Smoothies & milk drinks
Avocado Smoothie
عصير الأفوكادو · aseer avocado
In Morocco, avocado is a drink as much as a food. Blended with milk, sugar and often almonds and dates, it becomes a thick, pale-green shake — smooth, sweet and rich enough to feel like a dessert. Poured in a tall glass at the juice carts and cafés of Marrakech, the avocado smoothie surprises visitors who only know avocado as savoury, and quickly wins them over.
- Type
- Blended avocado milkshake
- Served
- Cold, in a tall glass
- When
- Afternoon treat, sweet refresher
- Key flavour
- Creamy avocado, milk, almond
What Avocado Smoothie is
The Moroccan avocado smoothie — jus d'avocat — is ripe avocado blended with milk and sugar into a thick, luxuriously creamy, pale-green drink. Unlike Western avocado dishes, here it is firmly sweet: the avocado's buttery richness carries the sugar and milk into something between a smoothie and a milkshake, mild and mellow with no savoury edge at all.
It is often enriched further with almonds, a spoon of honey, chopped dates or a splash of orange blossom water, and sometimes forms the creamy base layer of a panaché. Thick enough to need a spoon as much as a straw, it is filling and nourishing — a genuine pick-me-up rather than a light sip.
How it's made & served
A ripe avocado is blended with cold milk and sugar (or honey) until completely smooth and thick — the whole trick is a properly ripe avocado, which gives the drink its silk. Ice can go in to loosen and chill it, and many versions add a handful of blanched almonds, a few dates for deeper sweetness, or a drop of orange blossom or vanilla for perfume.
At the juice carts it is made to order and can be layered with fresh orange juice or crowned with chopped nuts; at home it is a two-minute blender drink. You can steer it — less sugar, more almond, thinner or thicker — and it is always served very cold, because its richness needs the chill to stay refreshing.
In the glass, at a glance
- One ripe avocado — the key to the silk
- Cold milk
- Sugar or honey to sweeten
- Blanched almonds and/or chopped dates
- A drop of orange blossom water
- Ice, to serve very cold
A flavour snapshot of what goes in.
When & where you drink it in Marrakech
Order it at the juice carts around Jemaa el-Fnaa and in the medina, and at cafés and snack bars across Gueliz, where it appears on the menu as jus d'avocat. It is an afternoon and evening treat, popular as a sweet, sustaining refresher when the day is hot and a full meal feels like too much.
A juice and smoothie tour is the ideal way to try it alongside the layered panaché and the fresh orange juice, and to see how the carts build their blends. The same avocado, almond and date flavours run through Morocco's sweets — explore them in a Moroccan dessert class.
Cultural notes
The sweet avocado drink shows how readily Morocco treats fruit and even vegetables as the stuff of sweet, milky refreshers — the same instinct that turns almonds into a ceremonial drink and dates into juice. Avocados grow well in Morocco's warm irrigated plains, and this smoothie is the everyday, street-level way the country enjoys them.
It also fits the Moroccan love of drinks that double as nourishment. Thick, calorific and studded with almonds and dates, the avocado smoothie is the kind of thing given to children, offered to guests and drunk to keep going through a long afternoon — a snack, a treat and a refresher folded into one tall glass. See more in our food guides.
Frequently asked questions
Is the Moroccan avocado smoothie sweet or savoury?
Sweet. Avocado is blended with milk and sugar (and often almonds or dates) into a thick, dessert-like shake with no savoury edge — a surprise for visitors who only know avocado as a savoury food.
What is jus d'avocat made of?
Ripe avocado blended with cold milk and sugar or honey until thick and smooth, frequently enriched with blanched almonds, chopped dates, a drop of orange blossom water, and served very cold with ice.
Where can I try an avocado smoothie in Marrakech?
At the juice carts around Jemaa el-Fnaa and in the medina, and at cafés across the new city of Gueliz where it is listed as jus d'avocat. It is an afternoon treat and often forms the creamy base of a layered panaché.