8 Unusual Ingredients to Make Your Green Juice Awesome
Do you ever get bored of the same old green juice every day? You know how utterly amazing it is for your health, but after a while your taste buds are craving something a little different?
After making green drinks for over 13 years, I’ve tried a lot of different combinations and ingredients. I’ve had some misses (scallions/spring onions!) and I’ve had a few hits.
These eight green drink ingredients always help me to keep it fresh, mix it up and add a whole new flavour to my greens!
Enjoy and feel free to share YOUR unusual green drink ingredients in the comments below!
1. Fennel
Fennel is a fantastic veggie to add to your green juice to mix it up. The light aniseed flavour really offers a different dimension, PLUS it’s an antioxidant, anti-aging, anti-inflammatory, alkaline power food.
Fennel is unique in that it contains an incredible antioxidant combination of rutin, quercitin, and various kaempferol glycoside. This phytonutrient combination is fantastic for your health and some of these nutrients are not commonly found elsewhere.
But the most exciting potential benefit of fennel is that it contains a compound called anethole, which in animal studies has been shown to repeatedly reduce inflammation and prevent the appearance of various cancers. It’s early days with the research but it’s highly promising.
It’s also high in vitamin C, fibre, folate and potassium, meaning it’s great for colon and cardiovascular health.
To add fennel to your juice, remove the tougher outer layer of the root and juice through both the white and green root, plus any of the leaves still on the plant.
2. Turmeric
Turmeric adds a distinctly delicious, Asian, warm flavour – somewhere between orange and ginger and it makes a green juice taste completely different. I absolutely adore the flavour it adds.
And if you’re a regular reader of my site you’ll know just how absurdly powerful turmeric is as both a proven-beyond-doubt anti-inflammatory and also a strong alkalizer.
To juice turmeric, peel and chop and juice through! Be careful, it is difficult to get turmeric off surfaces, clothes and your skin! Handle with care, unless you want to turn your hands and house orange!
3. Herbs
I LOVE adding herbs to my green drinks, for more of a subtle flavour shift. My favourites are basil, mint and coriander and they all work well with the basic green drink ingredients.
I find basil tends to almost sweeten the flavour of the greens, so it gets used a lot in my house. It goes really well, of course, if you’re adding tomatoes to your juice too!
Mint is a great one to add to a juice that contains lots of cucumber and if you add coconut water too, it’s almost making it mojito-like!
Coriander can take your juice in either a Thai/Indian (great if you use the Turmeric or ginger in the juice, or add coconut milk – see below – ) or a Mexican direction (if you add lime or lemons).
Plus of course, they are alkaline and nutrient rich greens too!
4. Lemons & Limes
This is such a simple one that so many people miss! By simply squeezing lemon or lime into your juice at the end it completely changes the flavour of the whole drink.
For beginners who often ask me if they can still add apple to their juice because they are not yet used to the flavour of the greens, I always advise simply watering down a little more and adding lemon or lime to the drink – it makes it MUCH easier to get used to!
You can put through the juicer with the peel (works best on a slow, masticating juicer) but be aware, the peel will make the juice a little more bitter, so go easy at first).
5. Cinnamon
Cinnamon is a well-researched spice that adds a little sweetness and an extra dimension to your juice.
It’s benefits include being anti-clotting, anti-microbial, helps stabilise blood sugar, enhances your metabolism, boosts brain function, protects the colon and more.
To add to your juice, simply whisk in once you’ve already finished juicing. A teaspoon per glass will add a lot of delicious, spicy, warming flavour.
6. Chilli!
Not for the feint-of-heart but can be an absolute winner for those who like a kick to their juice!
I personally LOVE this, but don’t get to do it often as my family are not super-spice lovers like me.
Of course, proceed with caution, depending on the heat of your chilli!
But remember, and not a lot of people realise this, the flavour of chilli without the heat is SO fresh and delicious, so even if you’re not a heat-lover like me, you can get larger finger chillies that are not at all hot but will still give you the flavour (and strong anti-oxidant) benefit.
I would advise, if you’re using spicy chillies to wash your juicer and hands immediately after use.
7. Nut Milks
This one is a revelation to many, and was to me when I first started doing this. Adding a nut milk to your juice makes it so much more creamy, delicious, smooth and filling. I personally love to use almond milk (home made in my juicer), coconut milk or even a dash of coconut cream.
If you have a slow, masticating juicer like a Hurom or Kuvings you can make almond milk by simply soaking almonds overnight in water, washing them and then running through the juicer with an equal amount of water – and just like that you have fresh, omega-oil-rich almond milk.
If you are buying your nut milk (sometimes called nut mylk) from the store, be sure that it is unsweetened and preferably organic.
I like to add about 1/4 of milk to 3/4 juice.
8. Zucchini (Courgette)
This is the final bonus one, and I’ve kept it till the end because it’s possibly my fave – and it’s a bonus because it doesn’t actually flavour your drink or taste of anything!
Packed with magnesium, manganese, vitamin C, potassium, folate and more it’s researched benefits include being anti-inflammatory, antioxidant-rich, blood-sugar-balancing, antimicrobial, anti-cancer and more.
And it is almost taste-free in a juice – your partner and kids wouldn’t even know it’s there and yet it packs a HUGE nutritional punch!
Adding a zucchini to your juice will give you untold benefits but with no effect on the flavour profile.
Awesome.
Want More Juice Recipes?
If you want to get kick-started with 10 of my favourite juice & smoothie recipes, you can download my free guide here.
And I’d LOVE to hear your own green drink ingredients and recipes below – so please feel free to leave me a comment here OR on Facebook!
Ross
Fennel, green apple, cucumber, celery and coconut or soya milk is the BEST ?
Dont forget Onion, tuns of juice in them
I have tried all the above, and the following also, each one in a green shake, not all together.
1/4 banana
1/4 avacado
1 tbpsn sweet chiili sauce
12 almonds
Flax seed
Blackberries
Cacao powder
1/2 green apple