I love Soursop Juice!
The creamy tropical fruit tastes great, especially when prepared fresh from scratch and it's healthy as well.
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Yet, there are many misconceptions about this tasty fruit and open questions on how to use soursop as a fruit and, most importantly, how to prepare soursop.
Today I cover how to make soursop fruit a healthy fresh breakfast juice so that you can start juicing this amazingly tasty exotic fruit at home!
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📕 What is Soursop?
The Soursop fruit has many names, and you might know it better as Graviola, Guanabana, or Guyabano.
Soursop is part of the custard apple family, which means it's related to the Sugar Apple, Bull's heart, Cherimoya, and Rollinia.
Therefore, the soursop is a tropical fruit growing in humid, wet climates around the world.
The fruit is green and looks like dragon skin on the outside.
The inside is white creamy and kind of a bit grainy.
The seeds are black but can't and shouldn't be consumed.
I wrote about tropical fruits recently and together with a little travel and food bloggers I compiled a list of all these exotic fruits (which also includes the soursop) so that you get some assistance identifying some lesser commercialized fruits from your supermarket's fresh section.
✔️ Soursop Health Benefits
The soursop was catapulted into fame because of one particular reason: Cancer.
Supposedly someone claimed that soursop could cure cancer...
The moment you read that fruit could cure cancer, you should know that this can't be real, or else everyone would be cured by now.
Right?
I have to emphasize that because I received desperate emails from cancer-suffering readers over the years when I published my soursop post back in 2011.
At some point, I had people standing in front of our door with an icebox, willing to take soursop fruits back home.
I also saw people taking advantage by selling a tiny half-rotten fruit at the rate of 20 USD!
So please DO NOT FALL FOR THE SOURSOP CANCER CURE TRAP!
What soursop does, however, is it may prevent cancer.
Just the way other fruits do which are rich in Antioxidants.
These fruits rich in Vitamin C promote cell health and repair.
Other fruits which are rich in Antioxidants:
- Currants (Black, Red & White) and Jostaberries
- Guavas
- Citrus fruits such as Grapefruit and Orange
You will discover sooner or later that fruits that are rather sour tend to contain more antioxidants than other fruits.
Besides, it's also important to mention that there is a difference in vitamin C amounts between wild fruits and humanly cultivated fruits.
A good example, in that case, is blueberries.
The taste of a foraged blueberry is intense compared to the bigger-sized grocery blueberries, and that's already your first indication of "quality" nutrients for your body.
📜 Growing Soursop Tree
You can grow soursop if you live in a frost-free environment.
Simple as that!
Soursop trees need a lot of rainwater and a warm environment.
Places like Florida and Hawai provide perfect growing conditions in the world.
The Guanabana tree also grows perfectly well in Central and South America, in fact, the fruit comes from the region.
Besides that Soursop has been grown successfully in Africa and Asia.
By the way, soursop leaves can be used to prepare a herbal tea.
The leaves smell kind of like allspice, they have some sharp aroma which frequently reminds me of blackcurrant shrubs.
🔪 How to cut a Soursop fruit and prepare a Juice?
Thankfully preparing Soursop Juice from scratch is easy if you know how to prepare the fruit.
Your soursop should be slightly soft to the touch.
That is how you know your fruit is ready.
Buying your guanabana from the store, you can pick a fruit that is still hard but green.
The soursop can be left to ripen for 1-2 days until it is perfect.
To use the soursop fruit flesh you will need to peel the fruit first.
Then half and quarter the fruit and cut the inner fibrous part which is getting brown when it meats oxygen.
Now comes the tedious part.
You need to pick out each and every seed.
They are easy to spot and you can feel them between the fruit flesh so best is to use your hands to pick out the seeds.
The seeds are said to be poisonous (not sure if that is even true).
Next place your fruit flesh into the mixer, add water, and mix smooth.
At last, you are left to strain the juice as you would do with most other fresh fruit juices.
You may add sugar, I don't because I feel the fruit is sweet enough.
Besides, adding sugar to fruit juices is a bad habit, except if it's a very sour fruit or almost tasteless fruit such as papaya.
You can add ice cubes if you feel like it or keep the juice in the fridge for a few hours.
Tip: Soursop leaves can be used as well to make soursop tea.
Tools that I use to prepare the soursop juice for my breakfast
Because you won't need a juicer to make the soursop juice, you should nonetheless use a powerful mixer.
The Vitamix is meant for these kinds of breakfast treats and I wouldn't recommend another gadget to prepare your breakfast smoothies and juices as this is an investment for your home for the next years to come!
💡 Exotic Fruit Juice Ideas
Dear Reader, can you buy the soursop fruit easily in your part of the world?
📖 Recipe
Soursop Juice Recipe
Instructions
- Peel your soursop fruit, half and quarter the white fruit flesh.
- Cut off the inner fibrous part of the fruit which is getting a bit brown when in contact with air.
- Pick out all the seeds. The easiest way to do that is to use your hands because you can feel the seeds easily and you will be faster that way at the end.
- Place the fruit flesh into the mixer, add the water and mix to a smooth juice.
- Strain the soursop juice and then you can enjoy it.
Notes
- You may add sugar but it's usually not necessary. The fruit should be sweet enough.
- Add more water to thin out the juice.