Recently, I discovered the wonder that is a jackfruit.

It all started in my local Asian Market when I spotted a fairly ugly, spiny, green fruit that was the size of a small child. I went back home and read about this mysterious fruit, the jackfruit, and discovered tons of amazing things! I needed to get my hands on one!

And now with a gallon of arils in my fridge, what better thing to make than a smoothie! The taste is sweet and refreshing with hints of mint and is perfect for any summer day!

Step 1: What Is a Jackfruit

The jackfruit is known as the smoothie fruit and it's taste is akin to a blend of banana, pineapple, strawberry, and mango. An unripe jackfruit is also a fantastic meat substitute and is often used to make "pulled pork". As a vegetarian, this is the dream fruit. But wait, there's more! The fruit has a ton of health benefits like boosting energy, strengthening bones, preventing anemia, and lowering high blood pressure. The arils, or fruit pods, can cause upset stomachs if too many are eaten at once, be forewarned!

Weighing in at 26lbs, I bought myself a ripe jackfruit and began my mission for the famed smoothie fruit. Where can you buy a jackfruit? Any local Asian market is worth a shot, but know that they aren't common in American grocery stores. They are quite prevalent in India, so ask around!

Step 2: Ingridients

For a single serving, here is what you'll need:

3 Jackfruit arils (this is the sweet fruit pod in the jackfruit)

~5 Mint leaves

3/4 Cup of coconut milk

1/2 Cup orange (or pineapple!) juice

A blender

Note that for this Instructables, I doubled the recipe above.

Step 3: Harvest Your Jackfruit

If you want to bypass this step, you can buy frozen jackfruit arils at certain stores.

Pictured above is me holding all 26lbs of jackfruit. Harvesting your jackfruit isn't a messy process, but I did it outside just incase. The inside of the jackfruit is incredibly sticky so be prepared to scrub anything it touches!

Wear gloves and oil them to harvest, and if you don't have gloves, put a ton of vegetable oil on your hands. Reapply the oil half way through. And while you're at it, oil up your knife blade.

Take your large knife and slice your jackfruit in half. The orange pods are the arils you want to harvest for the smoothie, but the rest of the jackfruit is also great for cooking! The seeds can be cooked as well as the striny fibers holding the arils (this make a great pulled pork!!)

Cut out the core of your jackfruit and the flip the skin inside out so the fruit pops out. Pick out the arils and pop out the seeds.

Step 4: Blend Everything Together and Enjoy

One by one, I put all the ingredients mentioned in Step 1 into my blender.

Blend all the ingredients until smooth, and a few mint leaf pieces floating around are totally fine.

Pour your smoothie and enjoy!

If you want to give your smoothie a bit more of a kick, I recommend throwing 1tbsp of chopped ginger per severing. If you want a colder smoothie right out of the blender, you can use frozen jackfruit arils. You can even try adding other fruits to the smoothie to give it different flavors!

Either way, the jackfruit is one of my new favorite foods and I hope it becomes one of yours too!