Today one of my twitter pals posed the question, “What should I do with my leftover pulp after juicing?” That’s such a good question. Really the possibilities are endless, but it can be difficult to come up with creative answers on the spot, as she found out.
If you don’t want to reuse the fibrous pulp in other foods but don’t want to throw it in the garbage either, consider composting. Your plants will love it and you’ll be satisfied that you’ve immersed yourself in the processes of nature. Mother Earth News has several articles about starting your own composting bin.
Okay, so if you don’t have a need for compost soil or aren’t really into that much work, you can use the pulp in other food recipes. Sometimes you may want to put the pulp back into the juice. Mix these together in a blender or food processor. The pulp can also be baked in muffins, made into frozen treats, used to make soup, or dehydrated.
Fruit pulps make excellent sherbets and frozen yogurts. Really all you need is some yogurt, fruit pulp, and honey. Several frozen treat recipes incorporating the pulp of fruits, sweet vegetables, and herbs can be found in the book I recommend, The Juicing Bible.
Try putting some of your vegetable pulp into homemade veggie burgers or other such recipe that would call for vegetables. I like to put some in my vegetable enchiladas.
Don’t freak out about your juice pulp. Get creative, try something new. Still can’t decide? Freeze the pulp until you do!
Do you have an idea for using juice pulp? Let me know with your comments!
For some pulp such as apple and carrot etc I feed it to my chickens if I can’t use it some other way. I compost some that the chickens won’t eat, but that’s not much at all.
We use leftover pulp in soups and stews but the most popular use in my house is in muffins…at least a cup of high value pulp goes into one dozen muffins. As we use a mix of carrots, apples, leafy greens and pears and quince (in season) the pulp is different everytime resulting in a variety of muffin recipes. I use straight fuit juice as the sweetner, with small volumes of milk/yogurt whey/soy drink until the desired consistency is reached, depending on what is in the fridge.
The compost gets the rest!
We compost all leftover kitchen scraps – including juice pulp. plus, we’re getting goats soon and I know they’ll LOVE it!
Live in a Condo…so NO Composting aloowed….lol….I’ve been freezing the pulp….like in ice cube trays, then shuffle in2 a zip lock….Then I can drop ‘em in2 soups, crock-pot etc…Gr8 fiber & gr8 nutrition.
Duane,
Try worm composting. No smell and you can do it under your sink. My son started one for a science experiment and we’ve just kept it going. Find some Red Wigglers on Craigslist and let them make great compost for your house plants or patio tomato.
i just made a wonderful quick and easy raw avocado soup with some leftover pulp.
The pulp was made up of 1 cucumber + 1 apple + 1 lemon (peeled) + 1 lime (peeled). In a food processor i pureed 1 avocado and then added the pulp with some of or all of its juice. mix well and add coconut milk until it reaches a creamy consistency. season with salt/pepper and garnish with cilantro or parsley. yum. made a great lunch!
another variation of the recipe is a raw carrot ginger soup where you substitute carrot-ginger-lime (peeled) pulp/juice in place of the cucumber-apple-lemon. another yum!
happy mixing!