Juicing Watermelon (Rind and Seeds Included): Benefits and Recipes

Juicing watermelon is the easiest juice you’ll ever make: it’s 92 percent water, so a few cups of chunks become a tall glass in seconds, and yes, you can juice the rind and the seeds.

The rind is where the citrulline is, the seeds pass harmlessly through the juicer’s screen, and both add nutrients the pink flesh doesn’t have.

The catch is sugar. Watermelon juice is sweet, fast-absorbing, and best treated as a summer treat rather than a daily green juice substitute.

Here’s what watermelon juice honestly does for you, how to juice the whole thing including the rind, yields and sugar per glass, why yellow watermelon is worth trying, and five recipes that keep the sugar in check.

Watermelon Juice Benefits, Graded

How to Juice a Watermelon, Rind and All

1. Wash the outside with a brush and running water. Melons grow on the ground, and the knife drags whatever’s on the skin through the flesh.
2. Cut off the ends, stand it up, and slice into wedges. A large serrated knife is easiest.
3. Decide on the rind. For rind-in juice, slice off only the thin green outer skin and keep the white part. For flesh-only, cut the pink away from the rind.
4. Cut into chute-sized chunks. Leave the seeds in for a juicer. For a blender, flick out the black seeds; white ones are fine.
5. Feed steadily. Watermelon is so wet it can flood a centrifugal juicer if you rush; a slow juicer handles it without effort.

Blender method: blend chunks with no added water, then strain through a fine mesh strainer or nut milk bag. Watermelon is one of the few things that barely needs straining. Details in how to juice without a juicer.

Is Juicing Watermelon Rind Good for You?

Yes. The white rind is edible, crisp, and mild, somewhere between cucumber and honeydew in flavor.

It carries most of the watermelon’s citrulline, an amino acid your body converts to arginine, which supports blood flow, and it has fiber and a little vitamin C. It also cuts the sweetness of the juice, which is a plus.

Two rules. Wash the outside thoroughly, since you’re juicing what was touching the ground. And peel off the thin dark-green outer skin; it’s tough and can taste bitter. A ratio of one part rind to three parts flesh tastes like watermelon with a cucumber note. Half and half tastes mostly like rind.

Seeds: In or Out?

In a juicer, leave them. The screen catches them and they add nothing bad. Some juicers crack a few and add a faint nutty note; that’s fine. In a blender, remove the black seeds, because blended seeds make the juice gritty and slightly bitter. Seedless watermelons have soft white seeds that can go either way.

Yield and Sugar

• Three cups of chunks: about 12 ounces of juice.
• A small (5 lb) seedless watermelon: 5 to 6 cups of juice.
• Sugar: about 10 grams per 8 ounces, 15 per 12. Roughly a third of orange juice, three times a green juice.
• Calories: about 70 per 8 ounces.

That makes watermelon juice a reasonable summer treat, a good post-walk drink, and a poor daily habit if weight or blood sugar is the goal. Cut it with cucumber and it moves toward the vegetable end. The sugar logic for all juice is in juicing vegetables vs. fruits.

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Yellow Watermelon

Yellow-fleshed watermelon is the same species with a different pigment. It juices identically, tastes a touch sweeter and more honey-like, and lacks the lycopene that makes red watermelon red (it has other carotenoids instead).

It’s worth buying when you see it, mostly for the color: yellow watermelon-mint juice is beautiful. Same seeds, same rind, same rules.

Five Watermelon Juice Recipes

• Watermelon Lime: 3 cups watermelon, 1 lime (peeled). Two ingredients. The one that gets kids and skeptics on board.
• Watermelon Cucumber Mint (lower sugar): 2 cups watermelon, 1 cucumber, a handful of mint, half a lime. The cucumber halves the sugar per glass.
• Watermelon Rind Ginger: 2 cups flesh, 1 cup white rind, a thumb of ginger, half a lime. Citrulline-forward and less sweet.
• Watermelon Basil Lemon: 3 cups watermelon, a handful of basil, half a lemon. Tastes like summer in Italy.
• Post-Walk Watermelon: 2 cups watermelon, 1 cucumber, half a lime, a pinch of sea salt. Water, potassium, sodium, citrulline. A natural recovery drink.

Frozen watermelon chunks blended with lime make a slush that’s better than any store-bought version. More summer options are in the beginner recipes.

Storage: Drink It Today

Watermelon juice separates within minutes and ferments faster than most juices because of its sugar and water content. Shake before drinking, keep it sealed and cold, and finish it within a day.

It freezes well into ice pops and cubes; a watermelon-lime cube in a glass of sparkling water is a good habit. General storage rules are in how long fresh juice lasts.

The pulp is minimal and mostly seeds and rind fiber; compost it, or if you juiced rind-in, the pulp goes fine into a smoothie. The bigger opportunity is the leftover rind you didn’t juice: pickled watermelon rind is a real thing and a good one.

Juicing Watermelon FAQ

Your This-Week Plan

• Buy a small seedless watermelon in season. Wash the outside before you cut it.
• Make Watermelon Lime once, plain. Then make the rind version and compare.
• Freeze the rest into cubes for sparkling water all week.
• Keep watermelon as the weekend treat and green juice as the weekday habit, per the beginner’s guide.

This article is for general education and isn’t medical or nutrition advice. Watermelon juice is moderately high in natural sugar and, with rind included, in potassium; if you manage diabetes or kidney disease, talk with your provider about how it fits your plan. Wash melons thoroughly before cutting, since the rind touches the soil. Fresh juice is unpasteurized; drink it the same day.