Whether you’re making a homemade pitcher of lemonade or a sweet and tart key lime pie, you’re going to need a lot of freshly-squeezed citrus juice. And while lemons and limes are packed full of bright flavor, extracting their juice can feel like more effort than it’s worth. If you’ve found yourself squeezing lemon after lemon, just to get a measly amount of juice, you’re not alone. Luckily, there’s a tried-and-true technique that chefs swear by, and it starts before you even slice into your favorite citrus fruit.
“A simple trick is to roll the citrus firmly on the counter before you cut it,” says Chef Abram Bissell, culinary director of The Shelborne Proper, a newly opened hotel in Miami Beach, Florida. “This loosens up the membranes inside and helps release more juice.” To do this, simply place your lemon or lime on the counter and press firmly with your palm. From there, apply even pressure to the fruit, rolling it back and forth a few times. You’ll feel the fruit getting softer as you go, which is your cue that the inner membranes have been broken up. After you’re done rolling the fruit, you’ll notice that the juice flows out much more easily as you squeeze it, allowing you to get a significantly higher yield per fruit. It’s a low-effort step that boasts surprisingly great results.
Other methods for extracting the most juice from your citrus
Rolling your citrus on the counter isn’t the only method for extracting the most juice. It might sound odd, but briefly microwaving a lemon or lime can make it juice a lot easier. To do this, place your citrus fruit in the microwave at full power for about 20 or 30 seconds. Allow it to come back to room temperature, then cut and juice as you please. The reason why this method works is that as the fruit cooks in the microwave, the water molecules in the fruit’s interior are heated intensely, causing the juice-filled membranes to burst.
Another time-tested technique involves cutting your lemon or lime lengthwise instead of crosswise. It might not seem like this would make that much of a difference, but by cutting lengthwise, the surface area of the cut fruit is increased, which allows it to release far more juice than the standard cut. You can slice lengthwise down the middle of the fruit, or you can cut it off-center, which is how celebrity chef Jacques Pépin cuts his lemons to get the most juice.
Finally, if you don’t have any dedicated citrus-juicing tools, look no further than your silverware drawer for an easy way to juice a lemon or lime. After cutting your fruit (lengthwise works best for this), squeeze it as normal. From there, use a fork to scrape out the extra juice left behind.
