Last week before my flight out to California I bought my first V8 juice. I paid $4.29 plus tax for it thanks to the lovely price gouging at JFK. It was a last ditch attempt to get some vegetables in a pretty lack luster airport dinner.
I’ve had the craptastic tomato juice airlines carry before. Once as a “hmm, let me try that out since everyone on a plane seems to love this stuff” and many other times in the form a bloody mary after the upgrade list on Delta’s gate screens loving displayed MAT/G (<—that’s me and that’s a beautiful sight). To be blunt, it’s disgusting. I have a strong hatred towards jarred/canned tomato sauces and to me, that’s exactly what that stuff tastes like. So I had high hopes for the V8.
Fast forward 3 hours later and somewhere over the plains of Kansas, I broke it open, asked for a glass of ice and tried it out. Not bad. It really is like drinking your vegetables, they don’t lie. But of course my immediate thought was “I can totally make this at home for a fraction of the cost and control the flavorings”.
So I did.
When you pile up all the vegetables that eventually end up being gulped down in a glass, it’s pretty impressive. Or weird, depending on how you look at it. Yeah, I drank a onion. What of it?
This is a little more involved than making a vegetable smoothie or running some vegetables through a juicer. You want to cook it, blend it, food mill it up and then blend again. No master’s degree required or anything (which is good because otherwise I couldn’t make my own recipe), just a few added steps to get a more juice like consistency that doesn’t lose any flavor (or nutrients!) at the same time. And if you’ve ever tried to go the easy route and just blend it up without the other steps, you’ll realize pretty quickly why the extra steps are worth it. Trust me. Chewing something that’s supposed to be a drink is just gross.
The end result is a perfect balance between tomatoes, other flavoring vegetables and spice. Rim it with some salt, throw it in a mason jar, squeeze some lemon on top and suddenly veggies become way cool.
Or, you’ve got one awesome base for a bloody mary. Either way works.
- 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
- 5 medium-large tomatoes, chopped
- ½ onion, chopped
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 beet, chopped
- 1 carrot, chopped
- 1 tablespoon honey
- 1 dash tabasco sauce
- 1 dash worcestershire sauce
- salt & pepper
- 2 small cucumbers, chopped
- ¼ cup fresh parsley
- Add olive oil to a large pot over medium-high heat.
- Add everything except cucumbers and parsley to the pot and bring to a simmer.
- Cook on medium for about 30-45 minutes, stirring occasionally to help break down the vegetables.
- Season to taste with more salt, pepper, tabasco and worcestershire sauce as desired.
- Remove from heat and transfer to a blender.
- Add parsley and 1 cucumber.
- Pulse 2-3 times just to break up the chunks of vegetables remaining. The consistency should be like a thick, chunk soup at this point.
- Transfer from blender to a food mill.
- Using the smallest holed plate, run mixture through the food mill.
- Transfer the mixture back to the blender, add the remaining cucumber and blend for about 1 minute on high to get a nice smooth, juice consistency. It will still be thicker than a normal juice, but not chewy.
{ 33 comments… read them below or add one }
This looks sooo amazing! I keep saying I am going to pull out my juicer and make some tomato based veggie juice and then I never do. I think I need to make this happen today
This is such a great idea!! I would love to make a batch of this and freeze for adding to my homemade vegetable soup!!! I have to bookmark this recipe!!
So clever! I wish I liked tomatoes but I just can’t get on board. I do love the fruit V8s though!
Wow- great idea! How’s the smell of it? Sometimes I have a hard time sitting next to someone who just wants the bloody mary mix on a plain because it smells bad!
I know exactly what you mean! This doesn’t smell at all. It’s so fresh there’s none of that nasty tomato juice smell.
I am soooo not a V8 juice drinker. But i love the pics
Aww, I wish I had a food mill, I totally want to make this! There are so many tomatoes in my garden, sadly going to waste
Ok, I better get a food mill. I’ve resisted, but this looks too wonderful.
I don’t drink v8, but this sounds PERFECT for a bloody mary
GORGEOUS pictures!! I’ve actually never had V-8….may have to start now!
This sounds awesome! You’re smart with the simmering… I tried to make my own bloody mary mix the other day in my vitamix and I used raw tomatoes and it turned into a frothy mess. I’ll have to give this a try!!
I havent had V8 in years b/c I am extremely sodium sensitive and just thinking about the stuff makes me retain water for 2 weeks
I love that you made your own and can control the ingredients…and good point about NOT trying to shortcut this one and skip the cooking-down, food mill steps, etc.
Fabulous idea. And I love the salt rim! I would much rather consume homemade juice than store-bought. This looks so great!
I definitely have to try this. My husband drinks a can a day everyday! It’s so much waste, and I’m sure I can make this tasty version for a fraction of the cost. I love your blog! You make all the food look so pretty and your blog design is fantastic. Did you design this yourself? Thanks for the wonderful recipes and great ideas.
i always noticed that people only got tomato juice/V8 and ginger ale on flights..never understood why but homemade V8 just sounds so much better. to be honest though, i like the V8 splash ones cause i’m a sucker for sweeter juices but it’s still the V8 family so i still get the veggie servings! yum
ugh so that previous comment didn’t phrase correctly.
what i meant was: i never understand why people only get tomato juice/V8/ginger ale on flights NOT that i didn’t understand why homemade V8 is better. i clearly get why haha
haha, I totally got what you were going for
look sooooo good!! can you make big batches of this to refrigerate for a few weeks? or does it go bad pretty quickly?
So far, I haven’t kept any longer than 3 days b/c I’ve drank it so quickly! I’d imagine not wanting to keep it much past 5 days or so. It’s cooked and all through the simmering process but since everything was fresh and there aren’t any preservatives like in a bottled drink, I don’t think I’d push it much longer than that.
I’m curious, why not add the leafy green veggies that are on the V8 ingredient list? They’re good for you and the offer a distinctive flavor. Though, too much can be overpowering. You also left out celery, which is also flavorful. Lack of ce;ery and leafy veggies aside, your recipe appears to be one of the more realistic versions I’ve come across on the internet, or at least it includes more of the original ingredients found on the ingredient list on the side of the bottle.
I can’t offer any advice on how long this juice will last before spoiling, but I did want to comment on what you said about preservatives in the canned version. There is ascorbic acid and citric acid in it. Ascorbic acid is vitamin C. Citric acid is/or can be used as a preservative, but it’s also used simply to add sourness to foods. It’s a natural ingredient and lemons and other citrus fruits are filled with the stuff. This is one canned, processed food that I wouldn’t be worried about when it comes to artificial ingredients. One trait that stands out to me in V8 is how tangy it is. I wouldn’t be surprised if much of this is due to those two ingredients, as both are sour/tangy. I’ve made a couple of versions of “Fake V8″ and I found that adding a squeeze of lemon juice worked well for me. Come to think of it, I do have some citric acid in a bottle in my cupboard from some strange recipe I tried a long time ago. Maybe I’ll see if it works in my next V8 clone attempt. At least it will allow me to keep in the fridge for a week or so without it spoiling.
“yeah, I drank an onion..” so funny I smirked out loud. Great post! Love the recipe
THIS IS SO AWESOME!! Screw those bottles that taste like soup. I’m totally making this.
AWESOME! I love V8, but I love FRESH even more. So healthy and so tasty!
I love this! I too, hate hate hate canned tomato juice – cant wait to try!
I order tomato juice when I fly because I’m hungry, and I have low blood sugar!!! The little bag with 3 pretzles in it just isn’t gonna do it.
I don’t have a juicer, don’t want a juicer; so I love this method of getting juice.
Cooking this is definitely the key. I love V8 and I love freshly juiced vegetables but I tried running this combination through the juicer once and it was almost puke-inducing. I’ll have to try it your way!
This is near and dear to my heart. I am a total lover of V8 tomato juice. I cant wait to try this.
I LOVE this!! And that you tasted the canned version and it inspired….just awesome. I need to do more of that. My next bloody mary is going to be special thanks to you!
Oh my. I drink this stuff all the time. What a great post, thanks!
Sounds delicious! Just a thought though, don’t you lose nutrients during the cooking process?
This is also my question. I’ve got a slow-juicer and would love to use it to make a V8 clone, but I really want to try to avoid cooking the veggies. Else why would I have splurged for the slow-juicer instead of a regular one?
I tried this recipe and it tastes like marinara sauce. – so i’ll use it for pasta instead.
I’m going to try another recipe with more greens.
I found a way to make the awesome drink in 10 minutes. I blended half the ingredients in my nutribullet, then poured them in my twenty-five dollar blender (the coutainer for the nutribullet is too smal to add everything all at once), then repeated the process. After blending it all for about 20 seconds, voilà! I have a Vitamix 5200 on my “wish list” which would work just like a giant sized nutribullet but until I save about five hundred dollars my “compromise” works just fine.
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