How to Prepare Beets for Juicing: Peel, Cut, and Clean (Plus Greens)

To prepare beets for juicing: scrub them hard under running water, trim the top and the root tail, peel them with a vegetable peeler (optional if organic, but it improves the taste), cut into one-inch wedges, and feed them through the juicer slowly between softer ingredients. Raw, not cooked.

Whole process, about two minutes per beet, plus a rinse of your hands before the red sets in.

Beets are the ingredient beginners are most nervous about, and I get it: they’re hard, they’re dirty, and they stain everything. But they’re also one of the most worthwhile things to juice, and once you’ve done it twice it’s routine.

Here’s every step, the peel-or-don’t question answered honestly, what to do with the greens, and how to keep your kitchen from looking like a crime scene.

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How to Prepare Beets for Juicing, Step by Step

1. Choose the Right Beets

Small to medium beets, about the size of a tennis ball or smaller, are sweeter and less woody than big ones. They should be firm with smooth skin.

If the greens are attached, they should look fresh; wilted greens mean the beet has been sitting a while. Golden and striped Chioggia beets juice the same way and taste milder, and they don’t stain.

2. Cut Off the Greens and the Tail

Slice the greens off about half an inch above the beet and set them aside. Trim the thin root tail. If you’re storing beets rather than juicing right away, do this step first; the greens pull moisture out of the root.

3. Scrub, Don’t Just Rinse

Beets grow in soil and the skin is rough. Scrub under cold running water with a vegetable brush until the water runs clean. Pay attention to the crown where the stems attached, which traps dirt. This step matters whether you peel or not, because the peeler drags whatever’s on the skin into the flesh.

4. Peel (Or Don’t)

Should you peel beets before juicing? My honest answer: peel them if you want the juice to taste good, skip it if you want to save 60 seconds. The skin carries most of the earthy, dirt-like flavor (a compound called geosmin).

Peeled beet juice is sweeter and cleaner. A regular vegetable peeler takes the skin off a raw beet in about 30 seconds. If your beets are organic and scrubbed well, unpeeled is safe and slightly more nutritious; it’s a taste call.

5. Cut into Wedges

Halve the beet, then cut each half into wedges about an inch wide at the thick end. For a wide-chute centrifugal juicer, halves or quarters are fine. For a slow juicer, keep pieces to an inch or less; beets are dense, and forcing a big chunk is how augers jam and motors strain.

6. Feed Slowly, Between Soft Ingredients

Don’t lead with the beet. Put some cucumber or apple through first, then alternate beet wedges with softer things, and finish with something juicy to flush the last of the red through.

Let the juicer pull each piece in rather than pushing hard on the plunger. The general feeding order for all produce is in how to prepare fruits and vegetables for juicing.

7. Rinse the Juicer Immediately

Beet pigment stains plastic if it dries. Rinse the parts under hot water before you drink. If something’s already stained, a paste of baking soda and water, or a lemon half rubbed over it, lifts most of it.

What About the Greens?

Juice them. Beet greens are in the same family as chard and are loaded with vitamin K, magnesium, and iron. Wash them like any leafy green, roll them into a bundle, and feed them between beet wedges or cucumber chunks.

They’re mildly earthy and mostly disappear behind the beet. If you don’t want them in the juice, they sauté in two minutes with garlic and olive oil. Don’t throw them out.

How Much Beet to Use

One small beet, or half a medium one, per 12-ounce juice. Beets are the sweetest vegetable most people juice, at 8 to 10 grams of sugar per small beet, and the flavor is strong. One beet with a cucumber, half a lemon, and a thumb of ginger is the classic ratio.

Two beets in a glass is a lot of sugar and a lot of earth. The recipes and the reasons to bother are in juicing beets: benefits and recipes.

Managing the Stains (And the Pink Surprise)

• Hands: rub with lemon juice or a paste of baking soda and water, then wash. Or wear gloves; a pair of disposable ones lives next to my juicer.
• Cutting board: use a plastic or glass board, or put a piece of parchment on a wooden one. Wood absorbs beet pigment permanently.
• Counters and clothes: wipe spills right away. Dried beet juice on a light countertop needs baking soda; on fabric, cold water and dish soap before it dries.
• You: beet juice turns urine and stool pink or red in about 10 to 15 percent of people. It’s called beeturia, it’s harmless, and it startles everyone once.

Prepping Beets Ahead

Scrubbed, peeled, and cut beets keep three to four days in a sealed container in the fridge, so they fit the Sunday prep routine fine. They’ll bleed a little; that’s normal. Whole unpeeled beets, greens removed, keep two to three weeks in the crisper.

You can also freeze cut raw beets for juicing, though they soften and yield a bit less. And once you’ve juiced, the pulp makes surprisingly good brownies and hummus, which is one of the 25 pulp uses.

Beet Prep FAQ

Your This-Week Plan

• Buy a bunch of small beets with the greens on, plus a cucumber, a lemon, and ginger.
• Prep one beet the full way: trim, scrub, peel, wedge. Time it. Two minutes.
• Juice it with the cucumber, half the lemon, and a thumb of ginger, greens included. Rinse the juicer before you drink.
• Next time, try one beet unpeeled and decide for yourself. Then read juicing beets for the benefits and more recipes, and the beginner’s guide for the rest.

This article is for general education and isn’t medical advice. Beets are high in oxalates and natural sugars; if you have a history of kidney stones, manage blood sugar, or take blood pressure medication (beet juice can lower blood pressure), talk with your healthcare provider before making beet juice a regular habit. Pink urine or stool after beets is usually harmless, but see your provider if it persists without beets.