Wheatgrass Shot with Lemon and Ginger

Wheatgrass for a Shot

Wheatgrass, young wheat, is grown for its juice. The grass itself is too fibrous to eat, so it gets pressed. A tray grows into a dense green mat, and 80 g of grass gives 50-60 ml of juice, which is two shots. Fresh juice tastes intensely grassy and slightly sweet, like fresh-cut lawn. Lemon and ginger brighten it and take away the “lawn” impression.

A shot is 30 ml (1 fl oz). There’s no reason to drink wheatgrass by the glass, the flavor is too concentrated. If it’s your first time, start with half a shot.

About the Ingredients

Wheatgrass: cut it at 4.5-6 in (12-15 cm), when the second blade appears. Overgrown grass turns more bitter and tougher on the juicer.

Ginger: run a 5 g piece through the juicer with the grass so it spreads evenly.

Lemon juice goes into the finished juice, not onto the grass.

Technique: Juicer or Blender

A masticating (slow) juicer works best: it presses the grass slowly and gets the most juice. A centrifugal juicer doesn’t handle grass, since the fibers wrap around the basket and you get almost nothing. To make wheatgrass juice without a juicer, blend the grass with 60 ml cold water for 30-40 seconds, then strain through cheesecloth or a nut milk bag and squeeze hard. That juice is paler and diluted, and milder in flavor.

Raw Juice Safety

Fresh juice is unpasteurized, so cleanliness is everything. Cut the grass above the growing medium so you don’t catch seeds or roots, rinse it, wash the juicer right after use, and drink the juice right away. The FDA advises pregnant women, young children, older adults, and people with weakened immune systems to avoid unpasteurized juice. How that rule came about is told through the Odwalla case: E. coli in apple juice.

A wheatgrass shot is about 10 calories: the juice is mostly water, with a little lemon and ginger.

Variations

• With apple: add 60 ml fresh apple juice for a softer taste.
• With orange: 30 ml orange juice instead of lemon.
• In a smoothie: a wheatgrass shot hides well in a green banana smoothie.

Serving and Storage

Wheatgrass juice oxidizes quickly and loses its fresh taste, so make it right before drinking. Keep uncut grass growing in the tray and cut only what you need each time. More about the crop itself is in our article on wheatgrass. For a green smoothie with microgreens, try the sunflower microgreen smoothie.