We Tested Juicers to Find the Best Ones For Juicing Fruits and Vegetables

If you're excited about the idea of fresh fruit juice on a hot summer day, or tasty mixers for our favorite cocktails, and/or a way to use up extra seasonal produce, then you may want to consider picking up a juicer.

While the upfront cost of juicing at home is significant, it might end up saving you money in the long run, especially if juice bars keep selling their bottles for over $10. To help you find the best juicer for your needs, we put the squeeze on 10 popular models. Here’s what we found. 

The Winners, at a Glance

The Best Masticating Juicer

Omega VSJ843QS Vertical Square Low-Speed Juicer

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The Omega consistently extracted the most juice out of all the machines, and its modular design made it easier to store and take apart. It was also able to crush fibrous ginger and beets easily, without any squeaking noises. 

The Best Centrifugal Juicer

NutriBullet Juicer Pro Centrifugal Juicer Machine

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In addition to extracting a good amount of juice and dry pulp, the NutriBullet’s food chute, pulp collector, and blades are stacked on top of each other, which makes it easier to clean. It was also the quietest of the three centrifugal juicers we tested.

The Best Affordable Centrifugal Juicer

Hamilton Beach Centrifugal Juicer Machine

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If you’re not ready to spend more than $70 on a juicer but want to play around with juicing at home, this Hamilton Beach model is the one to get. It did a fair job in our tests, although sometimes the motor can make the whole machine jolt a little bit since it’s made of plastic. An added benefit: It's dishwasher-safe, so you don’t have to spend all your time handwashing the parts. 

The Criteria: What We Look for in a Good Juicer

A good juicer should extract the most juice from an ingredient without compromising taste. That means it should be able to draw out the flavor of the fruit or vegetable without pulp, fiber, or skins getting in the way. For dry and dense veggies like beets and kale, the juicer should blast through them without clogging. For wet and soft fruits like melon and berries, the pulp should hold together and not splatter everywhere. As for the final product, we prefer juices that have a translucent, uniform color without any unpleasant foam. 

From a user perspective, we’re looking for a machine that’s intuitive and quick to put together and take apart for easy cleaning. We’re also looking at value: will buying this machine save you money from going to the corner juice bar in the long run?

What’s the Difference Between a Centrifugal Juicer and a Masticating Juicer?

The most common types of juicers for home use are centrifugal juicers and masticating ones.

When you use a centrifugal juicer, you drop your ingredients through a chute, a fast-spinning blade cuts them up, and the pulp is forced through a fine-mesh filter. The juice pours out one end of the machine, while the dry pulp comes out the other. 

If you’re new to juicing and are looking for a more affordable juicer, centrifugal juicers can be more budget-friendly. That being said, there are some downsides. They’re loud, they don’t always get the most juice from your ingredients, and the super-powerful motor can lead to splatters. 

Masticating juicers, on the other hand, tend to be more expensive. They work by crushing chopped fruit and veggies through a slow spinning auger. These machines are much quieter, squeeze out more juice, and press the pulp through an extruder, making cleanup much easier. 

The downside of masticating juicers is that they take longer to extract the juice. The smaller chutes, often half the size of centrifugal juicers, mean more chopping and prep work, too.

Why You Should Trust Us

I’ve been a food writer for more than 10 years and a recipe tester and developer for six. I’ve tested many kitchen appliances, including electric pressure cookers, slow cookers, and immersion circulators. I also love the taste of fresh juices, but am always hesitant to splurge on a bottle at the local juice bar; when I got the opportunity to see if home juicers are worth it, I jumped at the chance.

The Testing

We fed six of the best selling juicers—three masticating and three centrifugal—pounds upon pounds of beets, carrots, ginger, grapes, cantaloupe, strawberries, and kale, a mix of common juicing ingredients that run the gamut of firmness, juiciness, and fiber content. We weighed how much juice was extracted along with the amount of pulp leftover (and how much extra liquid could be squeezed from that), taking notes on taste and color along the way.

Test 1: Taste and Visual Assesments

The masticating juicers did the best overall when it came to squeezing the clearest juice with minimal foam (kale being the exception, see further down in the kale test section). By slowly squeezing the fruit rather than whirling it in a giant blade, the masticating juicers incorporate less air into the liquid and thus produce less froth and foam. The Hurom and Omega gave the cleanest-tasting and clearest-looking juices overall, and even after resting for a few hours, there was barely any separation in the strawberry and cantaloupe juices.

The heat from centrifugal blades made the juices a tad warmer than the juice produced by masticating juicers; they also gave the juice varying degrees of a metallic aftertaste. This effect wasn't as evident in really sugary fruits, like grape and melon, but it was most noticeable in beet and carrot juice. 

Test 2: Tough Veggies

First, we juiced fresh ginger, and the Omega performed the best out of the masticating juicers, handling the fibrous rhizome with ease. In general, we found that the centrifugal juicers left more juicy pulp than the masticating ones. 

Then, we moved on to beets to see how messy these juicers could get. The sheer power of centrifugal juicers made splatters inevitable, but the ones where the pulp collects in an attached bucket were extra messy. The Hamilton Beach actually jolted half an inch every time we added more beets, the motor overpowering the machine’s light plastic construction.

As for the juice yields, four of the juicers got around 250g of juice from a pound of beets. The Breville came in last with 230g, while the Hamilton Beach won with 280g of juice.

When it came to carrots, we were surprised by how clean the juice from the NutriBullet tasted, while the other centrifugal juicers made juice that tasted a little metallic. 

Test 3: Pulpy Fruit

To test how the juicers handled softer items, we juiced a pound each of strawberries, grapes, and cantaloupe in each machine to see how much juice could be extracted while leaving the most dry pulp.

Overall, the centrifugal juicers had less pulp when we weighed out what was left in each machine. But after assessing each juice for taste and appearance, it was obvious that the centrifugal juicers produce juice with a fair amount of pulp, as they were noticeably more cloudy and frothy.

The difference is most evident in the cantaloupe juice. The Breville, Nutribullet, and Hamilton Beach yielded the least amount of pulp, but the juices were still cloudy with a layer of froth hours later; on the other hand, the Omega, Hurom, and Aicok machines produced juices that were an intense and uniform deep orange. All six machines yielded similar amounts of juice (in the 300g to 350g range), meaning the masticating machines were able to separate more pulp and produce more juice.

We saw similar results with strawberries, and the Omega and Hurom produced the best results: juices that were colored a uniform deep translucent fuchsia and tasted like ultra-filtered strawberry juice. The Breville, Hamilton Beach, and NutriBullet produced something closer to a smoothie: a pink, slightly frothy, and opaque.

Test 4: Juicing Kale

For those who like their greens in juice form, we fed each juicer a pound of chopped kale, stems and all. The centrifugal juicers sliced and diced the tough stems with no problem, but the masticating juicers needed to be fed very slowly; it took a few minutes more to feed the chopped kale through each of the masticating machines. 

The masticating juicers hands-down extracted more liquid than the centrifugal juicers. The slow juicers also yielded much less pulp, which was also much easier to clean up and throw away. The downside is that all the masticating juicers left a big mound of foam on top, which grew uglier and less appetizing as the juice sat out. 

The NutriBullet yielded the least juice out of the bunch, but it was the one that looked and tasted the best (even after sitting out for a few hours).

Test 5: Ease of Use

Because masticating juicers move much slower (they use about a tenth of the wattage), the food has to be chopped into smaller pieces and slowly fed through the food chute, especially if you're using fibrous greens and hard vegetables like carrots. If you cram too much in at once, the machine will clog and give off a whirring noise. Feeding a pound of kale, chopped into one-inch pieces, into the smaller chutes of these juicers took twice as long as it did to feed the centrifugal juicers. For ease of juicing, centrifugal juicers are definitely better.

Test 6: Storage

Juicers take up a lot of counter space. With a vertical chute stacked on top of a spinning blade or auger that’s set on top of the motor underneath, they’re essentially taller, fatter blenders. 

Of all the machines, the NutriBullet has the smallest footprint and weighs a light 7.5 lbs. It’s also the easiest to carry because all the parts are stacked on top of each other, as opposed to the Breville and Hamilton Beach, which have pulp bins that are attached at the back. 

The Omega, on the other hand, weighs 15 lbs, although it has a slimmer design, with a length and width of around 7.5 inches. It’s less of a space hogger on the counter than some of the other machines.

Test 7: Cleanup

The masticating juicers aren’t dishwasher-safe, but they didn’t take long to take apart and reassemble after cleaning. The Hurom and Omega took a few tries in the beginning to get all the parts to snap in place, but it was easy after the first three or four uses. The most annoying part about cleaning these is picking the compressed pulp out of the extruder (all the models reviewed come with a cleaning brush with a narrow end to pick out gunk, but a regular sponge and the end of a spoon worked just as well). 

The centrifugal juicers, meanwhile, were more annoying to wash because the parts are bigger and often covered in pulp. The lids and pulp containers of the Breville and Hamilton Beach models had weird curves and crevices where pulp had to be picked out, and we found two tablespoons of juice trapped underneath the spinning blade of the Breville each time after use. 

The Breville manual doesn’t recommend using the dishwasher, as it could affect the warranty, while the Hamilton Beach and NutriBullet manuals say their parts are dishwasher-safe, as long as the sanitize function isn’t used.

The Best Masticating Juicer

Omega VSJ843QS Vertical Square Low-Speed Juicer

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What we liked: The Omega consistently extracted the most juice and left the smallest amount of pulp, which also was the driest pulp produced by any of the machines, whether we juiced beets, ginger, carrot, melon, or strawberries. It beat the other juicers when it came to extracting kale juice (more than twice the amount produced by three of the competitors), although it also produced a thick layer of kale foam, which you should just scoop off. Taste wise, the Omega had the overall smoothest tasting juices with the most uniform color without any pulp.

It also beat out the other two masticating juicers for sturdiness: it was the only one that didn’t squeak or seem like it might break down when squeezing beets and ginger.

The square design of the Omega is smart, as it lets you store it in the corner of a counter or in a cupboard. It also has an easy-to-clean feature: pour water down the chute and turn the machine on to give the internal parts a good rinse before the next batch of juice, a process that's helped along by internal rotating silicone wiping blades that push out juice and pulp.

What we didn’t like: The one design annoyance of the Omega is the tiny chute that ejects pulp. The pulp always gets stuck in the chute and you have to picka at the hole to get everything out. The machine includes a cleaning brush and pick that do an acceptable job, but we found a wooden chopstick or the end of a spoon were more efficient. Another downside is that when taking the machine apart for cleaning, we found lots of wet pulp underneath the auger. 

As for the price tag, it’s the most expensive juicer of the bunch. While it’s a great juicer, it’s better to start with a less expensive machine and then upgrade to this if and when you’re really into making juice.

Price at time of publish: $442.

Key Specs

• Weight: 11.5 pounds
• Warranty: 15 years
• Blade material: Stainless steel
• Wattage: 150 Watts
• Care information: Non-electric parts are dishwasher-safe
• Special feature: Automatic pulp ejection
• Dimensions: 9.14 x 15.67x 9.49 inches
  

The Best Centrifugal Juicer

NutriBullet Juicer Pro Centrifugal Juicer Machine

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What we liked: This juicer has three speeds depending on the hardness of the fruit: low, high, and turbo, which is nice because sending grapes through a super powerful motor sometimes feels like overkill. 

Speaking of powerful motors, these kinds of juicers can sometimes lead to splash backs when dropping extra juicy fruit down the chute, like melon and grapes. But the NutriBullet's chute can be adjusted from 2.5 inches to 1.7 inches in diameter, leaving less room for liquids to come back up. The spout where the juice comes out also has a stopper to prevent dripping.

The circular design of the NutriBullet made it easy to clean: you can simply scoop up the pulp in one circular motion and, unlike the other centrifugal juicers, there wasn’t extra juice hiding underneath the blades. With the exception of the base, which contains the 1000-watt motor and the food pusher, all the parts are dishwasher-safe (it was also easy to hand wash because there weren’t weird curves or crevices). The fact that the pulp collector is stacked on top of the motor, rather than having it on the side of the machine, also makes it less bulky.

What we didn’t like: The whirl of the motor created a slight breeze coming from the spout, so unless you’re using the included pitcher with the lid fitted perfectly to the spout, there will be splatter. The capacity of the pulp collector is also smaller than the Breville and Hamilton Beach: It had to be emptied after juicing a pound of kale.

Price at time of publish: $130.

Key Specs

• Weight: 7.5 pounds
• Warranty: 1-year
• Blade material: Stainless steel
• Wattage: 1000 Watts
• Care information: Non-electric parts are dishwasher-safe
• Special feature: Three precision speeds
• Dimensions: 12.83 x 17.4 x 12.13 inches

The Best Affordable Centrifugal Juicer

Hamilton Beach Centrifugal Juicer Machine

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What we liked: The Hamilton Beach was the most affordable juicer we tested (and it has an average of 4.5 stars out of 15,000 Amazon reviews). As its name indicates, it has a wide food chute that makes going through pounds of fruit an easy task. It also extracted the most beet juice out of all the machines. We liked the big pulp catcher on the side of the machine, which didn’t require as frequent emptying as the NutriBullet's. For the price, it does the job and it's a good entry point into juicing.

What we didn’t like: It extracted a lot of juice, but that juice wasn’t as clear as the juice produced by the masticating juicers, so prepare to skim off a lot of foam. It was the loudest of the six machines we tested and it also moved every time we turned it on, since the plastic casing is very light and the motor is quite powerful.

Price at time of purchase: $78.

Key Specs

• Weight: 9.75 pounds
• Warranty: 3-year, limited
• Blade material: Stainless steel
• Wattage: 1000 Watts
• Care information: Non-electric parts are dishwasher-safe
• Special feature: Whole fruit processing
• Dimensions: 11.5 x 7.8 x 14.4 inches

The Competition

• AICOK Slow Masticating Juicer: This machine’s horizontally positioned auger made it difficult to juice heavy duty stuff like beets and ginger (upon re-reading the manual it said to not juice ginger, whoops). It also has the smallest chute opening, which means you have to do more prep and it takes more time to juice. 
• Breville Juice Fountain Plus Centrifugal Juicer: This juicer requires a lot of counter space, as it's 18 inches tall and extends 13.5 inches deep. We don’t love that the pulp container is in the back of the machine, making it necessary to pull it out from the counter with each use. It was also a pain to clean, as all the parts were big and had crevices that hid extra juice and pulp.
• Hurom HP Slow Juicer: Hurom is a trusted brand and it performed almost as well as the Omega, save for some squeaking when we fed it beets and ginger. It lost points because the food chute is a third smaller than the Omega, resulting in more prep work and feeding. We also found the placement of the power switch, which is located less than an inch above the power cord, to be impractical.
• Kuvings Whole Slow Juicer EVO820GM: While this model performed well, its high price point and cumbersome weight kept it from being a top pick. 
• Nama Cold Press Juicer: This juicer wobbled while handling heavy produce, like carrots, and it was harder to clean the chute.
• Breville BJS700SIL Big Squeeze Slow Juicer: Though it has an intriguing design with a compression chamber made to handle whole produce, this juicer had issues producing the consistency we looked for.
• Omega Cold Press 365 Juicer: This smaller model from Omega juiced well, but was closer in performance to our budget pick, which was half the price.

FAQs

Which juicer is the easiest to clean?

Our favorite affordable juicer, from Hamilton Beach, is dishwasher-safe. If that's a big selling point for you, we don't think you'll be disappointed with this pick.

Which juicer is best for fruits and veggies?

If pure power is what you're after, it's hard to beat this masticating juicer from Omega. While expensive, it obliterated even tough-to-juice ginger with clear juice results.

How much does a good juicer cost?

Our favorite juicers are priced from $70 to $480, so quite the range!

Why use a juicer instead of a blender?

A juicer does the hard work of separating the pulp from the juice for you. If you use a blender to juice, say, pineapple chunks, you'd have to strain out the pulp using a cheesecloth and/or a fine mesh sieve. Juicers also do a better job at extracting juice overall, especially from drier items like leafy greens and ginger, which might just get chopped up in a blender.

Which type of juicer is better?

The answer really depends on what you're looking to juice! If you're just using a juicer to squeeze citrus for cooking, then a manual or electric citrus juicer might be all you need. However, if you're looking to juice all kinds of fruits and veggies, including tougher items like celery, kale, or apples, a centrifugal juicer (which chops up produce) might be your best bet. Then, there are masticating juicers, like our winner the Omega VSJ8443QS Vertical Slow Masticating Juicer, which grind whatever you put in them, extracting up to 30% more juice than a centrifugal juicer.