It’s super easy to make tasty fresh homemade juices when you know just a few simple principles.
Just like with any other raw vegan recipe – fresh, ripe ingredients is the most important key to success. Choose the freshest greens and veggies and the ripest fruits you can find, but don’t let unavailability of top notch produce stop you from eating healthy and juicing.
And although you get the tastiest juice from freshest produce, if you have not so fresh greens or veggies, juicing vs. eating them can totally save the day! When we juice, we remove the fibre. Which means that in case of dryish veggie we just get less juice and maybe not as sweet, nutritious and flavorful. But the juice itself, even from not so juicy produce can never be dry of cause.
Ripeness of fruit is another huge factor in deliciousness of your juice. Unripe fruit tastes less sweet, has less flavor and nutrients, and usually, much more enamel eroding acidity.
Choosing the ripest fruit
So how to choose the ripest fruit possible? Usually, riper fruit is softer to the touch, except watermelons and a few other exceptions. Sometimes fruit can be way too soft and going bad. So the best thing to do is to buy a few pieces and compare their softness to taste. The sweetest fruit is the ripest.
Brighter color usually means riper fruit. But you need to go by experience, just like with softness. Pay attention to the different shades of yellow, red and orange. The warmer is the tone, the more likely for the fruit to be ripe.
Smell is an awesome way to predict the flavor of the fruit. Sadly, in many cases fruit in the store doesn’t have much smell. And of cause it’s usually not so flavorful. It’s still have some flavor though. Please don’t starve yourself just because the fruit is not top notch. If you juice or blend it with some greens you can still get pretty awesome and nutritious meal.
But in some cases the skin of the fruit can be very thick and not let much smell come through. So I would recommend to try all the types of fruits that are available in your local store or on the market. Don’t be scared by strange appearances.
Making your first homemade juices
So how do we mix and match different produce to get an amazing tasting juice?
Start with juicing just one type of your favorite fruit. Except bananas, avocados and other creamy fruits of cause. Taste your juice and see if you like it.
Now add a little bit of greens or veggies to your fruit juice to make it more nutritious. Taste your juice and keep on adding the same or other ingredients until you find the perfect balance.
Balancing the favours
Is your homemade juice too sweet? Even if your fruit juice is not too sweet, it’s always a good idea to add some greens to it. If your juice was too sweet, greens will balance out the sweetness. If your juice was tasting just fine, greens will add minerals and will balance out the excess sugar in your juice.
If you think that greens will slow down your detoxification, I warmly recommend you to take a look at this article: “Should we avoid greens for faster detoxification?”
What if your juice is turning out to be bitter? It usually happens if you use too much greens. You can add more sweet fruit to it. Or you can add sweeter vegetables, like carrots, beets or sweet potatoes.
Too sour juice is not only not so nice to your taste buds, it can be eroding your enamel and irritating to the stomach. So make sure to balance it out with sweet fruit or watery, neutral tasting veggies, like cucumber.
If juice is both, bitter (too much bitter greens) and sour (unripe citrus fruit or tomatoes) then it will taste so bad that you will get scared away from juicing forever… Just joking! Although many people never try to juice again after getting it bad like this. But not you, because you are smart enough to read this article. Jokes aside, you can save this juice by adding more sweet fruit and possibly dilute it with some cucumber.
But if you add come salty celery to a bitter-sour juice, if can make it even worse. But it depends on the celery. If it’s white, thick and juicy, it might actually help.
Are your homemade juices taste too strong or too bland?
If your juice tastes too strong overall, adding cucumber or some other mild tasting veggie, like tomato or bell pepper can help a lot. You could also add just pure drinking water, but this would always be my last resort. I think that juice diluted with water can taste OK, but never fantastic. But this is just my opinion.
And if your juice tastes too bland, you can spruce it with whichever flavour you prefer. A squeeze of lemon, some sweet apple, some bitter leaves, a bit of spicy cabbage, etc.
Experimenting with new types of produce
If you are going to juice some fruit or veggie that you never tried to juice before, I would warmly recommend to juice it in a separate container at first. Then taste it and decide how much of it you would like to add.
If you are juicing some type of greens for the first time, try to juice it with your favourite type of fruit. Add a little bit at a time.
In short – play around, experiment, but go in small batches and taste the juice you are making as you go. Make sure your produce is fresh and ripe, taste it if you need to. With these tips you just can’t go wrong, so be bold and go for it!
The main principles for creating super delicious homemade juices
🍎 Choose as ripe and fresh ingredients as possible with as little pesticides as possible.
🍊 You can use any fruits, greens and veggies besides creamy ones, like bananas and avocados.
🥬 Keep it simple, 1-5 ingredients is plenty. But if you are a pro and decide to use a bit more, that’s fine too.
🍓 Balance out the flavors. If you have some sour or bitter ingredients, balance them with sweet or neutral flavors.
🥒 Don’t be afraid to experiment with creating new homemade juices, but start with a small batch and taste it as you go.
If you have more questions, feel free to ask in a comment below. 🤗
This juice was apple, celery and tangerine. And the next batch was cauliflower leaves, tangerine, pomegranate and carrots. Both very delicious and energizing. 😍
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