Juicing tips, tools and recipes

Seasons are changing and bugs abound. Juicing is always a good addition to the diet, but if you’re not on the bandwagon yet, there is no better time to start than when immune systems require boosting. To slingshot you into this health habit, we’ve put together all sorts of tips, recipes, tricks of the trade and tools worth investing in. Go forth and detox, friends.

Freshly pressed beetroot, orange and carrot juice

6 simple juicing tips and tricks

1. Good prep tools will make the whole process quick and painless. Think about it. You’re less likely to enjoy making your fresh juice if simply peeling the paw paw is a slippery ordeal.
2. Remove rinds from fruits (unless they taste good) and de-pip or de-core apples, to avoid the bitterness they will add to your juice.
3. If you are putting fruit and veg in, skins and all, make sure to wash them first. Unless you are 100% sure where you got your goods from, it’s best to wash them clean of any possible pesticides. A light vinegar bath works well.
4. For takeaway juicing, keep freshly made juices in light-tight containers like flasks. From the moment you press the juice from fruit and veg, it begins to oxidise and nutrients are lost. Less contact with light = less oxidation.
5. Toss all your offcuts into a composter like the Chef’n Eco Crock and Compost Bin and your produce or lawn will thank you.
6. Rinse, rinse right away. Most juicers are easy to disassemble and rinse out. If done right away you’ll find warm water and sometimes a little soap does the trick perfectly. If left however, you’ll be unpleasantly surprised by how quickly those fibrous bits fuse themselves to your juicer. Mission.

Easy juicing recipes

Just like with cooking, you can wing it or you can follow a recipe. To wing it, you need to keep some key things like flavour balance and visual presentation in mind (we’ll get to that in a bit). If that’s too far advanced for your liking, simply use a tried and tested recipe. Pick by flavour or by necessity.

Various juice recipes exist for a whole host of different health benefits. A green juice is a great way to cleanse the system and wake up without a caffeine fix while beetroot juices are excellent immune boosters and great for a rosy complexion. Either way, it’s an ideal way of cramming a host of healthy veggies into a quick meal or pick me up. Try some of these for the ultimate health fix.

Making up your own juicing recipe

Back to creative juicing. Just like with cooking, if you wouldn’t combine those ingredients in a salad, they probably won’t combine well as a juice, so be savvy. That said, here are some rough guidelines you can work with to make sure your creative juicing endeavours still have a tasty edge.

Flavour

A good rule of thumb is to pick one ingredient from each of the following categories. That way you get a good nutritional balance, as well as a good flavour balance.

Sweet fruits: apples, pears, pineapples, sweet citrus like orange or naartjie, kiwis, mangoes, papaya, melons, berries or grapes
Sour/ acidic fruits: lemons, limes, grapefruits, blood orange, plums
Root veg: beetroots, carrots, radish, turnips
Leafy greens: spinach, kale, chard, lettuce, beet greens, rocket
Herbs: mint, basil, parsley, coriander, fennel
Spice: ginger, paprika, cayenne pepper, chillies (this range is optional, but great if you like some zing)
High-yield: Cucumber, tomatoes, melons, apples, celery, coconut

Colour

You wouldn’t eat grey soup or drink a brown cocktail, so put some thought into what colours you’re combining to make sure you’re not drinking swamp juice. If you’re making a leafy, green juice, pick apples or kiwis over strawberry or pineapple. Note: if you’re adding anything to beetroot – it will be wonderfully pink either way.

Juicers for the job

Gone are the days where we need to pulverise fruit by hand or mallet to extract some liquidy goodness. Thanks to the invention of some clever tools, juicing is easy peasy, literally lemon squeezy. For a simple, healthy orange juice without all the additives and colourants, any citrus juicer does a grand job. On the professional side of the spectrum, there are the cold pressed, also known as masticating, juicers. They’re said to retain more nutrients than the centrifugal juicers and juice that’s been cold pressed versus extracted through chopping, keeps for longer.

Oscar Juicer

Fruit and veg prep tools

Here are the guys that will make all the pre-juicing work a breeze. They’re sharp, both in ability and abrasion and therefore result in a rather enjoyable process.

Fruit slicing made easy with a mandoline

And with that we hope this slightly dense 101 on all things juicing has you hankering for a healthy lifestyle and a carafe full of carrot juice. Bottoms up.

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