Wondering how to juice a pomegranate without making a huge mess? I tested four different methods—here’s what works, what doesn’t, and how to get the most juice with the least hassle.
Find more of my pomegranate recipes.
When you are given over 40 pomegranates to play with, you get to explore everything about this glorious fruit. Luckily, my family loves pomegranate in any form, whether straight up, cooked, baked or juiced.
If you ever enjoyed fresh pomegranate juice, you know it is pretty incredible. And with all these pomegranates we wanted to find out which method was the best and produced the least amount of waste.
Sometimes it requires a lot more work, sometimes short cuts are involved. So, being the adventurous types that we are, we decided to take on the task of juicing some of store bought as well as the many we have growing in our trees.
But, which way would work best?
Jump to:
- Method 1: Juice a Pomegranate with a Juicer
- Method 2: Juice a Pomegranate with a Ziploc Bag
- Method 3: Juice a Pomegranate with a Citrus Juicer
- Method 4: Juice a Pomegranate with a Spiral Juicer
- What to do with Pomegranate Juice
- Storing/Freezing Instructions
- How to Juice a Pomegranate
- Written by Laura Bashar
Method 1: Juice a Pomegranate with a Juicer
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I borrowed my friend’s Jack LaLane Juicer. We were in the market for a juicer and thought we’d give it a test run with our pomegranates. We really thought it work. And it did… at first.
First you seed the pomegranate then put the ruby-red arils into the juicer. We got a cup of pomegranate juice before we decided to check on the filter. The filter was clogged. We had take it apart to clean it, and we still had a lot of pomegranate arils we wanted to make into juice.
This was NOT going to work. So, on to Method 2.
ELECTRIC JUICER PROS: You do get juice.
ELECTRIC JUICER CONS: The filter clogs very easily so you can’t juice a lot without stopping.
Method 2: Juice a Pomegranate with a Ziploc Bag
Okay, it’s a crude method, but this simple project soon became a real scientific experiment. We poured about half a cup of pomegranate arils into a gallon-sized Ziploc bag, sealed it and squeezed. We did get juice, but we couldn’t get all of the juice.
A lot was still stuck to the seed. So, we placed the remaining seeds through a small strainer and used the back of a spoon to squeeze out the remaining juice. This was work and certainly not an efficient use of our time.
How were we going to juice these pomegranates?
ZIPLOC BAG PROS: Low tech, cheap method to get juice. Best for small amounts of pomegranate.
ZIPLOC BAG CONS: You don’t get a lot of juice and you have press it through a fine mesh sieve.
Method 3: Juice a Pomegranate with a Citrus Juicer
We cut a pomegranate in half, and juiced it like we would an orange or a lemon. Not with a handheld reamer, but one with a strainer and bowl. Like the Ziploc Method, we did get juice, but we couldn’t get all the juice out.
Some arils hid in their chambers and you couldn’t quite get them out by hand squeezing the pomegranates. I had an electric citrus juicer and tried the pomegranates with that.
A bit more success. There was a lot of spray action on the counter, and since pomegranate juice stains, the clean up job was a pain.
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I got more juice this way, but I still had to press the seeds through a strainer to get every last drop of pomegranate juice.
CITRUS JUICER PROS: Low tech, cheap method to get juice and no need to seed a pomegranate.
CITRUS JUICER CONS: You don’t get a lot of juice, you have press it through a fine mesh sieve and it makes a mess!
Method 4: Juice a Pomegranate with a Spiral Juicer
We scored a used spiral juicer from Jamba Juice for half the price of a new one. These special juicers are used to extract juice from wheat grass. We finally got our pomegranate juice!
I first wrote this post back in 2014 and juicers have changed a lot since then. I have found a spiral juicer on Amazon that is similar to our old version and works with pomegranates.
This juicer worked wonderfully and clean up was easy. Lots of pieces to clean, but nothing was clogged and it did NOT take forever to clean up.
SPIRAL JUICER PROS: You get a lot of juice and it does not clog the machine. The machine is also easy to clean.
SPIRAL JUICER CONS: You do have to seed the pomegranates and you have to spend about $140 for new machine.
If you have a pomegranate tree or access to a pomegranate tree and every year you want to juice a dozen or more pomegranates…. THEN, I highly recommend you invest in a good juicer.
What to do with Pomegranate Juice
Of course, you could do what they do in Iran where the streets are lined with pomegranate juice stands and you can get freshly juiced pomegranates fresh by using an old fashioned juice press.
Pomegranate juice is so good for you, with oodles and oodles of antioxidants from the polyphenols. It has three times more antioxidants than red wine and green tea. It is also rich in Vitamin C and is a natural anti-inflammatory. So feel free to drink it straight up as is.
Pomegranate juice is also great in mixed drinks and cocktails like a pomegranate gin sling or some pomegranate mulled wine. We had so much juice that we also made some pomegranate jelly and pomegranate jello!
You can also use your juice to make pomegranate molasses, which is used a lot in Persian recipes.
Storing/Freezing Instructions
TO STORE: Store your pomegranate juice in an airtight container and refrigerate for up to 5 days.
TO FREEZE: You can also pomegranate juice. Transfer to a resealable bag or freezer safe container and freeze for up to 6 months.
We tested four different ways to juice pomegranates. A spiral juicer is the best way to juice a large batch of pomegranates. You cannot use a regular juicer as the seeds and fiber clog up the filters. You could use a citrus juicer for smaller batches, but it is very messy and pomegranate juice does stain. For a simple and fun way to juice small amount of pomegranate seeds, squeeze them in ziploc bag.
The colorful seeds you see in a pomegranate are called ‘arils’ and they contain the juice of the pomegranate and a small white seed in the center. The entire pomegranate aril is edible, including the white seed. The seed is rich in fiber and the juice rich in antioxidants.
How to Juice a Pomegranate
Ingredients
- pomegranates
Instructions
Ziploc Bag Method:
- If you are juicing just one or two pomegranates, this is one low-tech way of doing it. Seed your pomegranate (per video instructions) and place seeds in a resealable plastic bag.
- Seal the bag, squeezing out air, and squeeze the seeds with your hands or roll on the counter with a rolling pin to squeeze out juice.
- Pour the juice into a glass or bottle and place the seeds in a small strainer over a bowl. Using a spoon, squeeze out the remaining juice.
Citrus Juicer Method:
- If you don't feel like seeding a pomegranate, you can cut it in half along the equator. Press it into a citrus juicer, the ones with a strainer and bowl. Please note, this method does splatter and pomegranate juice does stain.
Spiral Juicer Method:
- This method yields the most and best tasting juice. It works great when you are juicing a large batch of pomegranates. Seed your pomegranates (per video instructions) and place seeds through a spiral juicer. Save, the juice and discard the seeds.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition Disclaimer
Nutritional information is an estimate provided to you as a courtesy. You should calculate the actual nutritional information with the products and brands you are using with your preferred nutritional calculator.
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Written by Laura Bashar
Hi, I’m Laura, a certified professional cook and cookbook author living in San Diego. I have been sharing my family’s favorite recipes inspired from all over the world since 2008. Let’s cook up something fun!
Ok then, no shortcuts. We have 4 able bodied individuals who I will rope into the process…
ha ha ha! The more the merrier!
Laura
Thank you!
Really helped me! Easy to read, many options 🙂
Glad I could help!
Laura
Thanks for the different methods! Unfortunately, there are no shortcuts if you want quality juice (or syrup, or jelly). Any process that includes the pith (white membrane between arils) like a citrus juicer, or breaks seeds like a blender, will be more bitter. Best way I’ve found is to shuck the arils, then put about 2 cups into a big Ziploc bag. Put an old dishtowel on a cutting board, and use a wooden rolling pin to mush them (the dishtowel keeps the inner seeds from breaking). Pour out the juice. Repeat. Then squish them by hand for the third… Read more »
Yup, there’s a reason why pomegranate juice is so expensive. And I totally agree about the quality of juice being more important than the time involved. When we have a large bundle of pomegranates harvested, we know it’s going to take time to shuck and seed. But my kids eat them up and love the juice, so it’s worth it!
Thank you for an informative and easy to read article plus special thanks for a new word: aril!
ha ha! I’m so glad you learned a new word!
Wonderful info, Laura! I cut into a pomegranate tonight and peeled most of the pith (peeled all of the hard outer rind off) away, pulsed all of the arils with some pith attached in my small blender, then dumped all of it into a fine mesh stainless strainer to extract the juice by pressing with my fingers. I did notice it was a little more bitter. So, I am so glad you have this informative post. Thanks so much!
I’m so glad you enjoyed the article. Pomegranate juice is so good for you, no matter how you juice it. Salut!
Is there a way to remove the social media icons on the left side of the page? They are blocking the first two letters of every line and it’s not worth the annoyance try to figure out what they are for each line I try to read.
John
I’m guessing you are on mobile? I don’t think the sharing buttons on the side can go away, but I did realize that I had two sets of sharing buttons activated and I fixed that.
I’m not on mobile. I found that by unzooming the social icons will be out of the way of the text, but the problem is that I always zoom in a bit for ease of reading. I have ad blocker filters that are supposed to remove the social media icons, but so far they aren’t working on every website.
Thank you very much for your comparison!! It would be highly beneficial if you could also include very common method that people use at home and also in markets in Turkey, Israel etc. – manual pressing of pomegranates – e.g. with Olympus or Jupiter juice presses. It’s very fast as you just do not need to separate seeds – just divide the pomegranate in half, put it under the manual press, lower the handle down and you get the juice. Super easy. This works very well but it would be interesting to compare the taste and the yield of this… Read more »
Unfortunately, I do not have one of those big presses. But, if I ever get ahold of one, I’ll definitely add it to the list of comparisons!
happened onto this alt way to get the pomegranate seeds removed. no mess whatsoever!
http://theshiksa.com/2011/09/06/how-to-seed-a-pomegranate/.
because my blender’s “pulse mode” is broken, i hit the liquify button a few times to separate the seeds. worked well. i also added about eight small (distilled water) ice cubes, two very, very ripe bananas and two teaspoons of organic honey. tasted incredible. will get a juicer next month. would like to get a juicer that incorporates pulp into the final concoction. any thoughts?
great blog, Laura. keep up the good work!
I haven’t tried pulsing it in a blender, but I do find that smashing it through a strainer to be very tedious. But, it is cheaper than a juicer. When we seed and juice pomegranates, we are usually working with large batches (20+ pomegranates) and the wheat grass juices works real quickly. I couldn’t imagine how long it would take to first pulse in a blender and then press through a colander to make 1/2 gallon of pomegranate juice! But, for one or two pomegranates, and for less expense, I can see the appeal to your method. Thanks for sharing!
Interesting process, albeit little cumbersome. If you allow me to advertise, the best pomegranate juicers from Turkey are now available from our stock in Canada. Only 2 pieces to wash after usage. Very easy to use and durable made of certified metal alloys. We ship to USA and Canada free of charge. Here is the website: http://www.juicetract.com
You will get 15% discount if you contact us and mention familyspice.com as a referrer site.
Thank you
Jack
What brand and model are the juicer you bought from jamba juice, it seems different from most juicers on the market.
The juicer we have is the Miracle Stainless Steel Wheatgrass Juicer MJ550SS.
It works like a charm with pomegranate seeds!
My husband picks the pomegranates then removes the berry by cutting them in half and hitting them with a wooden spoon on the hard skin over a bowl of water. The berry falls into the water and the white membraime floates to the top of the water. It works pretty well. I then take the berrys and put them into my blender, run it on high for just a seconds. I then pour the juice and pulp into a cheese cloth covered large bowl. You could let it drip for some time but I squeeze out the juice and ring… Read more »
Hi Gerrie,
We tried the blender method as well, but we found the flavor of the juice to be more bitter, due to the seeds. But, I agree. If you don’t want to buy a juicer, it works well!
Ha – well, I might go to Jamba Juice just to see if I can find any good deals there! The juice is a great idea; hopefully I'll be getting a juicer for Christmas.
Gosh! You guys got serious about juicing those pomegranates (smile)! The juice looks wonderful though, and I love those stocking cups. Too cute…
Nice write up on juicing pomegranates too. I'm sure it will help some unsuspecting soul feel not so alone when having trouble with this task!