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These days, I can barely figure out what’s for dinner, let alone take the time to ensure I’ve used fresh, hand-prepped ingredients in a recipe. However, when I see something calling for “freshly squeezed lemon juice,” I no longer shudder with dread and grab the citrus concentrate from my fridge door.
That’s because a few years ago, I purchased a citrus juicer that is the most efficient tool I’ve found to squeeze the juice out of lemons.
$18 (was $25) from Amazon $20 (was $34) from Walmart
The juicer in question is the Chef’n FreshForce Citrus Juicer, and you can buy it on a number of websites. I purchased ours on Amazon for about $20 back in 2020. It’s now available in bright green and orange in addition to the yellow color I have, with prices ranging from $16.21 to $28.38 right now. (The yellow juicer had a “limited deal” price of $18.32 when I wrote this.)
This cheerful yellow Chef’n juicer has gotten a lot of use in our family in the last few years. I’m not going to lie, a lot of times it’s for the lemon martini I ask my amateur bartender husband to make for me rather than delightful lemon bars or other baked goods I’m producing.
And indeed, the original intent in buying this juicer was for it to be included with other bartending tools as a Father’s Day gift for said husband. I picked the Chef’n juicer because it was on a list of top-rated bar paraphernalia.
While my husband and I have certainly used this a lot for cocktails, it of course comes in handy for anything requiring fresh squeezed lemon juice. Our kids had a lemonade stand this summer, where it really got a workout as we squeezed the juice from a few dozen lemons. And more than three years after I first bought it, it’s pretty much as good as new.
MORE: The best juicer
Speaking of kids, the grip strength required to squeeze a lemon in this juicer might be too much for a child to do alone. Instead, my kids enjoy the classic glass juicer we inherited from a relative, similar to this one you can find on Amazon. But I find that the Chef’n citrus juicer gets more liquid out per lemon than that glassware. (Chef’n claims it extracts 20% more juice than other hand juicers.)
How do you use it? In a bit of a counterintuitive step, you place the cut side of your citrus fruit facing down in the yellow strainer basket. It feels like you should place the rounded side nesting against the rounded basket, but you want the cut end closer to the holes. The rounded stainless steel end compresses the slice and lets all the juice filter out through the strainer. The dual gears help make for an easy and powerful squeeze.
Because of its design, the strainer keeps seeds and a lot of pulp from getting through to your freshly squeezed juice.
It weighs about a pound and is just over 10 inches long. I’ve found the handles, which are made of BPA-free nylon material, to have a comfortable grip with no slip. It’s top-rack dishwasher safe, too, though the company recommends hand-washing, and that’s what we do.
Of course, if you’re planning to regularly juice whole pitchers worth of citrus fruits, you’re going to maybe want an electric juicer that works faster and handles more fruit at a time. But for our family’s purposes, the Chef’n juicer has been perfect.
MORE: The best manual juicer
Chef’n also has a newer and slightly more expensive version with a hang loop and wider feet so it can rest upright.
Speaking of some other frequently used items in my kitchen, who else loves a good Pyrex mixing cup like the one pictured above? And we received the Catskill cutting board pictured as a wedding gift back in 2011. It’s used multiple times a week, and I love how you can scrape chopped vegetables right into the removable storage containers as you work.
Do you have a favorite kitchen product you use on endless repeat?
Any products or services mentioned above were selected independent of sales and advertising. However, Simplemost may receive a small commission from the purchase of any products or services through an affiliate link to the retailer's website.
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