May 10, 2024 8:30 AM

The Best Juicers for Cocktails, Mocktails, Juices, and Smoothies

Give your drinks game a boost with our pick of the latest tried-and-tested juicers.

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Black kitchen counter that has a cutting board on the left with fruits and vegetables and a silver and clear juicing...

SANA Wide Mouth Premium Cold Pressed Juicer

Kitchen counter that has a cutting board on the left with fruits and vegetables and a red cylindrical juicing machine on...

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Juicers aren’t just for healthy wheatgrass shots and tall green juices. The latest designs can conjure up so much more with fresh smoothies, sorbets, and nut milks all just a whizz away. Delicious cocktails, mocktails, and chilled yogurts can all be made in a good juicer, as can wholesome baby food for weaning juniors.

Sure, it might be easier to buy juice from the grocery store, but making your own juice from scratch is far more satisfying, we say, with no added sugar or preservatives to dull the flavor. You will need to prep correctly to get the best performance from the juicer—chopping and washing your fruit and veg so it fits neatly in the feeding chute, and picking the correct mesh filter for the task at hand—but the end game with a delicious drink in hand is definitely worth the graft. And once you’ve mastered the art of juicing, there’s no going back. A chilled fruit juice for breakfast can taste far more nutritious than carton juice, while a freshly-squeezed pomegranate daiquiri at dusk will be the talk of your dinner party.

There’s a wide selection of stylish juicers to buy online, but here you’ll find our selection of the most versatile options on offer. We’ve used these juicers to grind whole fruits such as apples and pears to a pulp, squeeze the goodness out of leafy veggies such as kale, and tackle fibrous veggies such as celery and broccoli. We’ve noted how easy they are to use and clean and how effective they are at extracting every last drop of juice.

Check out more of WIRED's top kitchen tech and accessory guides, including the Best Air Fryers, Best Blenders, Best Electric Kettles, and the Best Gear for Small Kitchens.

Update May 2024: We've included three new options including the budget-friendly Nutribullet Magic Bullet Mini Juicer, and added essential buyer's guide information, plus tips on creating the healthiest drinks with your new machine.

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Photograph: Nama
Best All-Rounder
Nama J2 Cold Press Juicer
Slim and stylish on the worktop, the Nama J2 Cold Press Juicer comes in a modern black or white colorway. Assembly is easy, with all the parts neatly stored and clearly labeled and a recipe booklet for drinks such as Sunshine State of Mind with grapefruit, cucumber, apple, beets, and ginger, which had me keen to get juicing. Two strainers are included—one for juicing and one for making thicker smoothies. This cold press juicer is designed to minimize froth and oxidation and keep juice fresher for longer to retain nutrients. Nama claims that it yields up to 60 percent more juice from the same amount of ingredients than traditional high-speed juicers. I was pleased with the performance—the motor works slowly and steadily and it is reasonably quiet. The J2 extracts pith into one container and collects juice in the chamber, which is easy to cleanly dispense into a container by lifting the spout lid.
But the best thing about this juicer is the extra-wide hopper that lets you load an entire recipe at once. Unlike standard juicers, this means you won’t need to laboriously feed through one ingredient at a time. So you can turn it on, go about your kitchen business, and return to find your drink waiting. There is a hole in the top should you wish to add items as you go, too. With two kids keen to help me feed ingredients in the hopper, it’s reassuring to know that when the hopper lid is up, the juicer automatically turns off so no little hands risk injury. The hopper also fits a generous amount of fruit and veg inside it, and we managed to pack two apples, two carrots, some ginger, and a few sticks of chopped celery, which made enough for at least two servings. The results went down a treat.
$550 at Nama
$555 at Nama
Photograph: Emily Peck
Best Budget Juicer
Nutribullet Magic Bullet Mini Juicer
While the plastic base on this centrifugal design looks basic, I found this to be a surprisingly powerful design. At 12.2-inches high it’s compact and easy to store, although the 59-inch cable is a bit short. I found it straightforward to put together without having to look at the instruction booklet, with everything clicking together nicely too.
This juicer did well with hard fruit and worked a dream making my ginger, carrot, and apple juice. I found it easy to feed a whole carrot through the 2-inch chute without having to chop it up either, which felt like a small win when pressed for time. At 88.3 dB(A), it is rather noisy, however.
Softer fruits such as blueberries didn’t do so well here due to the furious centrifugal nature of this juicer, but that’s not to say that it’s off limits. I tried juicing leafy kale and while it left me with quite a bit of pulp, it did make it successfully through the hopper and extract a fair amount of juice.
It comes with a 16.5-ounce juice cup with a lid, so you can juice and take it with you on the go. I like how the top of the juice cup sits perfectly underneath the silicone spout of the juicer, so each bit of juice can be neatly collected, and nothing drips onto the countertop. Cleanup was easy as each part unlocks and everything but the motor base is dishwasher safe. There’s also a cleaning brush in the kit, which was useful for scrubbing the stainless steel sieve and cleaning the groove of the juicing bowl.
~~$60~~ $50 at Amazon

Photograph: Sana
Excellent for Soft Fruits
Sana 868 Wide Mouth Vertical Juicer
The Sana is a high-end slow juicer that ticks all the boxes in terms of good looks, smooth and quiet functionality, and versatile performance. Both its matte black and red finishes feel premium, with a stainless-steel pulp jug and borosilicate glass juice jug that add to its luxury finish. This juicer was a delight to use as its powerful 240 watts motor runs at a gentle 50 rpm, which means it can tackle hard fruits such as carrots and nuts but also softer ones—with limited froth clouding the juice.
With a wide 82-mm feed chute, feeding bulkier ingredients is frustration-free, and it has a trapdoor system for safety. The Sana 868 is impressively versatile as it comes with four screen strainers to suit different tasks. The fine screen tackles whole apples, and the coarse screen is great for leafy greens and softer fruits such as strawberries and blueberries. There’s also a sorbet screen for, you guessed it, sorbet, but it also works well for ice cream and puréed recipes—new parents take note. I really like the smoothie screen here, however, as unlike a high-speed blender that could inject air into the mix and create foam and separation, this model is deliberately slow and steady. It juices and mixes the pulp slowly back into the juice to create a nutrient-dense drink.
$500 at Amazon
$600 at Sana
Photograph: Emily Peck
Slow and Steady Wins the Race
Omega Juicers VSJ843RR
Like the Sana, this slow juicer looks great on the countertop. Its black hopper and accessories feel solid and they can all go in the dishwasher. It measures 15.9 inches, which is taller than my wall-hanging kitchen cabinets, making storage a pain unless I want to keep it on permanent display.
Setup wasn't as intuitive as I had hoped, and I needed to refer closely to the instructions to get the auger in the spinning brush and then into the juicing bowl. It's not a deal breaker, and given the quality of the juice produced, well worth the effort.
It managed large chunks of ginger, carrot, and apple with ease and achieved a surprisingly high juice yield, with minimum pulp. Spinach worked nicely here too, even if I did need to push it into the feeding chute with a bit of force. When more fibrous vegetables such as the pineapple and broccoli looked like they were struggling to make it past the auger, I used the Rev button to reset and get things moving again.
At 64.1dB(A) in use this is one of the quietest juicers I’ve discovered, although it did squeak when chewing through the spinach. But overall, this is one of my favorite juicers, boasting style and smooth performance. The only thing I think would improve its design is if it came with a separator on the juice cup to ensure less froth made it into my glass.
$480 at Omega Juicers

Photograph: Breville
This Large Feeding Chute Means Business
Breville the Juice Fountian Cold XL
Everything about the Juice Fountain Cold XL is large—from its lofty 17.4-inch height, to its 3.5-inch-wide feed chute that takes a whole apple, to its XL juicing capacity that you can capture in its 70-fl.-oz. jug. I found the “cold” in its name misleading at first, as it’s actually a fast, centrifugal juicer and not a cold press or masticating design. It uses what Breville calls cold spin technology, however, which allows the juice to flow up and through the stainless-steel cutting disc and Italian-made mesh filter to ensure an “insignificant temperature increase.” What you need to know is that this helps to keep the juice fresh and appetizing. Breville also claims that the Cold XL can extract juice up to five times faster than a cold press juicer.
On first use, I was taken aback at just how unforgivingly speedy and powerful its motor was in comparison to the slow juicer designs I’d been testing. While this makes it very effective at juicing hard fruits with ease, I did find that it wasn’t so effective at tackling softer fruits such as blueberries and kiwis—or at least I didn’t get much juice for the amount of berries I sacrificed. Its control panel is unique in that it allows you to speed up the machine in small increments. A Quiet starter setting is designed for soft fruits such as blueberries and strawberries, while the Fast and Boost settings worked remarkably well on harder ingredients such as whole carrots, apples, and a complete cucumber, which were all blitzed in seconds with satisfying results. [International note: This juicer model is named Sage the Nutri Juicer Cold XL in the UK.]
~~$400~~ $291 at Amazon
$386 at Walmart
$400 at Breville
Photograph: Smeg
Stylish and Easy to Squeeze
Smeg Citrus Juicer
This citrus juicer option from Smeg is the wild card of our round-up, as unlike centrifugal and masticating designs, its sole purpose is to squeeze the life out of oranges, lemons, and limes. With its beautifully curvy form and choice of chic colorways, it’s an iconic, retro design that will add glamor to your countertop—choose from pretty pastels, dramatic red, white, or black. At just 28 centimeters high, the Citrus Juicer will sit neatly on display and provides instant support when you need a spritz of lemon in your hot water, a splash of lime in your sweet pie mixture, or simply a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice at breakfast.
With a 70-watt power output, its motor is surprisingly forceful for such a small and compact appliance. I was able to simply press down on the reamer with half an orange, lemon, and lime and see it automatically start with the juice trickling steadily out of the non-drip spout and into my own cup—not included in the box. Grapefruits did well here too, and the reamer does a great job at draining every last bit of pith out as you hold down the fruit.
$200 at Amazon

Photograph: Emily Peck
A Highly Versatile Choice
Sana 707 Cold Press Juicer
From the stainless-steel pulp collecting jug to its 35-ounce glass juice container, this screams style. And while it is highly durable, it still looks stunning on the countertop. The model I tested boasted a Ferrari Red finish, but there's nothing speedy about this design. Slow is the order of the day. It’s gentle on the ears too, measuring a modest 67 dB(A) on my Decibel Meter App, which is below average by comparison. The 63-inch cable is longer than most too.
It worked exceptionally well when I made a green juice, and I waited patiently as it chewed through broccoli and chomped at kale. I managed to fit quite a big handful in the feeding chute too, and even though the results looked a little too “healthy,” I was pleased with the amount of juice yield. While it chopped up carrots, pineapple, and pears easily, the feeding chute couldn't take a whole apple, but I made sure I prepped properly for smooth operation. There are a lot of parts in the box to make sense of here as this model can do so much more than juice. If you’re after a juicer that has everything you need to also make pasta, sorbet, ice cream, nut butter, and almond milk, and to grind coffee and more, this is definitely one to consider.
$400 at Amazon
How We Test Juicers
To really understand the latest in juicer technology, I have squeezed, crushed and pulped my way through a mountain of fresh fruit and vegetables. My family has never been healthier. With each of the latest juicer tests (May 2024) I made a vitamin-packed green juice and a classic carrot, apple and ginger juice. I was keen to see how well the juicers performed when coping with soft, leafy vegetables and hard fruits too. I also noted average noise levels using the Decibel Meter app on my smartphone as no one should have to shout over the sound of their appliances. Some cocktails were also created, all in the name of research.

Photograph: Westend61/Getty Images
Centrifugal Versus Masticating ‘Slow’ Juicers
Think about what type of fruit and vegetables you want to juice before making your purchase. There are two types of juicer technology to choose from: centrifugal and ‘slow’ masticating designs. A centrifugal juicer is designed for fast and powerful juicing but works best on hard fruit such as apples and carrots. It extracts juice by shredding fruit and vegetables on rotating blades at a high speed and grinding them up against a wire mesh to strain the pith and squeeze out the juice. While these work well for juicing a whole apple in one, softer fruits such as berries or leafy greens won’t do so well here.
Meanwhile, a masticating juicer—sometimes called a slow or cold press juicer—takes the tempo down a notch. It will slowly chew and press fruit and vegetables to extract the juice and retain the nutrients. Slow juicers can tackle hard fruits such as apples and pears, but come into their own when used for softer fruits such as blueberries and leafy greens such as kale. The majority of juicers we’ve included here are slow designs, which tend to produce a higher juice yield than centrifugal designs , and with less waste. We’ve also included a citrus juicer, for simple orange, lemon, and lime drinks.
SANAradiance.com
Five Tips for Fresh and Healthy Juicing
Professional nutritionist Kylie Jane shares her advice on healthy juicing.
Juicing is an easy way to add more fruit and vegetables to your diet, but there are ways to maximize the health benefits and minimize drawbacks like blood sugar spikes. We asked Kylie Jane, founder of SANA Wellness and qualified nutritionist, for her advice on healthy juicing.
Balance fruit with vegetables: Fruits can contain a lot of sugar, so to combat this, make vegetables the base of your juices. Aim for a ratio of 80 percent vegetables to 20 percent fruits. Try spinach, kale, cucumber, celery, ginger, and beetroot. When adding fruits, go for those with a lower glycemic index like green apples, berries, and pears.
Incorporate fiber: Juicing removes most of the fiber from fruits and vegetables, but it's crucial for slowing down the absorption of sugar, aiding digestive health, and keeping you feeling full. Consider blending some of your juice with whole fruits or vegetables to keep some of the fiber intact. Alternatively, add a fiber supplement or incorporate some pulp in cooking or baking to ensure you're getting enough.
Add healthy fats: To stabilize blood sugar levels and increase satiety, incorporate sources of healthy fats into your juicing routine, such as avocado or coconut oil.
Enhance with “superfoods”: Matcha and collagen are popular supplements that can easily be added to juices for an extra health boost. A teaspoon of matcha is rich in antioxidants and provides a gentle energy boost without the jitters of caffeine. Collagen may help with skin elasticity and hydration, as well as healthy hair, nails, and joints.
Choose the right time to juice: Drinking juice on an empty stomach can sometimes cause blood sugar levels to spike more quickly. It’s often better to drink juice as part of a meal or after you’ve eaten some solid food, especially foods high in fiber, protein, or fats, to help slow down the absorption of sugar.

What to Look For
Once you’ve decided what ingredients you want to put in your juicer—be it hard fruit or leafy vegetables—it will be easier to choose between a masticating “slow” juicer or a faster centrifugal design. Either way, it’s important to look for a juicer that comes with the relevant accessories you need. For tasks other than juicing—such as making nut milks and butters or ice creams and sorbets—you’ll need a juicer with the relevant food processing parts.
Also consider how much you’re willing to prep your ingredients. While there are regulations on the size of the feeding chute you can find due to safety reasons, some juicers are equipped to take a whole apple in one, which means less chopping. To make it even simpler, you can find juicers from Nama and Hurom that have self-feeding hoppers.
Dishwasher-safe parts are practical, and save scrubbing, but please be aware, there's no such thing as an easy-to-clean juicer. Pith, rind, pulp, and juice is sticky and messy, and while some models are easier to clean than others, it is never as straightforward as the adverts would have you think.
A Rev button is another useful feature to look for, especially with slow juicers. This allows you to reverse the juicing process should you overeagerly stack your juicer and ingredients gets stuck.

Emily Peck is a journalist with 20-plus years of experience writing about interiors, food, well-being, gardens, technology, and everything in between. She has held in-house positions at the BBC and Ideal Home magazine, and regularly contributes to WIRED, GQ, The Telegraph, Livingetc, Techradar and GoodtoKnow.

WIRED contributor

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