The Ina Garten-Approved Kitchen Tool I Can't Live Without

When I was a kid, I never had a lemonade stand. Squeezing a huge bowl of lemons to yield a single pitcher of juice was way too tedious, and I refused to just use lemon-flavored drink mix, which was always a bit too sweet and chalky for my taste. But now that I have an electric citrus juicer, I make lemonade almost every week.

This isn’t just any citrus juicer, though—it’s Ina Garten’s favorite, seen in at least a dozen episodes of Barefoot Contessa. I actually found out where to find the juicer from Ina herself, when I cooked with her a few years ago in her East Hampton kitchen.

Though her exact model was discontinued, this Tribest CitriStar electric citrus juicer is as close as it gets. Her assistant Barbara’s daughter, Cassandra—who runs an online shop called Cassandra’s Kitchen where you can find a lot of Ina’s favorite kitchen goods—discovered it after testing a few different models.

This little electric juicer (which has over 650 five-star reviews on Amazon) takes up only eight inches of counter space, stands roughly 10 inches tall, and is a little wider than a large French press. It juices into any cup (I use a measuring cup) with a locking stainless steel spout, and filters out all seeds and pulp when halved citrus takes a spin on the top. After turning over a juiced lemon, it is completely empty with no waste.

It’s super speedy, too—I can get through four lemons in 30 seconds.

Compare that to using the old reamer or citrus squeezer sitting in your drawer. You know, the one that always ends up spraying juice on the counter, doesn’t extract enough without rolling or microwaving the fruit, and often lets seeds sneak through.

I’ve used this handy juicer for every type of citrus: limes, lemons, oranges, grapefruit, blood oranges, you name it. It’s easy to take apart and clean by hand, but its parts can also go in the top rack of a dishwasher.

I use it when I make Ina’s lemon capellini (a fancy name for angel hair pasta with lots of lemon zest, lemon juice, and butter), lemon bars that don’t make my arm feel like it’s going to fall off, and spicy orange-ginger chicken. It’s satisfying-yet-quiet whirring sound when you press down to juice the citrus also happens to be the best way to signal that it’s whiskey sour o’clock, aka the happiest hour.

So when life gives me lemons, I’ll always make lemonade…but only if I have Ina’s electric juicer at the ready.

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