How to Incorporate a Banana in Juice
Bananas are nature’s perfect snack. They’re sweet, very easy to chew, and they even come in their own handy wrappers! Bananas can be a great source of natural sugars to fuel you before a workout or while you’re on the go.
As nature’s powerhouses, bananas are rich in potassium essential for athletic performance. But have you ever wondered if it’s possible to make banana juice?
There are some fruits and vegetables out there that just can’t be juiced, and bananas are one of them
That’s probably why you never see banana juice or avocado juice in a carton on your supermarket aisle. Technically, you can’t juice a banana! There just isn’t any juice to extract from one.
If you slice an orange or an apple, you’ll notice sweet liquid getting onto your hands or onto the chopping board.
Bananas, on the other hand, won’t give up any juice no matter what you do to them. If you mash one up, the most you’d get is a lump of banana goo.
Bananas and other soft fruits like avocados are too soft to be juiced in most centrifugal juicers. Some juicers such as the Breville BJE820XL Juice Fountain Duo Dual Disc Juicer would allow you to use bananas and other soft fruits because they have a “soft fruit juice disc” which pushes the entire fruit into the juicing jug, but it isn’t “juice” in the real sense of the word. Other juice makers such as the Green Star GSE-5000 Elite Jumbo Twin Gear Juice Extractor or Champion Commercial Juicer G5-PG-710 – WHITE MODEL can allow you to make sorbets, but that isn’t juice either.
But just because you can’t juice a banana doesn’t mean you can’t put one IN your juice!
Here’s the trick to making banana juice
If you really want to incorporate bananas into your juice, you can do so by blending the banana and the juice together in a traditional blender. Depending on the ratio of bananas to juice, you could end up with quite a thick concoction! But if “smooth and creamy” sounds good to you, go ahead.
Bananas do wonders to mellow out the taste when blended with juices that would otherwise taste bitter, such as grapefruit juice.
Here’s a quick recipe for banana orange juice:
- Juice 3 oranges in your juice maker.
- Blend 2 small, ripe bananas in a traditional blender.
- Pour the orange juice into the blender with some sugar (optional) and a handful of ice cubes.
- Blend again until smooth, and serve immediately.
- If you want a colder drink you can freeze the bananas ahead of time.
Bananas also make great smoothies.
- Blend a ripe banana with 1 cup of water or milk and add some honey or vanilla to make a delicious banana smoothie.
Another thing I personally love to do with ripe bananas is make banana “ice cream”.
It’s super easy and only has one ingredient!
- All you have to do is peel a bunch of bananas
- Pop them in the freezer overnight
- Then blend them in a blender the next day
- The result is a cold, creamy treat that tastes so good you wouldn’t believe it doesn’t have any added sugar!
References:
http://brevilleusasupport.com/800jexl/can-i-put-bananas-in-the-juicer/
http://www.juicemaster.com/juice-therapy/a-to-z/banana
Image by: Paco CT
