fridge for an afternoon pick-me-up, and had a blessedly energetic, jitter-free day.

Key Ingredients: Coffee, Cacao, Chaga | Calories: 90 | Fiber: 3g | Protein: 1g

Purples For Anti-Inflammation & Boosting Metabolism

One of kencko’s most popular flavors, Purples is packed with an anti-inflammatory, metabolism-boosting blend of blackberry, blueberry, raspberry, dates, and banana. I mixed this with ice water, and was immediately struck by the impossibly, deeply purple hue and light, naturally sweet taste; just like kencko’s copy claimed, it really did taste like a fresh berry smoothie. The texture was perfectly seedy, what one would expect from a smoothie containing whole berries. I’m not typically a banana person, so I was skeptical about this one, but I found nothing overly banana-ish about it. While it was delicious mixed with cold water and a perfect between-meal snack, if I were hungrier, I’d have mixed this with some oat or pistachio milk like kencko suggests, to make a thicker, nourishing smoothie.

Key Ingredients: Blueberry, Raspberry, Strawberry | Calories: 80 | Fiber: 3g | Protein: 1g

Energize With Greens

Kenkco has a few green smoothies, so even though I’d already tried out Ultra Greens, I wanted to give Greens a go. Another of kencko’s popular flavors, this has ingredients like spinach (full of vitamin B and iron, a known energy-booster) and ginger, which not only helps with indigestion, but also fights inflammation. This smoothie was lighter in color than Ultra Greens (a pale avocado green, as opposed to the deep shade of broccoli or kale), and taste-wise, I have to say, this was the smoothie that surprised me the most. Greens tasted fruity and lightly sweet, with just a hint of spice thanks to the ginger. I don’t know that I’ve ever described a smoothie’s flavor as sophisticated, but there’s a first for everything, and Greens has the sort of nuanced taste profile one might expect to be described by one of those tattooed influencer chefs. Again, I was skeptical about the presence of my nemesis, banana; but again, I had no complaints. Unlike Ultra Greens, which I felt needed an addition of either sweet or spice to improve the flavor, Greens was delightfully balanced and sweet mixed with only ice water. Kencko recommends mixing this smoothie with unsweetened coconut water for a post-workout treat. I might add a little pineapple or apple juice for a boost of sweetness, but really, this smoothie needs no embellishment. And like Spicy Tomatoes, I think this could be an excellent healthy cocktail option, with the addition of some chilled vodka or gin and a little squeeze of lemon.

Key Ingredients: Spinach, Kiwi, Banana | Calories: 80 | Fiber: 3g | Protein: 2g |

Discover More Nutritious & Delicious Supplements & Meals From kencko

If you’re looking for even more healthy and delicious supplements and substitutes for your diet, kencko offers more than just smoothies. If you’re seeking a nutritious way to satisfy your sweet tooth (and I literally always am), you’ll love kencko’s pure fruit and vegetable gumdrops to satisfy your cravings. And they offer easy, just-add-water bowls, too, with flavors like Easy Chickpeasy, an instant Mediterranean couscous meal, and Speed Dahl, a flavorful lentil dahl.

And just like that, my smoothie world has been blown wide open. While it’s true that good things require effort, it turns out that some good things are actually just...very, very easy.

For Black Friday, get 30% off your order from now until December 4. Use promo code: BUSTLE30