Absolutely refreshing and a breeze to whip up, this instant keto slushie is a wonderful summer treat that’s completely sugar free! All natural, without any artificial colorings (or flavorings!).

Paleo & Keto Slushie

All Natural!

Whether you call them slushies (or slush, slushy), slurpees, shaved or flavored ice… what if I told you you could recreate this childhood summer favorite with all good-for-you ingredients?!

As in actually packed with nutrients, antioxidants and all that powerful stuff?!

Allow me to introduce you to blue spirulina! A particularly handy ingredient that ads a truck load of nutrition… and gets picky kiddos to eat pretty much anything! Read on! 😜

The Natural Blue Coloring

A bit hard to believe that there are no artificial colorings involved right?! Well, give a big thanks to Nature (ahem algae!) for treating us to such beautiful and bright hues.

You’ve likely encountered (green) spirulina by now. A nutritional supplement that has been touted for the past decade as a superfood of superfoods!

The twist? There’s a special type called blue spirulina that has this beautiful bright blue hue.*

Its nutritional benefits?! Spirulina is incredibly rich in protein (4g for every 7g… that’s nearly 60%!), nutrients (B vitamins, iron and copper), and studies have shown great anti inflammatory properties and its ability to modulate the immune system.

And fun fact! It was NASA who paved its road to fame by successfully using it as a dietary supplement for astronauts on space missions.

Also note that, unlike its green sibling, the blue spirulina I purchased appears to be very flavor neutral. Its slight aftertaste is quickly masked by a touch of sweetener and pure vitamin C powder (both ideal to get that ‘artificial candy flavor’- see my keto gummies!).

We were also joking here (my assistant has a picky kiddo!), that blue spirulina is ideal to get kids to eat ‘anything’. So feel free to add it to nut milks (blue mylk is a popular vegan treat lol!), smoothie bowls (I bet you’ve seen these on instagram!), buttercream frosting (think fun bday cakes!), gummies, fruit roll-ups, popsicles (coming soon!), homemade kool-aid and jello… etc!

But if you want a more exciting flavor profile (grown up here after all!), you may want to add a natural fruit flavor or simply go for a fruit powder below.

*Note that during my experiments, the blue hue seems to be accentuated in the presence of acidity (think the added vitamin C or a generous squeeze of lemon juice)! While if you go towards the alkali spectrum, it will turn slightly purple… super neat!

The Natural Red Coloring (And Flavor!)

For all the red hues you can either make a homemade fruit juice (puree some berries with a bit of water and sieve them out) or purchase a fruit powder (I really like this raspberry one but there are a lot of flavor options!).

Either way, you’ll still want to add a touch of sweetener and some vitamin C powder or a squeeze of lemon juice.

For the vitamin C powder (i.e. citric or l-ascorbic acid) I use this organic one. While it’s totally optional and you can use lemon juice instead, I also highly suggest it as it gives that legit (artificial!) candy taste.

And for the home run: I also mix the pure vitamin C powder with my face and body lotions at night for extra glowy skin!

The Sweetener

You can pretty much use whatever floats your bloat guys! Though, ideally, something that readily dissolves in water (i.e. not granular erythritol)!

So think erythritol syrups, pure monk fruit, xylitol or allulose. But you can pretty much make a syrup out of anything by dissolving it in a little warm water!