The New Juicer’s Guide to Tasty Homemade Vegetable Juices

6 Delicious Juice Recipes to Try as You Drink Your Way to Better Health

By Chantelle Kadala

Did you know you are a glass of vegetable juice away from all the minerals, vitamins, fatty acids, proteins and carbohydrates you need to maintain good health? Add to that increased energy, less risk of disease and a stronger immune system and you can see why so many people are making homemade vegetable juices.

If you are new to juicing, vegetable juice recipes may seem unappetizing upon reading the ingredients. While most fruits are naturally sweet, we know that most vegetables are not. You want a drink that taste good and this can be a hurdle when your taste buds are accustomed to the flavor of seasoned and cooked vegetables.

Make Your Vegetables Taste Better

Adding some fruit or carrots will sweeten up your stronger-flavored vegetables and mellow out the taste. Apples and pears are great sweeteners to add to the juicer to make your vegetable juices tastier and these fruit up vitamin and mineral content.

Get Your Veggies

Obviously, fresh and organic vegetables are going to be better than frozen or processed and canned vegetables for your using in your vegetable juice recipes. If you want a healthier and tastier juice then you’ll want to start with the best ingredients possible and you can’t get much healthier than a fresh and pesticide free vegetable.

In regards to the vegetable skins – it will be a personal preference you’ll have to decide on, but leaving the skin on when putting your vegetables in a juicer is a good choice considering much of the nutrients are in the skins. Your juicer will break down the skins and that nutritional content adds to the juices nourishing powers.

Juicers

When you are picking a juicer you want to look for a high quality machine that gets as much juice as possible while preserving nutrients. That doesn’t mean the biggest and most expensive machine as the more complicated the mechanism the harder it will be to clean and you will inevitably want to use it less often or not at all. Just be sure to check that the juicer has the ability to juice leafy greens. The Green Star Juicer or Champion Juicer are twin gear juicers well reviewed for juicing leafy greens.

Sites like Everything Kitchen and Harvest Essentials have juicer comparison charts where you can see the many different juicers side by side and decide which juicer is right for you.

How do you juice?

Wash the vegetables & fruits with a brush. If needed, pre-cut your vegetables and fruit to fit your juicer and remove the skin if you desire. Juice the soft fruits and veggies then the harder ones like carrots will push the softer ones through.

Six Delicious Recipes

Put all the listed ingredients in the juicer. When all ingredients are juiced stir the juice to blend the layers of flavors extracted.

  1. My Sweet Granny – 1 bunch of spinach, 2 cups of baby carrots, 2 Granny Smith apples and ¼ a lemon.
  2. Monster Juice – ½ cucumber, 4 carrots, 1 beet, 1 handful of spinach, 1 stalk of celery, 1 handful of blueberries, 3 peeled oranges and one peeled lime.
  3. Off the Kale – 8 leaves of kale, 2 carrots, 1 cucumber and 2 green apples.
  4. The Hulk – 2 stalks of celery, 2 handfuls of spinach, 4 leaves of kale, 2 carrots and 2 apples.
  5. Breakfast Buffet – 4 leaves of kale, 2 handfuls of spinach, 1 stalk of celery, 1 cup of broccoli, 1/4 of a ginger root, 2 carrots, 1 cup lettuce, 2 Fuji apples, 1 cup of pineapple and 1 cup of strawberries.
  6. Vampire Kick – 2 tomatoes, 2 apples, 1 clove of garlic, ¼ a lime and a sprig of parsley.

Get creative and try replacing some of the ingredients in these recipes with your favored vegetables. Experiment with a variety of flavors until you find a taste that appeals to. There is no better time to start than now. Get started on a healthier you today.