A Quick Tip to have fresh lemon juice at the ready—always

I love lemons, lemon juice, and my little electric fruit juicing machine I purchased many years ago. I have a real juicer, but the machine I’m talking about just juices fruit. It’s super easy and not a pain to clean like a real juicer.

Since I love to have real lemon juice squeezed into my water, or in tea, or when I make the Master Cleanser drink (lemon juice, maple syrup, and cayenne pepper), I pretty much always have lemons in my kitchen.

I’m also lazy, or perhaps it’s because I’m practical. No matter, I simply don’t love juicing 1/2 of a lemon, leaving the other half sitting around (no doubt losing potency) as well as having to constantly clean my little fruit juicer.

So I came up with a great idea (I am sure I’m not the first): putting fresh squeezed lemon juice into ice trays, then freezing for future use. That I am not the inventor of this was evidenced by the amount of photos of lemon juice in ice cube trays when I went searching for a photo for this article, along with countless blog posts. For me, it’s new—and I love it, even if I didn’t invent the thing!

Nevertheless, it has worked wonders for me and my ability to have lemon juice at the ready—always. I now put fresh squeezed lemon juice in an ice tray and make lemon ice! Each cube measures out to be a little over two tablespoons of juice, which is perfect. I can pop one in my water and the juice eventually melts as I’m drinking. The lemon cube easily melts in the hot water of tea. It may be a silly thing, but this has been a revelation for me! 

The greatest aspect about juicing for ice trays is I can juice many lemons all at once, therefore not having the endless clean up day after day that I had before. Plus no lemon goes unjuiced right after it’s sliced in half. So I must be getting more nutrients from all the lemons since none are sitting on my counter waiting for their turn to be juiced.

This photo is of a fruit juicer similar to the machine I use. Mine is so old, I’m sure they don’t make the exact model anymore. But most of the fruit juicers I looked at online were around $20 or so, and worth every penny. So get out your ice trays and start juicing some lemons—for your health!

A little extra tip: If I have other citrus fruit in my kitchen, I will juice some of those along with the lemons. The other day I juiced 3 lemons, a lime, and 1/2 of a grapefruit. So now I have mostly lemon cubes with a little extra flavor!

For more information, see:

• Hot water and lemon to the rescue to understand more about the importance of lemon juice
• Tips to help you Drink More Water!
• Water—It’s Important!: all links so far

UPDATE: I have found getting the individual lemon ice cubes out of the tray a bit difficult. I’m sure it is due to the sticky nature of the lemon juice. Now, after the cubes have solidified, I transfer them into a little plastic leftovers container. The amazing thing is the cubes, once in the container, don’t stick together. It makes it infinitely easier to put one cube into a glass of water.