Step 1: Befriend your juicer
Various types of juicers exist, including a slow juicer that compresses and crushes fruits for pulp-heavy juicing, cold-press juicers for nutrient-dense sips, and fountain juicers that deliver large batches of extract quickly.
Alas, the first step to creating a delicious cup of citrus juice is assembling your juicer. While the construction of a citrus juicer is fairly simple, more complex models like fountain juicers may include several components, including juice collectors, filter baskets, and jugs.
Most often, assembling your citrus juicer will feel intuitive. However, most models come with instructions to guide you through the juicing process.
Juicy Tips: Juicers can further be simplified into two overarching types: a centrifugal juicer and a masticating juicer. A centrifugal juicer utilizes spinning blades and a fine filter to dice and strain fruit and vegetable juice from the pulp quickly. Unlike centrifugal juicers, a masticating juicer slowly compresses fruit and other produce and is optimal when juicing leafy greens for that healthy yet delicious green juice.
Step 2: Pick your fruits and veg
Now it’s time to check your fruit bowls, vegetable drawers, and spice cabinets for ingredients that’ll blend effortlessly to create your desired flavor profile:
● Earthy – For juice that evokes your backyard garden, place leafy greens, beets, and carrots center stage, then add ginger or turmeric and black pepper to the mix. A traditional green juice drink can be crafted using apples, celery, cucumber, and spinach.
● Sweet – Sweet juices abound in nectarous fruits, such as strawberries, blueberries, mangoes, pineapples, and melons. Carrots, cucumbers, and kale pair well with a sweet palate.
● Sour – If you’re looking for a tart pick-me-up, add fresh lemon juice, limes, cranberries, green apples, grapefruits, or other citrus fruit to your mixture. To offset acidic fruits, you can incorporate peaches, mango, melon, or spinach for a balanced blend.
● Spicy – Chili peppers add an extra kick to a vegetable juice with a carrot, beet, or a green base. For added spice, sprinkle in cayenne pepper or ginger.
● Floral – Carrots, pineapples, lemons, cucumbers, nectarines, and apples lend themselves to a more herbaceous medley. To add an aromatic flair, include a few mint leaves or lavender blossoms.
If you’d normally eat the peel, feel free to leave it on when you place it into your juicer. That said, you should remove the peels of citrus fruits, kiwi, melons, and any waxed produce.
Juicy Tips: To create a harmonious combination of ingredients for your juicing recipes, seek produce that’s in season. In the United States, kale, citrus, spinach, strawberries, and pineapples are bountiful in the spring. During the summer, opt for beets, blackberries, cherries, honeydew, and watermelon.
When the leaves start to fall, fill your juicer with pears, grapes, and mangoes. In the wintertime, you can continue to treat your taste buds to beets, grapes, oranges, and pineapples.
Apples, carrots, and celery are delicious year-round.
Step 3: Juice, juice, baby
Ready to create your juicy masterpiece? Here’s how.
First things first: Wash your produce thoroughly, making sure to remove any dirt or potential pesticides. Then, dice larger fruits and veggies to fit the size of the chute, and bundle leafy greens and herbs to make it easier to feed them into the juicer.
Now that the prep work is finished, you’re ready for the fun part—juicing.
In your excitement, don’t rush to cram everything in at once. Instead, start with softer produce before moving on to denser items.
The beauty of modern juicers is that many of these advanced appliances come with variable speed controls. For best results, use low speeds for softer fruits and vegetables, extracting the maximum juice while preserving their delicate flavors and nutrients.
Once you've juiced the soft items, it's time to switch gears and turn up the speed for denser fruits and vegetables. For especially long or dense items, the juicer's push stick can come in handy, helping to guide your produce down the feed chute for a more even consistency.
Juicy Tips: Juicing one large batch, rather than several glasses during the week, allows you to spend more time sippin’ pretty and less time perusing supermarket aisles or wrestling with your juicer’s push stick. When refrigerated in a mason jar or pitcher, juice can stay fresh for up to three days.
Another juicing tip? Fill your storage containers as close to the top as possible to avoid oxidation.
Step 4: Clean the slate
Once you’ve filled your mason jars, pitchers, or sippy cups, open the juicer’s chamber using a toggle that’s often found on the side of the appliance. Remove any juicer pulp, then discard. Or, alternatively you can find another use for this pulp gold:
● Add it to an ice tray for a frozen treat
● Use juice pulp to make a tasty dehydrated treat or air fried chip snack
● Depending on the juice recipe, you can use the leftover pulp to add to your meal, say a soup, stew, or sauce
● Add leftover pulp to pancakes to sneak in even more fruits and vegetables to your kids’ morning breakfast
● Or, dispose of it in a compost bin
Then, place the juicer in the sink, remove its various attachments, and rinse them under warm water. If needed, throw the removable parts in the dishwasher—most juicer parts are dishwasher-safe but be sure to check the manufacturer's cleaning recommendations to enhance the life of your juicer.
Tip: To make cleaning easier or if you don’t have time to clean your juicer immediately, soak the mesh basket in a bowl of warm soapy water. This will keep the residual pulp hydrated and make it easier to clean later. If left to dry, the pulp can be a pain to scrub out.
Squeeze the most out of your juicer with Breville
Using a juicer is just as easy as the juice goes down. Simply assemble the pieces, choose your pulpy produce, add them to the juicing container, and collect those sweet drops of nectar.
For a juicing experience as easy as it is sweet, look to Breville.
From slow-compression juicers to feed-chute fountains that gobble up whole fruits, our line of juicers, bluicers, and juicing accessories deliver simplified, fresh-squeezed scrumptiousness.
Sources:
U.S. Department of Agriculture. Seasonal Produce Guide. https://snaped.fns.usda.gov/seasonal-produce-guide
Penn State. Let's Preserve: Ingredients Used in Home Food Preservation. https://extension.psu.edu/lets-preserve-ingredients-used-in-home-food-preservation
