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Fresh homemade lemonade recipe

healthy lemonade recipe

Fresh lemonade was my one true and steady pregnancy craving. I started making my own homemade lemonade cribbed from a recipe in a Sesame Street cookbook (officially “Big Bird’s Sunny Days Lemonade Recipe,” ha…) and I realized that making fresh lemonade is (a) really easy, (b) super cheap and (c) so much tastier than any lemonade I’ve ever bought at the grocery store — seriously, you’ll never buy powdered lemon-flavored-whatever or schlep home a heavy bottle of pre-mixed 10% juice not-from-concentrate again.

And what’s more perfect in the summer than fresh homemade lemonade? Either alone or, uh, with a little bit of mother’s helper?? Get the easy fresh lemonade recipe below…

healthy lemonade recipe

WANNA MAKE IT? Fresh homemade lemonade recipe –>

healthy lemonade recipe healthy lemonade recipe healthy lemonade recipe
healthy lemonade recipe healthy lemonade recipe healthy lemonade recipe


Fresh homemade lemonade recipe ingredients:

  • 4 large lemons (try to by organic juicing lemons)
  • 3/4 cup – 1 cup organic cane sugar (I’d like to sub this for honey sometime — let me know if you try it)
  • 2 cups water (to make the lemonade syrup)
  • Ice and water or seltzer to taste

Supplies:

  • Saucepan
  • Measuring cups
  • Sharp knife and cutting board
  • Cheesecloth or juicer (optional)
  • Fork
  • Lidded jar or 3-cup storage container if storing syrup
  • Cute drinking glasses or glass pitcher

How to make a fresh homemade lemonade:

You’re basically making a diluted simple lemonade syrup for this recipe. Add 2 cups of water to a saucepan over high heat.

healthy lemonade recipe

Add the sugar to the boiling water and stir until dissolved. Remove the sugar syrup from the heat.

healthy lemonade recipe

Juice the lemons — you can do this while the water is coming to a boil. Roll lemons on the kitchen counter to get the juices flowing if you will. Press hard! Then cut them in half…

healthy lemonade recipe

…and squeeze all the juice out through a cheesecloth to keep the seeds out of your lemonade. Honestly, sometimes I use the cheesecloth and sometimes I just use poke around with a fork and fish out the seeds that fall into the juice — the fork method will give you more pulp in your lemonade, the cheesecloth less pulp.

healthy lemonade recipe

Repeat for all four lemons. You should get 1 cup of fresh lemon juice.

healthy lemonade recipe

Pour the lemon juice into the cooling syrup. Set aside to cool completely.

healthy lemonade recipe

Pour cooled syrup into a jar or lidded container and pop it in the refrigerator if you’re storing it. When you’re ready to make a glass of lemonade, the original lemonade recipe says to place 1/4 cup lemonade syrup into a glass, add ice, and top off with cold water or seltzer. But I like it stronger so ratio-wise, most of the time I up the proportion to about 1 part lemon syrup to 2 parts water. Experiment and see what you like best. Mmm, tangy!

healthy lemonade recipe

Did you make it? Please post a comment and let me know how this recipe works for you. And share your own photos at the MerrimentDesign.com Facebook page, “I made it!” flickr photo gallery or tweet a picture to @merrimentdesign.

Katie

Monday 11th of June 2012

Cannot wait to try this!! And I bet honey would be a delicious substitute. I've tried a honey-sweetened lemonade that a local company makes and it is to die for!

Thanks so much for sharing! :)

Sonya

Thursday 24th of May 2012

Julian is OBSESSED with lemonade. We'll be making this. Thanks!