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How To Freeze Lemon Juice

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Have you ever found a great sale on lemons and wondered if you should get a bunch of them, or if you did, what you would do with them all? Or maybe you wondered how to freeze lemon juice.

I have! In fact, a friend recently gifted us with a bushel box full of lemons. Yes, a bushel box! That’s a lot of potential lemon juice!

how to freeze lemon juice

We’re doing several things with them (more on that later), but the first thing we wanted to make sure of, was that we had a large quantity of frozen lemon juice stored up for future recipes and lemonades. Bottled juice is great for making easy goat cheese, or buttermilk substitutes, but when it comes to flavoring, fresh squeezed just can’t be beat!

If you’ve never frozen lemon juice before, or even if you have, this is by far the best method I’ve yet to find! 

How To Freeze Lemon Juice

Roll your lemons hard on a counter top to kind of break up the insides and make them easier to juice.

  • Cut the lemons in half
  • Juice them. I’ll be honest; this part is hard, even if you have one of these super-cool Kitchen Aid attachments like my mother-in-law (who graciously let me borrow it).
    how to freeze lemon juice
  • Pour your juice into ice cube trays, and freeze.
    This part is brilliant! If makes the juice so much more accessible.
    how to freeze lemon juice
  • Once the juice is frozen, pop it out of the ice cube trays. The great thing about this is that lemon juice comes out of the ice cube trays a lot easier than frozen water. No need to run hot water over the bottom of the tray!
  • Dump the lemon juice cubes into freezer bags and put them back in the freezer.
    how to freeze lemon juice
  • Why, you may be wondering, bother with the extra steps of freezing the lemon juice in ice cube trays when it’s so much easier to just pour it straight into freezer bags and be done with it?

Well, it’s pretty simple; this way, when you want a little bit of lemon juice, you can just reach in and grab a cube – you don’t have to thaw an entire bag.

how to freeze lemon juice

And it’s pre-measured! Standard ice cube trays hold 1 oz. of liquid, which is 2 Tablespoons or 1/8 of a cup. So it’s really easy to get exactly the right amount of lemon juice for your recipe!

So, the next time you see lemons on sale, think about how you can freshly squeezed lemon juice at your fingertips for making lemonade next summer – when lemon prices are much higher!

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36 Comments

  1. I have no idea how many lemons are in a bushel, but we got a big bag from my aunt’s over-productive tree and even that was too many for me to use! Now I know what to do with them the next time we get a bunch. It’s a nice gift, but I have no idea what to use lemons for. Do you have favorite recipes you like besides lemonade and cheese?

    1. Oh my gosh, that’s awesome! I just saw a lemon tree with lemons on it for the first time in my life last fall haha!
      Have you ever made lemon meringue pie? It’s amazing! Our favorite recipe for it just went live and you can see it here.

  2. What a great idea! Though I love lemon juice, so I’d be tempted to just suck on the ice cubes. 😛 (Maybe that will be my summer treat this year!) Found you on Showcase Your Talent. Thanks for sharing!

  3. Thank you so much for attending week 17 of #PureBlogLove and linking your fantastic blog post, I can’t wait to see what you have in store for our next party, Thursday 8 PM EST- Sundays at midnight. Your post has been added to the #PureBlogLove Pinterest board for all to see 🙂 Have a great day!
    Nicole

  4. Elise,I love this idea! Thank you. I often don’t have a lemon, and it is frustrating when I only need a little bit. Thank you for sharing on Snickerdoodle Sunday! I hope to see you next week! Shared!

  5. what a great idea!! I always buy the bag of lemons whenever I go to Costco and sometimes we just don’t use them all before they get too squishy! Going to have to do this! Thanks for sharing over at Cooking With Ruthie!

  6. oh great idea! I wish I had thought of this a few months ago – hubby had bought the GIANT sized bottle of lemon juice when I was doing some canning. Well it did not get used up before it’s expiration date and I ended up dumping the remainder a few months later. I could have frozen it and then no waste! Thanks for this smack against my head 🙂

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  8. I take advantage of sales at the grocery. I not only juice the lemons and freeze it, but I also zest the rind and freeze it too. It freezes well and is easy to separate out a small amount for a recipe. I do the same with oranges. If I buy them for lunches, I save the rind, zest it and freeze it. Then I have anytime I need it.

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  10. Great idea!! Especially when you end up with a bag of citrus that you’ll never eat through before it goes bad. Thank you so much for linking up to Snickerdoodle Sunday!

    Sarah (Sadie Seasongoods)

  11. Pingback: 8 Things You Can Freeze In Your Ice Cube Tray That Aren’t Just Plain Water | Aimee Reese
  12. I do this to my lemons/limes and even my fresh green herb seasoning. For the seasonings, I put them in the food processor and stuff them in ice cubes like you did, and fill in the empty spaces with olive oil. They are perfect for cooking and marinating meats etc. As for the lemons/limes, I use about 3-4 to make lemonade or whatever I might need it for.

  13. Tonight I used lemon juice in a Buttermilk Pie, the recipe in Farm Journal’s Complete Pie Cookbook.(c.1965 The recipe says a southern favorite. It’s in the oven, later I will top with meringue. Had to use up the buttermilk! It’s good to try new things ( I think!)

  14. Rind the lemons first and put in freezer bag. good for flavoring many foods and smoothie’s. good for you too

  15. My lemon tree drops enough to fill a 5 gallon bucket every day during its season. I cannot keep up on it and give lots away. I wonder about safety in the freezing. Freezing in silicone is thought safer than plastic, and then are there better qualities of freezer bags? Plastic has different qualities, but even frozen lemon juice is different than water and other frozen things. I’m experimenting with freezing in stainless steel and glass. I read even making fermented tea and brewing in porcelain can degrade walls of porcelain. Just trying to do the best we can with what we have and help others.

  16. Thank you for this. I’m a raging alcoholic and my poison is Long Island Iced Tea. Going to a restaurant will cost you between $10.00 – $13.00 per drink. I’m trying to make one for $6.00 and drink 2 a day (300ML alcohol total). Lemons in my area (closest to me) are $.80 and $.96 per lemon. I use 2 lemons in my Long Island Iced Tea recipe. At my rate, I’m spending almost $50.00 per batch on lemons. I’m going to follow your advice!

  17. I think it’s a good idea to remove as much air as possible from the bags before re-freezing. It’s surprising how much water (depending on the humidity) is in the air. It’s the air in the bag that creates the icicles that stick to the surface of the cubes and actually dilute the thawed juice and the oxygen in the air also contribute to taste change.
    If, like many people, you don’t have a vacuum sealer, an easy trick is to almost completely close the bag, leaving a small ‘hole’ at the end of each seal, then – after breathing out just cover the ‘hole’ with your mouth and breath in! the maximum amount of air will be removed and you can quickly finish sealing the bag.
    Remember that there is no contamination – you are breathing in and not possibly passing anything from your breath into the bag.
    Another good tip is to write “Lemon Juice” and the date on the bag/s before removing the trays from the freezer so that there is as little chance as possible of the cubes starting to thaw and then sticking together as they re-freeze in the bags. If I have enough room in my freezer (it’s usually pretty full) I put the trays of liquid in (or with0 a baking tray, into the freezer. This way, I can remove the baking tray and one of the juice tray at a time and pop the cubes out onto the ice-cold tray, which minimises the possibility of thawing while the blocks are out of the freezer. This is very handy if you need a certain amount of juice and want to remove a certain number of whole blocks – without having to ‘chisel’ them apart.

  18. Hi, Just found you page while looking for how to freeze lemon juice. I’m wondering if you have a web page where you update regularly if so I would love to join it. I grow lots of fruit and veg and use a dehydrator which means I’m always looking for help and advice.
    Many thanks for reading.

    Diana.

  19. This is a great idea. We have a dwarf Meyer lemon tree and I really didn’t want to waste all these lemon.

  20. I have been freezing lemon juice in the zip lock containers with screw on lids.It seems the juice is weaker tasting .Could it be picking up water as it is defrosting ???

  21. I tried this, but my cubes didn’t totally freeze on top, they are gooey. Like when you freeze something with a lot of sugar in it. Will they eventually freeze solid? Thank you!

  22. So I froze Tons of lemon juice into ice cube trays and put them in zip locks. Then the GFI went bad and all my juice defrosted into one big clump . Can I defrost and re freeze in ice cube trays ?

  23. I am using Meyer lemons and the tops are very sticky. I am afraid if I put the m in a bag they will all stick together Please HELP !! thank you

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