Discover the ultimate guide to crafting high-calorie bulking smoothies with our expert tips and 4 delicious shake recipes! Perfect for those looking to pack on muscle mass and fuel their gains. Get ready to blend your way to a stronger version of you who can gain weight with ease!
BULKING SMOOTHIE OVERVIEW
A good bulking smoothie makes it easier to get into a calorie surplus, allowing you to gain weight and thus build muscle. I’ve used these smoothies to gain nearly 60 pounds and transform my physique. I’ve also used them with thousands of clients, ranging from everyday people all the way up to aspiring athletes.
When you blend whole foods into smoothies, they keep their nutritional value, but they lose much of their bulk and hassle. That’s why they’re so popular in the fitness industry. Smoothies are the easiest way to consume several servings of protein, fruits, veggies, omega-3s, phytonutrients, and fibre.
Smoothies are even better for naturally thin people trying to build muscle. When you blend whole foods into liquid calories, you don’t need to cook them or chew them, and they won’t take up as much space in your stomach. You also break them into smaller pieces, helping them digest faster and leaving you hungry again sooner.
I personally used these as a way to get in the remainder of my daily calories before bed. With my Eternobody diet approach, you do a short 5-hour fast to focus on work tasks, a lighter brunch of an omelette, sandwich or yoghurt bowl and a big dinner feast with chocolate dessert. Adding in a high-calorie shake before bed allows you to cram in another 500-1000 calories and also gives you a 3rd protein feeding which I find works well when trying to bulk up.
This strategy works especially well because as the day goes on (and more calories have been consumed), you will experience increasing decision fatigue, your discipline decreases and you'll have less appetite as your calorie count increases. High-calorie smoothies take a maximum of 1 minute to prepare and consume (and require zero cooking and minimal cleanup) which means you have no excuses for not hitting a calorie surplus every single day!
They're also very light on the stomach and you'll be able to consume these liquid calories even if you have zero appetite - making them perfect to consume before bed.
High-calorie bulking smoothies are nature’s weight-gainer. You just need to learn how to harness their power.
THE BENEFITS OF HIGH-CALORIE SMOOTHIES
A high-calorie smoothie can give you anywhere from 500–1,000 calories per serving. That’s 4x as many calories as you’d get from a protein shake, bringing it up into the realm of mass gainer shakes.
What makes smoothies even better than mass gainers, though, is that you can make them from nutritious whole foods. Instead of reaching your calorie goals with powders, you’re reaching them by consuming more fruits, veggies, berries, dairy, honey, whole grains, nuts, and seeds.
Mass gainers are also notoriously bad for your skin, energy levels, and digestion and people often experience decreased appetite after consuming them due to bloating.
That means high-calorie smoothies aren’t just good for building muscle; they’re also incredibly nutritious. If your diet is low in fibre, a smoothie can easily add a dozen grams. If you need more servings of fruits and veggies, you can fit several in a single glass. If you’ve been neglecting your leafy greens, the blender will deliver them to you.
To be fair, you can get those same benefits from a steaming bowl of chilli, or stew, or stir fry, or curry, or Chipotle bowl or Nandos. What makes bulking smoothies special is that they take minutes to prepare and seconds to drink. You barely even need to know what you’re doing. You could be completely stuffed and still get more calories in (without force-feeding). Just throw the ingredients in a blender.
And, as mentioned above, liquid calories are incredibly easy on the appetite. If you’ve been having a hard time eating enough calories to gain weight—as I did—smoothies can make your life much easier. I started my bulking journey as a teenager living at my mum's house and therefore our fridge and cupboards weren't exactly perfectly designed for building muscle. Being able to blend up a concoction of everyday ingredients made the start of my bulking journey alot easier, cheaper and more realistic than eating 5 perfectly prepared high-protein meals.
HOW TO MAKE A BULKING SMOOTHIE
All the best bulking smoothies have the same structure. They’re supposed to be balanced meals, so you need a source of protein, carbs, dietary fat, and fibre. It also helps to have a nice mix of vitamins, minerals, and other micronutrients.
- Protein: A good bulking smoothie will have at least 20 grams of protein and often more than 40. think of Greek yoghurt, kefir, milk, almond milk, pumpkin seeds, protein powder and eggs. You can also get smaller amounts of protein from nuts, seeds, and oats.
- Fruits and Berries: Fruits are rich in carbs, fibre, vitamins, and minerals. They can make your smoothie sweet, tart, or sour. Think of bananas, frozen mixed berries, mangoes, pineapples, and citrus fruits.
- Veggies: Veggies are rich in fibre, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants, but be careful—some of them have strong flavours. Fresh (not frozen) spinach and kale tend to be best.
- Dietary Fats: Fat is nutritious and incredibly calorically dense. Think of almond butter, peanut butter, mixed nuts, chia seeds, pumpkin seeds, avocados, and cacao.
- Fluids: The most common beginner mistake is to use too little liquid. Use water, ice cubes, milk or almond milk
- Honey: Most health-food bars make their smoothies more palatable by adding scoops of ice cream. We recommend honey. It’s a dense and nutritious source of sweet calories. It also enhances the production of LH, which is the precursor to testosterone.
- Something frozen. Smoothies taste best when they’re cold. We recommend frozen bananas, frozen berries, or ice cubes.
If you choose an ingredient or two from each category, you’ll have a great bulking smoothie.
THE CLASSIC HEALTHY GREEN SMOOTHIE (500 CALORIES)
This is one of the simplest recipes, and it teaches an important lesson: less can be more. It doesn’t take much to get a balanced, nutritious, and delicious smoothie. Many of us overdo it, combining too many disparate ingredients into a discordant mess.
INGREDIENTS
- 1 banana
- 1 handful fresh spinach
- 1 tablespoon of almond butter
- 4 frozen strawberries
- 1 tablespoon chia seeds
- 225ml of milk or almond milk
- 1 scoop of unflavoured protein powder
INSTRUCTIONS
- Blend all the ingredients except for the protein powder.
- Add the protein powder and blend it gently until it’s mixed in.
CALORIES & MACROS
- 500 calories per serving (makes 1 serving)
- 40 grams of protein
- 55 grams of carbs
- 20 grams of fat
- 20 grams of fibre
If you have a large blender, you can blend up two servings, turning this into a 1000-calorie smoothie. However, it’s usually better to start smaller. 500 calories is already enough to move you into a nice calorie surplus. Best to ease into a bulk (muscle gain phase) gradually.
THE CARIBBEAN LASSI (500 CALORIES)
This is an example of a fancier smoothie. It takes a little longer to make, and the ingredients are a bit more expensive, but it’s incredibly nutritious, and I love how it tastes. It’s perfect to have as a snack between meals.
Before this recipe, smoothie recipes were a handy meal that helped me get into a calorie surplus. After this recipe, I started looking forward to them. It got my girlfriend excited about them, too because girls love mango!
This recipe doesn’t use protein powder (which is on purpose because I remember periods of life when I either didn't have protein powder or couldn't afford it).
INGREDIENTS
- 3 cups frozen mango
- 1 handful of kale (optional)
- 1/4 cup lime juice (about 6 limes)
- 1¾ cups Greek yoghurt or kefir
- 1 tablespoon honey
- 1 cup orange juice
INSTRUCTIONS
- Blend all the ingredients.
CALORIES & MACROS
- 500 calories per serving (makes 2 servings)
- 40 grams of protein
- 70 grams of carbs
- 15 grams of fat
- 15 grams of fibre
Again, feel free to make this recipe larger. Double up on servings if you need to. But I wouldn’t rush into it. You’re already getting a ton of protein and quite a few calories. Smoothies tend to digest more smoothly when they’re less extreme.
THE 1,000-CALORIE SHAKE
1,000-calorie shakes are challenging to make. Mass gainers do it by using incredibly dense ingredients. We need to take a similar approach, leveraging protein powder, cacao, nut butter, honey, and oats. That allows us to fit a thousand calories into a tall glass, as pictured above.
The flavour is quite nice, the ingredients are nutritious, and the macros are perfect for building muscle. You’ll even get some pump-boosting nitrates from the spinach. But there’s a thorn hidden among the roses. The texture is painfully thick. But such is the bulking struggle. Sometimes, we just need to get the calories in. I owe alot of my early progress to the oats, peanut butter and honey combo. Cheap ingredients with tons of IMPACT and oddly very moreish
INGREDIENTS
- 1 frozen banana
- 1 cup quick oats
- 2 tablespoons almond or peanut butter
- 1 tablespoon chia seeds
- 2 scoops chocolate or vanilla whey protein
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 1 handful spinach
- 1.5 cups water (add milk for even more calories and protein)
INSTRUCTIONS
- Blend the oats, grinding them into a powder.
- Blend the other ingredients except for the protein powder.
- Add the protein powder and blend it gently until it’s mixed in.
CALORIES & MACROS
- 1,000 calories per serving (makes 1 serving)
- 70 grams of protein
- 125 grams of carbs
- 30 grams of fat
- 20 grams of fibre
THE TESTOSHAKE (650 CALORIES)
On my most successful recent bulk, this is what I've been drinking every single night about 2 hours before bed. Let's just say you can expect to wake up "in a good mood". This shake will give you better energy, improved mood, stable blood sugar, drive, focus, and higher libido and hopefully help you to produce high levels of natural testosterone. This shake is super easy to make and tastes like a classic vanilla milkshake (but with tons of nutrients and health benefits). This shake doesn't even require a blender, so long as you have a standard shaker bottle with a metal whisk ball. I also usually consume this with a handful of brail nuts which contain a large concentration of selenium which can help to boost your testosterone levels.
INGREDIENTS
- 4 whole eggs
- 1 tablespoon smooth almond or peanut butter
- 1 scoop vanilla whey protein powder (or collagen)
- 1 tablespoon honey
- 200 ml of milk or almond milk
- Additional options: maple syrup, coconut sugar, cocoa powder, instant coffee, fruit, etc.
INSTRUCTIONS
- Pour in the wet ingredients first, i.e. milk, eggs and honey
- Add any other dry ingredients
- Shake in a protein shaker bottle or blend it gently until it’s mixed in.
CALORIES & MACROS
- 650 calories per serving (makes 1 serving)
- 64 grams of protein
- 25 grams of carbs
- 34 grams of fat
- 4 grams of fibre
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT BULKING SHAKES
WHAT’S THE BEST BLENDER FOR MAKING SMOOTHIES?
There are two types of blenders that work really well for making smoothies. The first is the bullet blender, where you blend your smoothie right inside the glass you’ll drink it from. However, that glass might not be big enough. You can’t make gargantuan bulking smoothies, you won’t have leftovers, and you can’t make multiple servings at once.
The other type of blender is the all-purpose blender. You can use them to grind up oats, cook, and make smoothies as large as you like. My girl can blend up smoothies for the two of us at once, including a tall glass for me.
To be honest, it really doesn't matter... get the cheapest, get the most expensive or even steal your Mum's like I did! I included the Testoshake because that's a bulking recipe I've used for the exact reason that it doesn't even require a blender if you shake hard enough. There are no excuses.
CAN YOU MAKE A HIGH-PROTEIN SMOOTHIE WITHOUT PROTEIN POWDER?
You can make high-protein smoothies without protein powder by using Greek yoghurt, kefir, or milk. You can also get quite a lot of protein from pumpkin seeds, various nuts, and oats.
WHY DO SMOOTHIES MAKE ME BLOATED AND GASSY?
It’s really common for guys to bulk up and blend up enormous smoothies with too much of everything in them. I used to do this all the time. I’d pack my blender full of oats, eggs, peanut butter, spinach, and honey then fill it to the brim with whole milk, and chug the entire 1,500-calorie monstrosity. There’s just too much in there. I would feel awful afterwards, especially consuming that RIGHT before bed. Stick to sensible serving sizes of each ingredient, and you should be okay.
Also, make sure you aren’t using ingredients you’re allergic or intolerant to. Not everyone does well with dairy. Play around with different protein powder flavours and types (I like whey or collagen protein in standard vanilla or chocolate flavours). You may struggle with tons of fibre if you’re new to it. You might need to gradually increase your tolerance. Go easy on the oats, chia, spinach, and kale during the first few weeks.
BULKING SHAKES SUMMARY
If you’re using high-calorie shakes and smoothies to bulk up, make sure you’re following a good hypertrophy training program that stimulates a robust amount of muscle growth.
One of the big mistakes we see is people increasing their calorie intake before they start training for muscle growth. That’s backwards. Start following a good workout program first, then increase your calorie intake. That will encourage your body to invest the calories into muscle growth instead of storing them purely as body fat. We don't want to just "get bigger" at any cost and in any form it comes, we want to add more muscle.
Remember, muscle growth is mostly about signalling via tension, not sheer calorie intake. Aim to eat 200-300 calories above your maintenance (15 x bodyweight in lbs + 200 is a good starting point) and 0.82g of protein per lb of bodyweight. The extra calories are simply there to give you the extra building blocks to grow and create an anabolic environment (and stimulus) for that sweet muscle growth.