A simple method on how to make your own V8 juice at home. Homemade V8 juice costs a fraction of the price and is loaded with nutrients from all the fresh vegetables. You control the flavors and the salt!
Last week before my flight out to California I bought my first V8 juice.
Reading: make your own v8 juice
I paid $4.29 plus tax for it thanks to the lovely price gouging at JFK.
It was a last ditch attempt to get some vegetables in a pretty lack luster airport dinner.
I’ve had the craptastic tomato juice airlines carry before.
Once as a “hmm, let me try that out since everyone on a plane seems to love this stuff” and many other times in the form a Bloody Mary after a lucky upgrade to first class here and there.
To be blunt, it’s disgusting.
I have a strong hatred towards jarred/canned tomato sauces and to me, that’s exactly what that stuff tastes like.
So I had high hopes for the V8 I purchased.
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Fast forward 3 hours later and somewhere over the plains of Kansas, I broke it open, asked for a glass of ice and tried it out.
First thought: “hmm, not bad at all. A bit vegetabl-y but I guess that’s the point”.
It really is like drinking your vegetables, they don’t lie. Of course my immediate thought was “I totally need to try making this at home and tweaking it to my flavor/spice liking”.
So I made homemade V8 juice.
When you pile up all the vegetables that eventually end up being gulped down in a glass, it’s pretty impressive. Or weird, depending on how you look at it.
Yeah, I drank an onion. So what?
How To Make Your Own V8 Juice:
This is a little more involved than making a vegetable smoothie (like this detox green smoothie or this blueberry beet smoothie) or running some vegetables through a juicer – if you’re interested in juicing, check out my guide to juicing and then go and make this.
You want to cook, blend and then process the vegetables for the copycat V8 juice through a food mill (my mom always used this appliance to make tomato sauce – it brings such nostalgia every time I take it out of the cabinet) and then blend again.
There’s no master’s degree required or anything to make this juice (which is good because otherwise I couldn’t make my own recipe), just a few added steps to get a more juice like consistency that doesn’t lose any flavor (or nutrients!) at the same time.
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And, if you’ve ever tried to go the easy route and just blend it up without the other steps, you’ll realize pretty quickly why the extra steps are worth it.
Trust me. Chewing something that’s supposed to be a drink is just gross.
That said, the main ingredients for this homemade V8 are simple:
- tomatoes (obviously)
- onion
- garlic
- beet
- carrot
- cucumbers
Then some other minor ingredients for flavor and freshness:
- honey
- Worcestershire sauce
- tabasco
- fresh parsley
The end result of homemade V8 juice is a perfect balance between tomatoes, other flavoring vegetables and spice.
Rim it with some salt, throw it in a mason jar, squeeze some lemon on top and suddenly veggies become way cool.
Or, you’ve got one awesome tomato juice base for a Bloody Mary, my favorite alcoholic drink!
Either way works.
If these homemade hack kind of posts are your thing, be sure to check out these too:Simple Homemade PicklesHow to Ferment VegetablesHow To Roast ChickpeasHow To Make The Perfect Healthy SmoothieHow To Make a Homemade Sports Drink
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