The Best Blender for Juicing – Your Ultimate Guide
Is it better to have homemade smoothies or juices? Even if you believe that smoothies have won this debate, this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t drink juices! An occasional glass of fresh juice is a healthy, delicious treat.
But… what if you only have a blender and not a juicer?
If you’d like to occasionally enjoy a fresh fruit or vegetable juice, turns out you can make it even if you don’t have a juicer, or if you don’t want to go through the trouble of setting up and cleaning a juicer.
These are the best blenders for juicing:
The methods and tools I’ll show you here, also save a significant amount of space in your kitchen, as most juicers take up a significant amount of counter space.
Juicers are also limited as to what they can do — a juicer can… well, make juice, and that’s it.
Many companies, though, have created blenders that give you the ability to not only create delicious smoothies, purees, hummus, soups and other foods, but to also create juice with the blender itself.
Moreover, in some cases it’s actually better to make the juice in a blender instead of a standard juicer! Read on the learn why.
Best Blender For Juicing Comparison Chart
Juicing Without a Juicer: What You Need to Know
Juicing vs. blending: what’s the difference?
Fresh juices and smoothies are some of the most popular and convenient ways to boost your produce consumption and increase your intake of vitamins and minerals. They are easy to blend, versatile, and very portable.
They taste fantastic, too.
However, keep in mind that there is a difference between juicing and blending. We’ve done a complete guide to the difference between these two options, but in a nutshell:
- When you juice a piece of fruit or a vegetable, the juicer separates the pulp and fiber from the juice.
- A centrifugal juicer uses a chute to spin the pulp, fiber, seeds, and skin into a separate pulp container which extracting the juice into a collection jug.
- A masticating juicer uses one blade to chew the fruit or vegetable, breaking up the pulp and sending that into one container and the juice into another. It’s more effective for hard-to-juice ingredients than a centrifugal juicer.
- A blender pulverizes the entire fruit without separating the pulp from the juice, if you use the blender as designed to make juice.
What are your options for making juices with a blender?
There are several ways you can make a juice with a blender. If you’re considering buying a new blender, then you have more options, which we’ll show you here.
1. Buy a blender with a juicer attachment
These typically include a motor base and jar that let you blend your ingredients or create a smoothie. Then, when you want to make a juice, just attach the juicing piece, such as the one HERE.
This gives you an appliance with more functionality. For an occasional juice this is perfect. Just bear in mind that if you’re into hardcore juicing, this may not be a great solution, as only masticating juicers are able to extract the full potential of vitamins and other nutrients.
2. Buy a juicer-blender combo
These are appliances that double as smoothie makers and juicers. We’ve covered this type of appliances in our comprehensive guide here.
3. Use your existing blender (with a little ingenuity)
If you’d like to use your existing blender to make smoothies, it is possible though not ideal. You’ll need to do the following:
Step 1 - Blend
Blend the fruits and veggies along with water, as you would normally do. However, it’s best to blend for a little longer so that the ingredients achieve an ever smoother consistency than usual.
Step 2 - Filter
When the smoothie is ready, run it through a strainer. Use a mesh strainer or cheesecloth to get all of the pulp out of the juice. You’ll need to find a strainer that will let enough juice flow freely and quickly but without passing the pulp to the glass.
Step 3 - Drink or store
Drink immediately or add 2 teaspoons of lemon juice and store in the refrigerator for up to a day. The lemon juice will help eliminate discoloration.
Here’s a video I found on YouTube, showing one method of turning a blended smoothie into juice:
What are the best ingredients to juice without a juicer?
Some ingredients that are typically tough to juice using a regular (centrifugal) juicer are actually great in a blender.
Kale, lemongrass, parsley and other leafy greens, along with soft fruits that might turn to mush in a juicer are great in a masticating juicer because it is much slower.
They are also ideal for a blender, since it’s much more thorough and pulling the ingredients to the blade.
While hard fruits and veggies work well in centrifugal juicers, they are also good in a blender, as long as you add a bit of water to keep the ingredients moving.
Blenders for juicing without a juicing attachment
TOP PICK
Vitamix 5200 Series Blender
Our Rating
This powerful appliance is a welcome addition to any kitchen — turning any fruit and vegetable into a healthy puree that, once strained, gives you a pure juice.
Fruits and veggies with a high water content like cucumbers, celery, or watermelon need very little water added, if any, to blend.
As a starting point, if you blend half a pitcher of kale and add ¾ cup water, you’ll end up with about 3 cups of kale juice.
It’s an ideal option for someone willing to spend for a long-lasting, powerful appliance that can fulfill many purposes, making everything from purees and soups to juice and green smoothies.
This unedited home video shows you how to make a green smoothie using the Vitamix 5200. The smooth texture that Vitamix is famous for, will make it easy to turn this smoothie into a green juice using a strainer:
Breville Hemisphere Smooth Blender
Our Rating
This appliance is similar to professional, heavy-duty blenders. It’s a great option for people on a budget who still want the same level of quality but not the price tag attached.
The blender jug is shaped to keep ingredients from getting trapped in that unreachable space between the jug and the blade.
Verified users who wrote online reviews seem to love the power, which thoroughly blends any ingredient by pulling it down to the blades, along with the ability to blend different types of ingredients including bread crumbs, nuts and ice.
Here’s a YouTube video we’ve found of the unboxing for this blender:
It’s a great option if you want a blender that can create juice — along with many other tasks — without spending a fortune.
Ninja Professional Blender & Nutri Ninja Cups
Our Rating
The Ninja Professional Blender is a favorite with thousands of online reviewers. It’s a very cost-effective option that’s able to make relatively smooth-textured smoothies you can turn into juices.
We’ve published a full review and guide on this model, which you can find here.
If you like strong blenders that can handle even hard-to-juice or hard-to-blend ingredients, at a very reasonable price, the Ninja Professional Blender might just be what you’re looking for.
Some reviewers have noted that they ran into issues with the motors after several months of regular use, but have had good luck with the company’s customer service.
Blenders for juicing with a juicing attachment
Magic Bullet Juicing Attachment
Our Rating
The Magic Bullet blender is a popular, cost-effective blending option, and with the creation of the juicing attachment, seems to be a reasonably priced option for people who want to make the most of their blenders.
Unfortunately, some users report that the attachment that looked so promising just doesn’t live up.
It’s ok for soft fruits that have been cut into small pieces. Hard fruits and vegetables might clog the attachment, so you should experiment with what works best.
Here’s a live demonstration of this juicing attachment:
Breville BJB840XL
Juice and Blend Dual-Purpose
Our Rating
Breville, a juicing powerhouse, has created this multi-purpose appliance that lets you blend and juice, using the same hemisphere technology in the blender we already mentioned.
This combination of blender and juicer has five speeds that can handle most ingredients.
For more information about this appliance and other similar dual-purpose ones, see our guide here.
This is a good option for anyone who wants the best of both appliances without having to actually buy both appliances or waste additional kitchen space.
What’s best for you?
If you’re looking for one multi-purpose appliance, a blender that lets you create juice is the best route to go.
Blenders without juicing attachments are easier to clean than those with juicing attachments, but might require some straining to reach true juice consistency; those with attachments have extra cleaning involved, but have pieces designed specifically for juice extraction.
Have you used any of these blenders for juicing? Let us know in the comments what you think. We’d love to hear your experience.
