Green Juice

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Green juice is a refreshing and healthy way to enjoy all sorts of nutrients from fruits and vegetables year round. And it’s easy to make at home!

A glass of green juice, surrounded by vegetables.

While I enjoy heading over to my local juice bar to enjoy a freshly made green juice, the price is sometimes hard to justify. Especially when I know I can make the same exact recipe right at home. 

Juice bars also typically toss in extra fruit to make their green juices sweeter. But when you make green juice at home, you can control the amount of sugar. 

Today’s recipe delivers a balance between vibrant vegetable flavors and a hint of natural sweetness. It’s one of my favorite juice combinations and if you love Pressed Juicery, it’s a copycat of one of their most popular juices. 

Green Juice Ingredients

While the ingredient list is really flexible, this combination is simple, satisfying, and not too sweet:

  • Kale – adds a complex grassy flavor and a gorgeous emerald color
  • Spinach – use tender baby spinach leaves
  • Celery – contributes both fiber and a subtle saltiness to the juice
  • Cucumber – mild in flavor, it serves as this juice blend’s major source of liquid
  • Fresh Ginger – adds a spicy zing and brightness
  • Lime Juice – provides a bright and tart note
  • Apples – the sweetness balances the vegetable flavors

Find the complete recipe with measurements below

Green juice ingredients on a marble background.

How to Make the Best Green Juice

The most important tip for great juice is to buy the freshest and most fragrant ingredients you can find. Hit up your local farmer’s market or high-quality grocery store and choose your produce carefully. Once you bring everything home, here’s how to juice your fruits and vegetables:

  1. Wash your ingredients really well (no need to dry) and chop them, skin and all, into 2-inch chunks.
  2. Toss your cucumber and celery into a high-powered blender and blend until smooth.
  3. Add your remaining ingredients and blend until smooth, about 3 minutes.
  4. Strain the liquid through a fine-mesh strainer, pressing on the solids with the back of a spoon to extract as much juice as possible. You can also use a nut milk bag.
  5. Chill until nice and cold, pour into a glass and enjoy!

The main difference between a green smoothie and green juice is that you strain the latter. Some people don’t digest fruit and vegetable fiber easily, so if that’s you, then enjoy this green juice!

Green juice ingredients in a blender, then blended up in another photo.

Tips To Keep In Mind

  • This juice is best enjoyed right after you blend and strain it, though you can keep it in the fridge overnight.
  • As the juice sits, you’ll notice that it will start to separate. But don’t worry, just give it a good stir before you drink it.
  • You may notice your juice turning a bit brown – that’s because the apples oxidize. But it’s totally fine to still drink.

Customize Your Juice

Use my recipe as a starting point and experiment with different ingredients based on what looks good at the grocery along with your own preferences:

  • Add lots of greens. Look for high-quality fresh greens that are firm and bright in color, not wilted or spotted. I used dino kale here, but other kale varieties or chard work well for blending. If you like romaine lettuce or collards, try those too! A blend of a few greens will give your juice a more complex flavor.
  • Stick with a healthy liquid base. Use vegetables like celery and cucumber to provide moisture in your juice blend. Or if you prefer, use coconut water. It’s best not to add lots of fruit or fruit juice so you can keep the amount of sugar down.
  • Add some herbs. Parsley and cilantro add an interesting herbal note to your green juice. If you like a stronger parsley flavor, use flat-leaf parsley. Curly parsley is much milder.
  • Boost with superfoods. Try adding ground turmeric, cinnamon, maca powder, or bee pollen to amp up nutrition.

A glass of green juice with an apple, ginger, kale, and cucumber slices around it on a table.

More Healthy Drink Recipes

Need some more healthy smoothies and drinks to alternate throughout the week? Here’s a few of my favorites that I always have in rotation.

A glass of green juice with an apple, ginger, kale, and cucumber slices around it on a table.

Best Green Juice Recipe

4.95 from 20 votes
Prep: 10 minutes
Blending and Straining Time: 15 minutes
Total: 25 minutes
Servings: 1 serving
Author: Lisa Bryan

Description

Green juice is a refreshing and healthy way to enjoy all sorts of nutrients from fruits and vegetables year round. And it’s easy to make at home! Watch how I make it in the video below.

Video

Ingredients 
 

  • 1 cucumber, sliced
  • 3 stalks celery, sliced
  • 3 leaves kale, removed from stem
  • 1 cup spinach, baby leaves, loosely packed
  • 1 piece fresh ginger, approx 1-2 inch chunk
  • 2 tablespoons lime juice
  • 2 apples, cored and sliced

Instructions 

  • Place all of the ingredients into a high-powered blender.
    The ingredients to make green juice stacked inside a blender.
  • Blend until smooth, about 1-2 minutes. If you need to, use your tamper to push the ingredients into the blades of your blender.
    Green juice finished blending inside a Vitamix.
  • Pour the green juice through a fine-mesh strainer or nut-milk bag into a storage container. Press on the solids with the back of a spoon to extract as much juice as possible. Discard the solids.
    Squeezing green juice through a nut milk bag into a bowl, to strain it.
  • Chill the juice before serving, then enjoy.

Lisa’s Tips

  • Wash all of your vegetables and fruits thoroughly before using.
  • As the juice sits, it will separate. Stir well before serving.
  • For straining, this is my favorite nut-milk bag! It’s durable and lasts forever.

Nutrition

Calories: 348kcal | Carbohydrates: 80g | Protein: 12g | Fat: 3g | Saturated Fat: 1g | Sodium: 196mg | Potassium: 2116mg | Fiber: 13g | Sugar: 45g | Vitamin A: 20847IU | Vitamin C: 253mg | Calcium: 398mg | Iron: 5mg
Course: Drinks
Cuisine: American
Keyword: green juice, healthy juice
Did you make this recipe?Mention @downshiftology or tag #downshiftology!

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About the author

Lisa Bryan

Lisa is a bestselling cookbook author, recipe developer, and YouTuber (with over 2.5 million subscribers) living in sunny Southern California. She started Downshiftology in 2014, and is passionate about making healthy food with fresh, simple and seasonal ingredients.

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Recipe Rating




51 Comments

  1. Came here looking for a recipe for Pressed Juicery’s Green 3.  This doesn’t get the ginger ale taste of that juice, but it’s a great starting point for a novice green juicer like me.  My first round was a little bland, so I added a lot more ginger, peeled a lemon and tossed it in, and added a kiwi.  I also bought the nut bag, cause my brilliant plan of the cheesecloth made a gigantic mess.  Got 32+ ounces!  4 stars

  2. How long will this green juice stay good?  If I can’t finish it and store in the fridge will it stay palatable?

  3. What do you do with the leftover pulp? Any recommendations? I hate to waste it! 

    Also, could frozen kale be used in place of fresh kale? 5 stars

    1. You can add the pulp to other smoothies! As for the kale, you can use frozen if you’d like. Just make sure to thaw it first.

  4. I had a green smoothie drink on a cruise ship and I was sold . Your recipe is pretty close . So down with healthy clean lifestyle recipes. Thank you 5 stars

  5. The reco for this green juice are really good but the net carbs are quite high… any suggestions for a low carb green juice?

  6. My recipe is close to this one, but I use a juicer, not a blender.

    In my recipe I use a whole lemon that I’ve peeled and a couple strips of the skin, and for the apples – 2 Granny Smith, 4 stalks Celery, 8 leaves of Lacinato Kale, and 1/2 bag of Spinach.
    Green Juice is the Best!! – All those micro-nutrients working inside of us to make us healthy – I love it!5 stars

    1. If you want to keep all the fibers, you can just blend it all up and don’t strain it. It will just be a bit chunkier.

  7. i never once thought i could make juice without a juicer, the idea to strain it is life changing! Just made my first batch.5 stars

  8. Excellent recipe! I had everything except baby spinach and replaced red apple with green apple, and it turns out great! I used a slow juicer for this recipe. Gonna be one of the staple juice for me from now onwards ! Thanks for sharing!5 stars

  9. I just saw your 8 anti-inflammatory drinks videos and they all looked so good!
    For the juice would it work putting it through a juicer as opposed to the blender?
    My partner just got a juicer and is looking for any reason to use it LOL

    1. Hi Mariah – If you have a juicer then yes! I’m just using a blender here for people who don’t have a juicer :)

  10. I just found your site few days ago by searching for drinks to help me through my chemo treatments for Endometrial Cancer. I love to watch your videos and I printed off some of the recipes.
    I saw where a lady posted that her mother had made a drink for her sister and her brother when they were little every night before they went to bed that consist of beets, spinach, celery, apple and water but I can’t find her post. Do you have a drink like that and what are the proportions?
    TU. Joy

    1. Hi Joyce- happy to hear my recipes have been helping! As for the smoothie, that is the Apple Carrot Beet Smoothie :) Which you can find using the search bar.

  11. I’m currently having it right now and it’s genuinely amazing!!! thank you so much for this recipe! :D5 stars

  12. Hello Lisa!
    I do not have a high powered blender, do you think a food processor or an immersion blender would work?
    Thanks!

  13. Ok I tried this and I do not know what I did wrong but it came out like pesto. I included everything and used my Vitamin. Did not have a nut bag yet so I used a fine mess stainer and it seemed when I pushed with the back of a spoon all the pulp cam as well. What would make it so thick? Thanks

    1. Hi Rick – it does sound like your strainer allowed too much pulp to pass through. I do recommend a nut milk bag if you plan to make juices like this at home, as it’s far easier. The one I use is linked on the Shop page on my website.

  14. i really want to thank you for this recipe! i was juicing for years and it became so much of a nuisance with the clean up, that i stopped. i make green smoothies, but i missed the juice. i just made this juice recipe, minus the ginger because i was out of it, and it was so great. i use the pulp for fertilizer in my garden as i do all of my organic matter, and the clean up was a cinch. and the juice is so beautiful! dark green and delicious. i love that it tastes mild and i feel i am pouring good stuff into my body. amazing recipe. will be making a version of this juice every day! 💕5 stars

  15. I am drinking this recipe now. Delicious! I only used half an apple for personal sugar preference- everything else I followed exactly. Crisp, fresh, and delightful. I use my Vitamix for green drinks daily- but I always drink it with all the pulp/fiber. Straining it in your recommended nut bag turns this into a $10-$15 juice bar drink! This is WAY easier clean than the juicer but tastes the same. I feel so inspired by this method of straining the pulp! I will look over your other drink recipes! PS- I’ve also tried your cashew cheesecake, caramel, and hummus recipes- and all are beyond delicious and BETTER than anything I have tried at any restaurant- but amazingly it comes out of my own kitchen with healthy ingredients. Every single one of your recipes has been a huge hit so far. Thank you for helping to keep us all healthy! Love your content! <35 stars

    1. Hi Charlotte – yes, you can freeze it. Just know that it will likely separate a bit when you thaw it, so just give it a shake!

  16. I’m also all for DIY’ng: can’t wrap my head around actually paying for coffee, juice and smoothies that we can do better and healthier at home! – Not even saying cheaper, too! Thank you for this great recipe!5 stars

  17. Wow – such a tasty and healthy green juice! I’m usually the green smoothie kinda gal, but TBH I never entertained the idea of a green juice sans coconut milk – Looking forward to trying this!

  18. I love that you have added a little bit of ginger into this recipe. It sounds amazing and the colour is fantastic. I can’t wait to give it a go. Thanks5 stars