What To Do With Juice Pulp?

One of the things you are going to encounter if you jucie long enough is the question of what to do with juice pulp! The entire process of juicing is designed around seperating the pulp from the juice. And, while it’s healthy and the entire point of juicng, there are some times you’d like to do something with that juice pulp rather than throw it out.

It’s basically a waste to toss the juice pulp into the garbage! So, what I’ve done here is created a list of some of the best things you can do with juice pulp after you’ve finishd juicing. Some of these ideas are fun recipes, while others are more eco-friendly forms of disposal that won’t have you feeling guilty the next time you make a celery juice!

You Can Add Juice Pulp To Your Smoothies!

The first thing I would suggest that you can do with juice pulp is to add it to smoothies. I mentioned this briefly in my article on how to make apple juice at home. Basically, what you can do is take something that you’ve recently juice (like some carrots, which are not that easy to blend up) or the aforementioned apples, and add the pulp to your smoothie.

This works really well if you’re looking to add some soluble fiber to your smoothie and the other ingredients are basically yogurt, some berries, and protein powder. The pulp that is leftover from when you’re juicing is a great way to do that. Plust it can add some delicious flavor.

Some of my favorites are:

• Ginger pulp
• Carrot juice plup

Celery juice pulp (celery is really hard to blend up, so a perfect way to add that healthy fiber is to take the pulp once you’ve made your celery juice and add it to your smoothie!)

Try Adding The Juice Pulp To Stews!

Another fun idea that I’m partial to is to use juice pulp for stews! Sometimes you will have made a soup or a stew and you are lacking on the desired thickness. There are a couple of ways you can address this. The first way would be to use a stick blender or immersion blender to thicken up the stew. That can work, but it will also destroy the texture of your soup if you’re going for a certain type of soup. So, the potatoes and carrots, if blended, would thicken the soup but they would also become pureed and ruined.

Instead,what I think you should do or at least consider doing is to add some juice pulp. However, be careful as the fiber is not going to dissolve into the soup. So, if you’re looking for a creamy soup base this is not going to work. Especially if you add it right at the end when the soup is done cooking!

You have to add the juice pulp to the soup at the beginning. Consider it a way of creating a richer vegetable stock base. So when you start cooking the soup, you can use the vegetable pulp that you have on hand. Such as celery juice pulp or carrot pulp (these two are especially great since they are both used as the base in most soup stocks anyway).

If you are going to use juice pulp in your soup, then as I’ve mentioned, it is really important that you add the juice pulp to the water or juice stock (whichever you are planning on using) right at the beginning.

Also,while we are disusing how you can use juice pulp in soup, it makes sense to discuss fruit juice pulp vs vegetable juice plup. As a rule, consider the pulp to be the whole fruit or vegetable? Would you add apples to a tomato based soup? Probally not. Would you add apples to a butternut squash soup? Sure, and there are plenty of recipes online that are just that (Apple and Butternut Squash being a Fall time favorite soup).

So, celery and carrot are popular ones for most vegetable soups. And apples or lemons are good for a winter or fall style squash soup. Though lemon pulp can work well with a variety of soups.

Juice Pulp Can Flavor Rice and Beans As Well

If you’re a big fan of rice and beans then you should try adding some juice pulp to the saucepan next time you are cooking up a batch. It’s similar but more healthy than something such Goya’s sazon or those other flavor cubes or packets.

Basically, when you add juice pulp to your rice and beans when they are cooking, the flavor of the juice pulp can seep into the food. Now, there are two ways to do this.

The first way would be to cook the juice pulp in with the beans. This is the preferred way if you like clean rice. Pulp will sometimes not breakdown, if you cook it with your rice,then you can be left with somewhat mushy rice. If you add the pulp to the beans it breaks down more since beans take longer to cook (assuming that you are not using canned beans)

The second way is to add a bit of the juice pulp directly to the rice as it cooks. I would recommend that you be cautious with how much pulp you use here. If you add too much juice pulp then you risk the rice being too mushy. So, I’d only add a bit of pulp and add that for color and some flavor. Carrot pulp, for instance, in a small amount would be a good place to start.

There Are Even Juice Pulp Cookie Recipes!

Now I admit, this isn’t one of my personal favorites. I’ve made bread and cookies a few times with the leftover pulp from juices, but again it’s not something I am a big fan of. If I am going to make cookies, I just go all out and make them with sugar and butter and don’t try and make them healthy. However….if that is your thing, then it’s certainly a workable idea to use juice pulp for cookies.

There are a whole lot of websites that list recipes for juice pulp cookies and breads. For instance:

Carrot Pulp Muffins

Fruit Pulp Cookies

You Can Use Juice Pulp In An Indoor or Outdoor Compost Bin

Finally, one of the best ways to use your juice pulp is to use it as compost! So, don’t worry if you don’t want to bake cookies or if you’e not someone who is into making smoothies. You can use that wet pulp (not too wet as long as you’re using the best juicer) and you can add it to a compost heap.

Now, if you’re already someone who has an outdoor or an indoor style compost bin, then you probally know the rules about greens and how they benefit a compost bin. But just as a very quick overview for those who have never composted before and who might want to , here’s a primer:

Composting requries Bronwns and Greens. These are two seperate types of materaials that contain carbon and nitrogen. So, paper products and wood, for example would be your browns. As would leaves be. So, during the fall, when you’re raking up leaves, you will have a lot of “brown” for your compsot pile. Sawdust as well is a brown. Greens are things like fresh grass, coffee frinds, table scraps (foods) and juice pulp. It’s important that you have enough greens to balance out the browns (most people who have sawdust, hay, paper they want to compost, etc… end up with a lot of brown!). The greens provide the rich nitrogen to help it breakdown.

If you are planning on composting, make sure that you don’t just haphazarly start open composting with greens (foods) since that will attract rodents and even racoons! I’d reccomdn using a dedicted outdoor compost bin or a small indoor composting bin that you can empty into an outdoor composting bin.