Can You Make Orange Juice With a Blender?

A blender is a very versatile kitchen appliance, yes, but can it do everything? Can you use it to make a fresh glass of orange juice?

It’s time to experiment and find out!

The Experiment

Step 1: Find the right ingredients

The only ingredient in orange juice is oranges, right? Right. But since the blender does such a good job of completely chopping up whatever you put in, it would be a good idea to use seedless oranges. The seeds will change the flavor for the worse, and they are also not healthy to eat. If you choose an orange with lots of seeds be sure to remove them.

Also keep in mind that different types of oranges will have different flavor profiles. For this experiment I am going to use seedless mandarin oranges.

Step 2: Prep the Ingredients

I’m not interested in blending the peels of the oranges when I’m trying to make orange juice, so first I will peel all of the oranges. For this experiment I will be using five mandarins. After you’ve peeled the mandarins it is a good idea to quickly check for seeds. If you find any seeds, remove them and throw them in the trash.

Step 3: Load Up the Blender

After you’ve peeled all the mandarins and removed any seeds, place the mandarins in the blender. Since the mandarins are quite juicy we shouldn’t need to add any extra water.

Step 4: Blend

Turn on the blender. Follow the classic instructions of starting off at a slow speed and then working your way up to a much faster speed.

Step 5: Perform a Taste Test

Use a spoon to scoop out a small amount of the blended oranges and taste your creation. You could also pour just a little bit in a glass to sip from.

At this point, you’ve kind of made orange juice. An extremely thick very, very, pulpy kind of orange juice.

If you like the taste of it, you could stop right here, and enjoy your drink.

Step 6: (Optional) Add Water

You could also choose to add more water at this point. The juice is already quite sweet, so adding some water shouldn’t dilute the flavor too much. Adding water will also help balance out the ratio of the pulp to liquid.

Just be sure to add water in small amounts, blend a little, and then taste test. You can always add a little more water but you can’t take any water out. If you do add too much water you could balance it out by adding another mandarin.

Alternatively, you can add a cup of ice and blend until smooth. This creates a kind of orange juice smoothie.

Step 7: Filter Out the Juice

So now that you’ve blended all the oranges, it is time to attempt to separate the juice from the pulp.

Hold a strainer over a glass or a bowl and pour the thick orange mixture into the strainer. The pulp should catch in the strainer but the juice should pass through.

You can use a spoon to apply some pressure on the orange mixture to attempt to squeeze some more juice through the strainer.  You can also place the strainer over a funnel to help collect the juice in a glass.

I recommend doing this step in your kitchen sink. That way if you make a mess pouring the ingredients it will be much easier to clean up afterwards.

When you are satisfied you’ve collected most of the juice dump the orange pulp into a separate container. Repeat this process until you have separated all the juice from the pulp.

Step 8: Enjoy the Juice!

If you made it this far, go ahead and enjoy your orange juice. Unfortunately, you probably ended up with less juice than you expected for the amount of work you put in, but enjoy the juice nonetheless.

Save the Pulp!

You might not be interested in having the pulp in your juice, but I recommend saving it so you can use it as part of some other dish. You can use it to add more flavor in a recipe that has a more “solid” form.

For example:

• Add orange flavoring to a milkshake
• Make orange flavored ice cream
• Spread the pulp on toast as an alternative to jam or jelly
• Use it as a topping on a bowl of oatmeal

Difficulty Rating

I would say making orange juice with your blender is of moderate difficulty. Even though there is only one type of ingredient, mandarin oranges, there is a decent amount of prep work. Peeling the oranges and removing the seeds can be a little time consuming. And after you’ve blended the ingredients you have to do more work to separate the juice. You also need a strainer and maybe a funnel to do this. Not everyone has these kitchen supplies and there is also a decent chance that you will make a mess while straining.

It is definitely a lot easier to make this recipe if you don’t try to separate out the pulp.

Overall Verdict

If you like orange juice with a lot of pulp, you can definitely use your blender. If you use oranges that are very sweet and juicy you can add water to create a more balanced drink. There is still a moderate amount of work involved, however.

And, yes, you can use your blender to make more traditional pulp free or low pulp orange juice, but I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it. There is a lot of work involved and you don’t end up with that much juice in the end.

Have fun experimenting!