Can You Juice With A Blender?

Anyone who lands on my site is probably someone who is interested in juicing. Maybe you’ve decided that it’s time to get healthy and start drinking green juices (or fruit juices). However, maybe you also don’t happen to have a juicer right now.

Obviously what I would suggest is that you buy a juicer (i have a great starter article that covers the best juicers for beginners). I suggest you read that if you’re looking to buy a juicer and don’t know where to start.

But what about people who aren’t sure if they will like juicing and don’t want to go out and buy a juicer to find out. Well, the best way to determine if you’re someone who is going to enjoy drinking fresh juices is to buy them. Head to your local health food store and see if they sell fresh juices.

If you don’t have any local health food spots that sell freshly made juices, then you can try and make a juice with your blender. It’s not optimal, but here is my take on it.

Don’t Own A Juicer? Can You Juice With A Blender?

Technically you can’t really juice with a blender. You can mimic the results and create a type of juice with your blender, but make no mistake it’s not the same thing. A blender and a juicer are two seperate things. While you won’t be able to juice with your blender, you can make a drink that is a “mock” juice. It will give you a good idea of what fresh juices will be like.

Downsides To Making Juice With A Blender

There are honestly quite a few downsides to making a juice with a blender. First what I’ll do is create a bullet point list and then review them.

• Too Much Pulp
• Messy
• Less Juice Extraction

The first thing to remember is that when you make juice with a blender you are going to be dealing with an abnormal amount of pulp. A juicer is designed to extract juice from fruits and vegetables. A blender is designed to blend. There is a key difference. Whereas a juicer will separate pulp from juice, a blender won’t. So, you’ve got to handle that with sieves, strainers, and other means.

And that brings us to the next point. Making juice with a blender is simply very, very messy. You first will need to add the fruits or vegetables to your blender and blend them. Next, you’re going to have to filter out the juice from the pulp. This will require you to have either a strainer or a metal sieve of some sort.

Next, you’re going to have to essentially mash the blended juice through the sieve. This is messy and you won’t be able to even get all of the juice out. There’s always going to be some juice left in the pulp that you would only really be able to get out with a real juicer.

The Trick To Making Juice With A Blender- What You’ll Need

Ok. So you’ve decided that you are going to go ahead and make juice with a blender. Here’s what you are going to have to have on hand.

• A Sieve or Strainer
• Fruits and Vegetables (like always)
• A Measuring Cup

The fruits and vegetables you need regardless if you use a juicer or a blender to make your juice. But the other things are definitely things that you really only need to use if you’re planning on making juice with a blender. Here’s why and how to use them.

The sieve or strainer is used because you want to remove as much pulp as possible. What happens when you blend up fruits or vegetables is that you end up with a mushy puree. And that’s operating under the assumption that you have a powerful blender. Something like a Vitamix or  Ninja or Blendtec. A cheap blender won’t work at all.

Once you have this mushy puree, you need to press it through the sieve or a fine mesh strainer. You can use a spoon to do this. Some people use cheese cloth to really squeeze everything out by hand. That’s a very very messy process, but again, it does provide you with nothing but juice and you won’t have to deal with any pulp.

You will need a measuring cup because you need something to strain that into. So, a basic setup would look like this:

Step 1: Blend the vegetables.

Step 2: Place a strainer over a measuring cup (I like the ones made by Pyrex).

Step 3. Spoon the mushy pulp into the strainer and press the juice through into the measuring cup.

Long Term Solution Or Temporary Fix?

What you have to ask yourself is if you plan on juicing more than once or twice? If so, then making juice with a blender isn’t a viable option. It’s more of a novelty or a test out. You wouldn’t want to do this as a standard practice. Juicing is something that is best done with a juicer. And there are a few reasons for this.

First, you never really get all the juice out of the vegetables or fruit when you use a blender. Even if you go through all of the steps that I detailed (and this includes using cheesecloth !) you’re still going to be left with moist pulp.

Not only that, but the set up and clean up time required to make juice with a blender is simply way too long. Cleaning the blender itself isn’t really a big issue, but cleaning all of the assorted things you have to use when making juice with a blender is a big deal.

You will have to wash out the sieve or strainer, plus the spoon you used to scoop out and press the pulp. You also have to clean out the blender. And if you use cheese cloth, you either have to wash that out and dry it to use again, or you will have to throw it out and buy a new one (which can be expensive over time and is also wasteful).

My suggestion is to just skip this unless you’re doing it as a one off test or experiment. You can get a sense if you like fresh juice by buying it in a store (or even buying one of those bolthouse supermarket brands—which are not the same but give you an idea of what fresh juice will taste like). And just get yourself a juicer. You can read my complete review of the best juicers for leafy greens and pick one that fits your budget.