When it comes to the best tomato juicer, there is no “one size, fits all” and that’s because we often want different things out of crushing tomatoes. If you just want juice rather than paste from your tomatoes, for example, and you want to juice other fruits and vegetables, you are better off investing in a multi-purpose electric juicer, the most powerful you can find. If, on the other hand, you simply want a machine to deal with the glut of tomatoes you have every year in your garden so that you can create beautiful organic tomato juice and tomato paste then a manual or electric tomato press is the best machine for you. We will look at both types below and provide recommendations.
Whichever type tomato juicer you go for, you will get more of the wonderful benefits from your tomatoes by processing them. Juicing tomatoes makes their nutrients more accessible to your body and as they are rich in Vitamin C, the anti-oxidant beta-carotene and lycopene, you will get nutrients in abundance. Tomatoes are said to help heart health and lower vitamin C and of course, they add to you overall intake of fruit and vegetables which has a protective effect against cancer.
Tomatoes Ripe for Juicing!
Commercial juices and pastes have some of the benefits of the tomato but lose much of their nutritional and therapeutic value with pasteurization, processing and storage. There is nothing to beat freshly pressed juice. Even if you store your own juice it will oxidize very rapidly and lose some of its value within twenty four hours. Plus, salt and sugar are often added to processed products.
How to Choose a Tomato Press
The tomato juicers that fall into the category of a tomato press are generally manual although there is an option for an electric tomato press if you deal with a lot of tomatoes at one time. The manual tomato presses are fastened to the table or counter top with a strong clamp and you have a hopper at the top to feed in cut tomatoes, then you turn the handle or crank and tomato juice or chunkier paste is produced leaving behind residue, skin and seeds.
Capacity
The higher the capacity of the hopper, the quicker it will be to finish the job if you juice a lot of tomatoes at one time.
Multiple Outputs
Look for a tomato strainer that has at least an output for juice and one for paste so that you can produce a delicious drink and the ingredients for pizza, pasta sauce, chili and other tomato based dishes.
Fastening Device
You need a machine which can be firmly fastened to your work surface as you will be putting quite a bit of pressure on the machine when you crank the handle and the last thing you want is for your tomato juicer to come loose with tomato mess everywhere.
Materials
You can buy a plastic or stainless steel tomato press. Choose stainless steel if you can as you will find that although it is more expensive, it is stronger and does not discolor or stain. Use the cheaper plastic option only if straining tomatoes is an occasional rather than a regular activity. Actually you might begin with that if you are not sure whether you will enjoy the process and then upgrade later once you find out how much better everything tastes using fresh tomatoes.
How to Choose an Electric Tomato Juicer
If you think you want a juicing machine to juice a mixture of fruit and vegetables as well as tomatoes, you are looking at an entirely different set of criteria from the manual tomato juicer but the most important is the power of the machine
Tomatoes are one of the easiest foods to juice as they are so soft, but other fruits and vegetables are more reluctant to be turned into liquid and therefore you should choose the most powerful juicing machine you can afford. The more powerful the equipment, the more juice you will get out of your produce and the less pulp will be left behind. In fact the most powerful juicers such as the Vitamix don’t leave any pulp behind and turn everything into juice giving you the maximum possible nutrients from everything. In this case, the skin and seeds of the tomatoes are not left behind and you get the benefits rather than putting them in the trash. This is important as many nutrients are found in the skins and fibers of produce.
Capacity, in this instance, is also important of course but if you are looking to get the most benefits out of your juice you are better processing in relatively small quantities and not a greenhouse full of tomatoes as you might if you are thinking of canning tomatoes for winter.
An Electric Tomato Press Alternative
If you own a mixer you might find that there is an attachment which will juice tomatoes for you with relative ease. For example there is a KitchenAid strainer attachment (officially the KitchenAid Fruit & Vegetable Strainer & Grinder Attachment FVSGA) which fits to your KitchenAid stand mixer. This will save you space as well as money over juicer machines and of course this means you have an electric tomato strainer at your fingertips not just a manual one as well as an all-purpose vegetable strainer.
Here are some recommended options for tomato juicers.
 Back to Basics 220 Food Strainer (Click Image for Details) |
This simple manual food mill has great reviews specifically for processing tomatoes for example one reviewer writes… “processed two hundred tomatoes without a problem”. See all the reviews HERE and get the details plus a discounted price. More for paste than juice. |
 Spremy Electric Tomato Strainer (Click Image for Details) |
An electric version which does a great job too of producing smooth tomato paste, even on 7 bushels of tomatoes (can’t even imagine how big a bushel is – that’s a lot of tomatoes anyway) Click Here for more information
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A commercial grade manual tomato juicer with stainless steel parts. Juice and leavings are separated and come out of different chutes. Free shipping. Click here for details.
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 Paderno World Cuisine Tomato Juicer (Click Image for Details) |
 Vita-Mix 1700 Turbo Blend 4500 Countertop Blender with 2+ HP Motor (Click Image for Details) |
Of course, this Vitamix blender and food processor is so much more than a tomato juicer but it will do a fine job with your tomatoes and turn everything into juice even the parts other juicers leave behind so that you get even more of the nutrients out. Expensive but worth it. I have one in my kitchen and I’m not parting with it. Click here for details.
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If you just need attachments for your mixer, here you go, the whole bundle you need for electrically grinding and straining tomatoes (along with a whole lot of other foods) Get a big discount plus free shipping HERE.
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 KitchenAid FVSFGA Fruit/Vegetable Strainer and Food Grinder (Click Image for Details) |