Can You Freeze Green Juice?

Sometimes you make more green juice than you want to drink. What do you do in that situation? Can you freeze green juice and then drink it later?

My quick answer to this general question is that you shouldn’t. It’s not really advisable to freeze freshly made green juice.

I don’t advise people to do this for a few reasons, which I’ll cover in detail below.

However, it’s not something that is unsafe or that you can’t do. It’s just someting I would avoid doing. It’s better to just make a smaller ammount of juice and drink it fresh.

Is It Safe to Free Juice?

It is safew to freeze juice as long as you freeze it cold enough. There are ample studies out there which cover the safety of frozen fruit and vegetable juiuces. The industry even makes frozen fruti juice concentrats (these have most of the liquid removed) and sell this in supermarkets.

The safety factor is improved when freezing when compared to just storing in the refridgetator. The cold temperature prevents bacteria from growing. That’s why people can’t store things for weeks in the fridge unless they are pasturized.

However, it’s important to recovnize that most studies detail professioanl grade freezing scenarios.  The studies do point out that extremely low freezeing temperatures (such as -18) can greatly reduce flavor and taste of juices.

Does Freezing Juice Kill Nutrients?

Not in the way tat you think. Most people think of freezing as a way of preserving food, which is accurate. The only time you want freezing to “kill” anything is when you’re talking about “bad things” like bacteria that causes mold.

For instance, when you freeze bread it stays longer than if you would to simply leave it out on your kitchen counter. A loaf of sliced bread would go moldy if you were to leave it on your table –and also go stale– but if you would put that same loaf of bread in the freezer it would not go moldy.

Of course, jucie isn’t bread, but the principals are similar. The juice can be kept longer in the freezer. However, there are some downsides.

While most people think that freezing juice is basically a good way to preseve the juice, there are some drawbacks.

The most commonyl discussed one is that it ruins the flavor of the juice. When freezing juice, the “fresh” flavor of the juice will lessen.

However, more importantly to people who are drinking fresh green juices in order to get healthy is the probelm of freezing destroying nutrients. Studies have shown than nutrients such as anthocyanin are destroried when you freeze juice (all jucices, not just green juice).

Can You Free Cold Pressed Juice?

Cold pressed juice is just fresh juice made with a slow press juicer.

So, of course you can freeze cold pressed juice. But again, it’s not someting that I think you should do. Why? Because it will lose some of its flavor and some of the nutrients will be destroyed.

The main reason to juice at home, in my opinion, is that you’re going to get maximum nutrients.  If you’re then taking that juice and freezing it and not drinking it for days if not weeks later then you’re defeating the purpose.

You could make a green juice and freeze it and then defrotst it at a alater date. Then, when you’re ready to drink it you could defrost it and drink it.

But honestly that is a lot of work. I would just suggeest only juicing the ammount of juice that you want to drink.

Can You Freeze Kale Juice?

Sure, if you want to juice kale juice you can. It’s no different than other juices. All juices, and that includes green jucies and fruit juices, can be frozen and then thawed out later to drink.

But just because you can do something does it mean that you should do something? Absolutely not. It’s not something that you should do unlesss you have to make more juice than you can drink in a day.

There’s nothing in kale juice that is different than other green juices. If you freeze one type of green juice, then you can freeze other green juices.

Kale and spinach juice, which are both super healthy, can be frozen but again I would suggest that you don’t do it.

Is There Any Good Reason to Freeze Green Juices?

There are some reasons to freeze juice, but they are not many. Let’s review them quickly.

If you’ve gone to a farmers market or supermarket and brought a huge ammount of greens, or perhaps someone has gifted you some vegtatbales and they are goign to go bad soon, then you might be tempted to juice them all at onece.

I would suggest cooking a big meal or making a stew or soup, but if you are someone who prefers to get your nutrients from fresh juices, then you might want to go ahead and make the juice.

If you do make a lot of green juice, more than you can drink, then freezing it or part of it might be part of the solution.

And there’s also the case with non-green juices where you might want to juice things like lemons to use in the future for cooking.

That’s perfectly fine as it’s not important or less important to have the nutrietns for cooking as for when you are drinking the juice.

Some people want to make a lot of juice at one time because they don’t want to clean their juice and so figure that by making one big batch of juice they are saving time.

Well, that’s a bad way to go about juicing. What I would suggest is to just get an easy to clean juicer and then proceed from there. These easy to clean juicers are so simple to clean…they take less than a minute to clean…that it will make juicing and cleaning the juicer an easy to do activity.

If you have a blender, you might also want to blend up the excess to add to your smoothie. Remember, just because I write primarily about juicing it doesn’t mean that sometimes you can make a smoothie. There are some benefits to smoothies. I cover that all in this article Juicing vs Blending.

 

 

What Sort of Containers Should You Free Green Juice  In?

I would avoid using anything that is made of plastic. I don’t think that you should ever freeze liquids in plastic. It’s just not safe considering that you have the potential to be exposed to leeched plastic chemicals.

I prefer to use gflass or another substance (such as steel) that is not going to react and leach chemicals into your juice.

I wrote up a overview of how to store fresh juice but this is a bit different. When you’re freezing it, you need to use something different.

I would use something such as anchor glass storage containers. Store the juice in a similar container that you use when you’re freezing soup. Just because it’s a juice it doesn’t mean that you have to store it in something that is for drinking…you can use an anchor glass container just like you would for soup.

Alternatives to Freezing Green Juices

My main alternative to freezing your juice is to make a proper ammount and drink it at the time. If you buy a lot of vegetables and fruits, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to juice it all.

Even if you have a small kitchen and are using one of the juicers that are best for a small kitchen, you can keep frutis and vegetables. You don’t have to juice everything you brought at the store to free up space.

My advice would be to smiply keep your fruits and vegetables in your refridgetator and make sure that you don’t let them wilt. If they are clost to wilting then I’d either make a salad, cook them, or juice them.