Green Juice Recipes for Your Juicer

Most green juice recipes are written for a photograph. These five are written for a machine, because the difference between a good green juice and twenty minutes of unclogging an auger is almost entirely about what you feed in, in what order, and whether your juicer crushes or spins. Each recipe below gives the ratio we start from, the prep that keeps it moving, and what the mix does mechanically. Measurements are starting points rather than tested formulas -- juice volume depends on your produce and your machine, and no manufacturer in this category publishes a yield figure, so nobody can tell you how many ounces any of these makes. Nothing on this page is a health claim. We write about machines; for anything nutritional, ask a dietitian.

The one rule that makes all five work

Alternate soft and hard. Leafy greens have no structure of their own: fed in alone, they roll into a wad that rides on top of a spinning basket or wraps around an auger. Fed in between pieces of apple, cucumber, celery stalk or carrot, they get dragged through and crushed against something solid. So the order is always green, hard, green, hard -- and on a cold press machine you push slowly, because the auger wants to be fed rather than filled.

Two more habits that prevent most problems: cut long fiber across the grain, in pieces no longer than about an inch, because a 10 in celery stalk is a 10 in string looking for something to wrap around; and run a cup of water through at the end, which clears the screen before the pulp dries on it. Juicer clogging fixes is the longer troubleshooting page, and how to juice kale goes deeper on the single most jam-prone green.

The starter green: cucumber, celery, apple and lemon

The mix we would give anybody on week one. It is mostly water-heavy produce, which means it runs through any mechanism, tastes like something you will drink again tomorrow, and does not punish a cheap machine.

• 1 large cucumber, cut into lengths that fit your chute
• 3 stalks celery, cut into 1 in pieces across the grain
• 1 green apple, quartered and cored if your chute is narrow
• Half a lemon, peeled

Order: cucumber, celery, apple, lemon, then a splash of water. Mechanism: fine on anything, including a centrifugal machine -- cucumber and apple are exactly what a spinning basket is good at. The one thing to watch: peel the lemon. Citrus pith is bitter and the oil in the skin carries straight into the glass.

The celery-forward juice

The reason a large share of people buy a juicer at all, and the mix that most exposes the mechanism. Celery is long-fiber produce: an auger crushes it, a spinning basket rides over it.

• 1 full head celery, washed, bases trimmed, cut into 1 in pieces
• 1 green apple or half a cucumber, to take the edge off the salinity
• A thumb of ginger, optional

Order: alternate celery and apple throughout rather than running the celery in one block. Mechanism: a cold press auger machine, genuinely. On a centrifugal juicer this mix gives you a wet green mat in the pulp bin and very little in the jug, and that is the mechanism rather than the model -- see masticating vs centrifugal. Best juicers for celery is the model-by-model page, and how much celery for one cup of juice answers the volume question as honestly as the published data allows.

The kale and spinach green

The hardest of the five on a machine, and the one where prep does the most work. Kale leaves are tough and curly; spinach is soft enough to disappear into a wad.

• 4 to 5 leaves kale, stems included, rolled into a tight cigar before feeding
• 2 generous handfuls spinach, bundled the same way
• 1 cucumber and 2 stalks celery, as the carrier
• 1 green apple and half a lemon, peeled

Order: roll the greens, then sandwich each bundle between cucumber and apple pieces. Never feed a loose handful of spinach into anything. Mechanism: a cold press machine, and ideally a horizontal one. The honest note: leafy greens are the lowest-volume produce in the whole category -- a large bag of spinach yields very little, on any machine, and no brand publishes a figure that would let you predict it. Best juicers for kale and spinach covers the machines, and best juicers for leafy greens covers the category.

The sweet green, for people who do not like green juice yet

If the first five glasses taste like a lawn, the habit dies in week one. This is the ratio that gets a household over that, and the greens can climb as your tolerance does.

• 1 cup pineapple, peeled and cut into chunks
• 2 handfuls spinach, bundled
• 1 cucumber
• Half a lime, peeled
• A thumb of ginger, optional but it does more work here than anywhere else

Order: pineapple first to get liquid moving, then alternate spinach and cucumber, lime last. Mechanism: any, though pineapple is fibrous enough that a cheap centrifugal machine will leave a wet pulp. Watch: pineapple is sweet and sticky, so rinse the screen immediately -- this is the mix that cements pulp onto mesh if you leave the parts in the sink.

The ginger-and-greens shot, scaled up

Small volume, strong flavor, and a different machine problem: ginger is dense and stringy, and a little of it goes a long way.

• 2 thumbs ginger, unpeeled if the skin is thin and clean, sliced into coins
• 1 lemon, peeled
• 1 green apple, for enough liquid to carry it through
• 1 handful parsley or spinach, optional

Order: apple, ginger, greens, apple, lemon last. Mechanism: a cold press machine extracts more from ginger than a spinning basket does, and on a centrifugal juicer dense root fiber is what makes the motor whine. Note on peeling: we are not going to pretend there is a published answer to whether you should -- do you peel ginger before juicing sets out what is actually known. Best juicers for ginger shots covers the machines built for this volume.

The machines these recipes assume

Four of the five mixes above lean on long-fiber produce, which means they lean on an auger. That is not a product preference, it is the mechanism: a slow auger crushes fiber against a screen, and a 12,000 RPM basket spins past it. If you already own a centrifugal machine, the starter green and the sweet green are yours and the other three will disappoint you -- that is worth knowing before you buy a bag of kale, not after.

Three machines that handle a green mix

Tap any row to jump to the full write-up, or go straight to the listing. How we score.

#	Product	Best for	Our score	Price
1	Omega J8006HDS Best for every recipe on this page	Celery and greens on a mid-range budget	7.9/10	Check price on Amazon
2	Ninja NeverClog JC151 Best for pulp control on a green mix	Buyers who want pulp control and a dishwasher to do the work	7.9/10	Check price on Amazon
3	Nutribullet Slow Juicer Best budget auger for greens	A first cold press juicer when the budget is firm	7.4/10	Check price on Amazon

If you are still choosing, best juicers for leafy greens and best cold press juicers for beginners are the two pages to read next, and where to buy a juicer covers the channel question once you have a model in mind.

Drink it or store it

Fresh juice separates and dulls quickly, and the rate depends on the mechanism -- a high-speed machine introduces more air, which is why its juice foams. Fill a jar to the brim so there is no air gap, cap it, and keep it cold. How long does fresh juice last is the detailed page, juice oxidation explained separates what is known from what is marketing, and juicer foam and oxidation explains the foam itself.

And the pulp does not have to go in the bin: what to do with juicer pulp has the uses that are actually worth the effort. If the habit is new, the first 30 days of juicing is written for exactly this point -- the week where the recipes are fun and the washing up is not.