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See why.The Best Electric Juicers
The juicer market can be complicated and confusing. We tested nine models, juicing more than 95 pounds of produce to find a winner.
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What You Need To Know
Juicing at home saves money, allows more control over juice ingredients, and can be more convenient than buying premade juice—if you invest in the right juicer. To find the best model, we assembled a lineup of nine juicers, priced from about $69 to about $450, and put them to the test, juicing more than 95 pounds of carrots, kale, and grapes. We evaluated how easy they were to assemble and operate, their speed and efficiency, the quality of their juice, and how simple they were to clean and maintain. We were looking for a speedy, efficient model that produced great-tasting juice.
All juicers work in roughly the same way: They process fruits and vegetables into pulp and then force the pulp through a fine filtration screen, leaving the solids behind and creating, well, juice. The two main types of juicers—centrifugal and masticating—process produce differently. Both types have their pros, cons, critics, and devotees, and it’s important to know the differences before buying one. To get a full picture of what’s available to consumers, we tested both types.
Centrifugal Juicers
Centrifugal juicers process produce by using a shredding disk (similar to that of a food processor), which is housed in a finely perforated filter basket. As the food is shredded into pulp, the spinning disk flings the pulp against the sides of the filter basket. The centrifugal force separates the juice, which is dispensed into one container, from the pulp, which is deposited into a second container. Centrifugal juicers are known for being relatively inexpensive and fast. But their swiftly spinning blades and powerful motors have given them a reputation for heating produce and introducing too much air, purportedly creating slightly warm, frothy juice.
During testing we found the centrifugal juicers to be powerful and loud. Some models wobbled and walked on the counter as they processed food, sometimes coming dangerously close to the edge of the sink or counter. And they were often messy: Some machines flung food from their feed tubes and onto our kitchen surfaces (and ceiling). But they can accommodate a lot of food at once; the models we tested have 3-inch-wide feed tubes that fit whole carrots, small apples, or entire leaves of kale, which eliminated the need for food prep. And they’re fast: Every centrifugal model in our lineup powered through a pound of carrots (about six carrots) in less than 50 seconds, with the fastest clocking in at 34 seconds.
Masticating Juicers
Masticating juicers (also called “slow” or “cold-press” juicers) don’t have sharp blades. Instead, they use a spinning screw-shaped press called an auger to grind pr...
Everything We Tested
Recommended - Masticating Juicer
- Ease of Use: 2.5 stars out of 3.
- Juice Quality: 2.5 stars out of 3.
- Assembly: 3 stars out of 3.
- Cleanup: 2.5 stars out of 3.
- Speed: 2.5 stars out of 3.
This juicer was the most straightforward and enjoyable to use of the masticating juicers, with parts that fit together easily and a relatively fast auger that chewed through carrots, kale, and grapes with ease. As with all the masticating juicers, we had to cut our produce to match the size of its narrow feed tube, but its juice was smooth. It was relatively easy to clean, especially with its included cleaning brush.
Recommended - Centrifugal Juicer
- Ease of Use: 2.5 stars out of 3.
- Juice Quality: 3 stars out of 3.
- Assembly: 3 stars out of 3.
- Cleanup: 2 stars out of 3.
- Speed: 3 stars out of 3.
Our winning centrifugal juicer is straightforward to assemble, with parts that fit together well. It’s fast, powering through a pound of carrots in 34 seconds, and it produced smooth juice from carrots, kale, and grapes alike. It had trouble efficiently processing kale leaves, though when we applied a few tips, such as firmly packing the leaves or rolling them up, we had more success. It was among the easiest to clean out of the centrifugal juicers and contained debris fairly well, flinging it from the feed tube much less often than the other centrifugals.
Recommended with reservations - Masticating Juicer
- Ease of Use: 2 stars out of 3.
- Juice Quality: 2 stars out of 3.
- Assembly: 3 stars out of 3.
- Cleanup: 3 stars out of 3.
- Speed: 1.5 stars out of 3.
This horizontal juicer was the easiest juicer to assemble and clean in our lineup, with parts that fit together well and a filtration screen that rinsed clean easily. It generally produced smooth juice that we liked, but the consistency of its kale juice was quite thick, almost like a smoothie. It was among the slowest models in our lineup. Food also sometimes got stuck in a gap between its feed tube and auger, and the tamper was not long enough to reach it.
- Ease of Use: 2 stars out of 3.
- Juice Quality: 2.5 stars out of 3.
- Assembly: 1.5 stars out of 3.
- Cleanup: 1.5 stars out of 3.
- Speed: 2.5 stars out of 3.
This model’s 3-inch feed tube was the largest among the masticating juicers, so it required less food prep. But its slow motor and auger couldn’t handle more than one carrot piece or small handful of kale leaves at a time, so its juicing time for 1 pound of carrots was still about 1½ minutes. Still, its juice was relatively smooth, and it stayed stable on the counter as it juiced. But it was very difficult to assemble and disassemble, and we struggled to clean it, even with its specialty cleaning tool.
Recommended with reservations - Centrifugal Juicer
- Ease of Use: 2.5 stars out of 3.
- Juice Quality: 2 stars out of 3.
- Assembly: 3 stars out of 3.
- Cleanup: 2 stars out of 3.
- Speed: 3 stars out of 3.
This juicer is easy to assemble and disassemble, with a powerful motor that juiced a pound of carrots in just 36 seconds. It stayed perfectly stable on the counter while in use, instead of shaking or walking like other centrifugal models, and it was relatively easy to clean, with a filter basket that rinsed free of pulp with some scrubbing. But its juice could be unpleasantly gritty, and it did a poor job processing kale, flinging whole kale pieces into its pulp catcher without juicing them and producing only a paltry 2.7 ounces of juice from a pound of kale.
- Ease of Use: 1.5 stars out of 3.
- Juice Quality: 1.5 stars out of 3.
- Assembly: 2.5 stars out of 3.
- Cleanup: 2 stars out of 3.
- Speed: 3 stars out of 3.
This model was fast, juicing a pound of carrots in 39 seconds, and it was relatively easy to clean, thanks in part to its helpful cleaning brush. But its juice was often gritty, and the machine was a bit unstable on the counter and extremely noisy while in use. Though its feed tube was large enough to accommodate multiple carrots or handfuls of kale, larger amounts of food tended to get stuck in the juicing chamber, and sometimes whole grapes would fly out of the feed tube.
Not Recommended - Masticating Juicer
- Ease of Use: 2.5 stars out of 3.
- Juice Quality: 2 stars out of 3.
- Assembly: 1.5 stars out of 3.
- Cleanup: 1 stars out of 3.
- Speed: 2 stars out of 3.
This model’s carrot juice was consistently gritty, and its kale juice was unpleasantly thick, similar in texture to a milkshake. Though it was relatively quick for a masticating juicer, it was tedious to take apart and clean, enough so that we would dread doing it every day. Its pulp chute was difficult to clean out: We couldn’t get it completely clean, even after digging with the sharp end of its included cleaning brush.
- Ease of Use: 2 stars out of 3.
- Juice Quality: 2 stars out of 3.
- Assembly: 1 stars out of 3.
- Cleanup: 1 stars out of 3.
- Speed: 1 stars out of 3.
This juicer was difficult to put together, with a filtration screen that often got awkwardly wedged against the auger and wouldn’t come apart without us wrenching it free. It was among the hardest to clean of all the juicers in our lineup; its filtration screen still had pulp remnants in it after a manufacturer-recommended 10-minute soak and intense scrubbing. It was also the slowest juicer in our lineup, taking 2½ minutes to juice 1 pound of carrots, and its juice was gritty and pulpy.
Not Recommended - Centrifugal Juicer
- Ease of Use: 1.5 stars out of 3.
- Juice Quality: 1.5 stars out of 3.
- Assembly: 1.5 stars out of 3.
- Cleanup: 1 stars out of 3.
- Speed: 2.5 stars out of 3.
This model was dangerously unstable while in use, often shaking and shimmying around on the counter, threatening to fall into the sink. It flung grape bits out of its feed tube and onto the ceiling. Its parts didn’t fit together securely, leaving a gap between its pulp chute and pulp bin that allowed pulp to spray everywhere. It was hard to take apart and difficult to clean, and its juice was often unpleasantly gritty.
Reviews you can trust
Reviews you can trust
The mission of America’s Test Kitchen Reviews is to find the best equipment and ingredients for the home cook through rigorous, hands-on testing. We stand behind our winners so much that we even put our seal of approval on them.
Chase Brightwell
Chase is an associate editor for ATK Reviews. He's an epidemiologist-turned-equipment tester and biscuit enthusiast.