Unjuiceable fruits and vegetables.  Don't juice these in your juicer.

Q: Can you juice all fruits and vegetables?

A: Unfortunately not! There are some unjuiceable produce...food that's just better left alone.

If you are wondering which fruits and vegetables are juiceable, wonder no more. Each fruit and vegetable has it’s own wonderful composition…some are watery, some dense, and some soft. But for the most part, almost all fruits and vegetables are juiceable.

As like most things in life, there are exceptions.

The following are a list of common fruits and veggies that just don’t work for juicing.

It’s okay though, because some of them work super well to blend with your juice.

Juicing bananas

I absolutely love bananas and find them essential for smoothies. They are a great source of potassium which make them great for active people and athletes. They have a way of making bitter drinks (for example, grapefruit) more mellow and give smoothies a creamy, milky consistency.

They don’t work for juicing and are unjuiceable. They are too mushy and don’t have a high water content. Instead, juice your favorite fresh juice and place it in the blender with a banana to make a great smoothie. I like to freeze Bananas to make the smoothies a different consistency.

Here is a banana orange juice smoothie that I highly recommend:

2 frozen banana (fresh is okay too)
5 oranges juiced
1 tablespoon of honey

Mix in a blender or Vitamix for a great smoothie!

Other banana ideas: Frozen bananas make an awesome ice cream when used with the homogenization function on your gear juicer. Check out the banana whips page if you’d like to do this. It really is a fantastic crowd pleaser.

Banana Juice recipe:

If you want to make a banana juice without your juicer, blend one ripe banana to about 1 cup of water. Add a tablespoon of honey and a tablespoon of vanilla.

Juicing avocados

Avocado’s are another one of my favorite vegetables. While I love them in guacamole, I don’t love them to juice. It’s an oily, smooshy vegetable that will not yield any water or juice. It simply doesn’t have juice! It has some exceptional characteristics to it’s make up, including vitamin e, a & d as well as many minerals.

Suggestion to use avocado with juice: Use them in a smoothie just like you do a banana. It often takes the flavor of the juice and makes it very creamy. In most recipes, you don’t even notice it was blended in.  Just use a few strips as a little goes a long way when mixing it with juice.With your leftovers, make some salsa from your veggie pulp and add in some avocado chunks for a guac version!

Juicing eggplants

Don’t try to juice an eggplant. It just doesn’t have enough juice. It also has a dense but soft consistency that really doesn’t work very well with your juicer.

Juicing coconut juice

I LOVE coconut and coconut milk. Unfortunately, it just doesn’t juice and isn’t good for your juicer since it’s so hard. So it’s better just to leave brown coconuts alone when it comes to juicing. It's an unjuiceable.

But, you can get young thai coconuts at the supermarket and they yield a lot of juice inside. These are the coconuts that are used when you buy coconut water in the supermarket. The thai coconuts have a little bit of soft coconut meat that blends beautifully with any juice combination. Not to mention, it has a massive amount of electrolytes and vitamins. Truly a treat. You can make your own coconut milk by blending the juice with the meat and adding some water and vanilla.

One thing you can use brown coconuts for is juicing through your single or twin gear juicer with the homogenize function. It’s a little hard on your juicer, but you can use it to make fruit sorbets or blend it. The downside to this is that you absolutely must make sure all of the brown hard shell has been cut off and it’s time consuming.

I find it easier to get the young thai coconuts or buy organic coconut milk / coconut water in the supermarket if I want it.

Juicing leeks

You might want to leave leeks to your main meal recipes…and avoid them altogether for juice. While they do have some juice but don’t juice well so I think they are on the unjuiceable list. It often jams the juicers. Avoid the outer layers and if you do decide to juice them, then only use the inner layers. Leek juice is super strong so only juice a little. They work OK when mixed with vegetable juices.

Juicing winter squash

There are many squashes out there, and the winter squash is the hardest to juice. It’s super…SUPER…hard to cut with a knife and very hard to juice...making it an unjuiceable in my book. It’s water content isn’t very high, and it’s very trying for your juicer. Winter squash has some essential vitamins, including a high beta-carotene content, so definitely cook with them!

Summer squash is much softer and I encourage you to use that in your daily juicing recipes. I find it’s just better to stay away from the harder varieties.

Use hard to juice greens in green smoothies recipes

Return from Unjuiceables to Juicing Guide

Return to All About Juicing