Saving Orange Juice

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I recently bought 80 pounds of oranges. Yes. 80 POUNDS. No I’m not a crazy. (Hopefully) I’ve mentioned before that we don’t buy regular juice so any added juices we want for meals or snacks we have to make ourselves. Here’s what I do to store all that juice!

I started with organic oranges. Make sure you wash your oranges no matter if you use organic or not.

Cut.

Juice.

( I have a Juiceman Citrus Juicer)

Pour the fresh juice into ice cube trays.

Yes, it smells amazing, Yes, you are more than welcome to have a taste test.

Then after they are frozen, I pop out the orange juice cubes and keep them all in a gallon freezer bag. Each time I make smoothies I can add in a couple or if we want a glass of fresh orange juice just put a few in a glass, thaw, and enjoy!

Not sure what to do with all the leftover peels? Put water in a saucepan and add the orange peels. Simmer on a low heat and make your house smell pretty. 🙂

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49 Comments

  1. Great post! I was wondering…how much juice do you get from 80 lb. of oranges, and would the frozen cubes need to be diluted with water when you melt them down?

    1. It depends on the oranges. For this batch I got one ice cube tray from 4 oranges. And I don’t water them down but you could if you wanted:)

  2. My husband grew up on a property in Florida with 80 citrus trees. His mother juiced ‘tons’ of oranges when the trees were full of fruit every year and froze it by the gallon. It took years after we were married for him to be willing to drink juice again because he had had so much growing up. I think it would have been great!

  3. I would love to have enough oranges to be able to juice and freeze like this. It would taste much better than store bought. With the peels after you can put them in vinegar to make a better smelling cheap household cleaner. Also you can use the peels to make citrus peel candies.

  4. I definitely like this idea. We have a Jack Lalayne power juice, too. I”m guessing you had to peel the oranges first, before juicing them? What a great idea. My dad would love this, because he loves making fresh-squeezed orange juice 🙂 Love and hugs from the ocean shores of California, Heather 🙂

  5. Wow, that’s nice, and especially the last part! Very creative. The last (and first) time I tried to juice red grapefruit I somehow juiced the entire things, peel and all, and it was almost the consistency of jell-o. Cool, but a total bomb!

  6. You can also dry the peels and then grind them up to make powdered Vitamin C. I make it and add it to smoothies or wherever you would like just a hint of orange.

  7. I use my peels in my cleaning vinegar! It makes it smell good and the citrus also helps cut through soap scum!

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  9. I peel my oranges before I use them and save the zest for recipes that call for zest or I put them in with my loose tea when I make tea. I usually do 1 part green tea, 1 part raspberry leaf tea and a piece of orange peel. It makes a nice summer time tea.

  10. We also freeze lemon juice into ice cubes. We have citrus trees and store all our juice in recycled plastic bottles to freeze. A typical 12 oz water bottle of lemon juice makes 1 gallon of lemonade (w/ sugar). A 64 oz bottle makes 4 gallons of lemonade.

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  12. Love oranges. But I see in the picture that you have them in quart jars, and frozen. Did you put up the orange juice in the jars? How did you do it?
    Thanks!

    1. I did not freeze them in the jars. I juiced all my oranges first and then I pour them into the ice cube trays to freeze them. Then I store the cubes in freezer bags. It’s just easier for me to juice them all at once even though I can’t freeze it all right away because then I don’t have to keep getting out my juicer!

  13. Hi, when you put the orange peels on the stove, add a cinnamon stick (I’ve even used a few sprinkles of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger) – wonderful aroma 🙂

  14. Pull off the excess pulp, just leaving the peel and the pith. Then stick whole cloves through strips of the peel. These can be hung in a window or doorway, or even in a closet. They smell wonderful and keep closets smelling fresh..

  15. I put my orange peels in a large canning jar and add white vinegar
    let it set for 7 to 10 days…then remove peels and strain. I then add to a spray bottle for washing counter tops, windows etc.
    Nice citrus smell too : )

  16. I took and juiced 8 pounds of each meyer lemons and blood oranges this past winter. From there I made meyer lemon sorbet and blood orange sherbet and enjoyed it this summer when It was hot.

  17. Where were you able to buy 80-lbs of organic oranges? I would love to find someplace where I can buy organic produce in bulk like that.

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  19. You can make an amazing cleaning enzyme from those orange rinds. Google garbage enzyme for all kinds of information on it.

  20. I make simmering potpourri from dried apple slices, dried orange slices, whole cloves, and broken up cinnamon sticks. I have sold little bags and have given them as gifts. As I’m sure you know, when slicing both the apples and oranges there are lots of not so pretty slices. I store the pretty ones and the scrappy ones seperately. I simmer the scrappy ones for myself 🙂 I keep the pretty ones for various crafts. I’m sure it would smell just as delish without the apples. Just dry the rinds and put them in a jar. You never know what sort of interesting use you csn find for them.

  21. I was just wondering when you thaw them to drink do you add anything to them or is it just straight Orange Juice? I wasn’t sure if i should add sugar or some sort of sweetner to cut the acid of the juice.

    1. I don’t personally add anything to them but it would be up to your individual tastes 🙂 I actually usually use these in smoothies.

  22. When you are finished juicing and making marmalade and candied citrus peel etc, you can take the pulp and put it in the compost ! No waste ! That is the way I like to live ! 🙂

  23. I LOVE this idea! I’ve been wondering how to include oranges and orange juice in my smoothies. Orange juice can be so expensive, but when you have a bunch of extra oranges, this makes total sense! I’m for sure going to do this!

  24. An Average Size Orange is between .5 and .66 LBs
    1.32 lbs of Orange makes about 1.5 cups
    Basically it seems like every LB of Orange = 1 cup
    (a little more then 1 cup)

  25. I have used the pulp from my juicer as an ingredient in healthy muffins. It was two years ago and don’t have the recipe, but sure that one could easily be found on pinterest! Thanks for the freezing tips!

  26. I’ve been told orange peels repel pests in the yard and garden such as squirrels, voles, etc. Maybe even deer?

  27. It super easy to make marmalade from the peels, then there’s less waste! Plus it’s delish

  28. I freeze my orange peels in ziplock bags and then when I want to freshen and clean my sink garbage disposal I just pull out a few frozen strips and whiz them. The smell is wonderful and with it being frozen it also acts as a cleaner for the blades in your sink disposal unit.

  29. When I was young my family always froze the hundreds of oranges we got every year but the consistency was off. The juice would separate from the natural water in the juice so we would only use it blended with other grit. Did we do something wrong to not be able drink it “straight” after thawing?

  30. Put orange peels in a jar then add white vinegar put seal and rim on let sit for two weeks you have homemade cleaner