Similar to the green smoothie trend, mean green juice is taking over. Lighter than a smoothie and containing different ingredients, many are finding just how refreshing it can be to drink your fruits and vegetables. Each of these recipes has a different take on how to make a green juice, so experiment until you find your favorite.

1. Green Juice for Beginners
If you’re at all intimidated by the thought of making and drinking green juice, start here. They keep it simple, with just enough ingredients to make it taste good and top you up on important vitamins and minerals. The lineup includes pineapple, apples, and ginger, and gets it distinct green color from a special kind of kale called dino kale, as well as some parsley. It’s very easy to make, and since it doesn’t taste bad thanks to sweet fruits you’re more likely to drink it and benefit from it. You can always add in more ingredients as you get used to the idea of daily green juice.

Photo: The Honour System

2. Lean & Mean Green Juice
Here’s a way to stay lean and mean with the help of green juice. It includes a pretty standard list of green juice items, such as kale, cucumber, and celery, but it uses grapes as the source of sweetness. Often you’ll seen apples being used to add sweetness to a juice, but grapes work well too, and also contribute to the nutritional value of the juice. This recipe calls for the use of a juicer, not a blender. A juicer will separate the juice from the pulp for all of the ingredients, and gives you a more concentrated liquid.

3. Apple Fennel Green Juice
This green juice uses two tasty foods, one a fruit and one a vegetable, to produce a delicious taste. Apple brings its classic natural sweetness, while fennel has its distinct flavor that blends nicely with the apple. Adding to the greenness of this juice is kale, cucumber, and celery, and all three of these bring additional nutrients to the table as well.

One good tactic when making green juice is to follow the recipes exactly the first time, and then make additions and substitutions based on what you liked and what you didn’t like. It can be fun to play around with the different ingredients.

4. Tasty Green Juice
When it comes to drinking green juice, if it doesn’t taste good you probably aren’t going to drink it with enough regularity for it to make a noticeable difference.

There’s an entire lemon in this green juice, so it will be packed with citrusy tartness, which is balanced out by the sweetness from a total of three apples. There’s plenty of kale added so you’re getting vitamins and minerals aplenty in the form of Vitamin A and Vitamin C, as well as magnesium and potassium. They give the tip that if you don’t have a proper juicer you can blend these items up and then strain the juice through cheesecloth.

5. Primavera Green Juice
This a green juice is made from and brought to you by Primavera Kitchen. Olivia has taken a pretty standard approach to green juice, combining ingredients found in many green juice recipes, such as cucumber and celery. There’s also green apples, which tend to have a tartness to them that other apple varieties lack. You’ll also be getting a mix of kale and romaine for added greenery. Romaine lags behind kale in the nutrition department, but still provides more nutrients than iceberg lettuce, specifically Vitamin A.

Photo: Cate in the Kitchen

6. Popeye Potion
Popeye the Sailor Man would be proud to put his name on this green juice, as it’s filled to the brim with spinach. To be sure, there are two handfuls of spinach in this green juice, or actually you could say that there’s the equivalent of two handfuls, since you’re mostly getting the essence of these vegetables and fruit by juicing them. You’ll get less fiber by separating the juice from the pulp, but you may be more inclined to drink the juice rather than blending up the items. She points out that this is a vegan juice, as are most green juice recipes.