Healthy Honey Lemonade for Hot Summer Days
Learn how to make healthy honey lemonade with this simple tutorial. It will keep you feeling refreshed all summer long!
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Hot summer days call for lemonade! When the days are hot and humid, but you still have to get outside and work in the garden or work the animals, it’s so nice to cool down with a cold glass of lemonade.
It’s almost time to butcher our meat chickens and you can be sure that I’ll have some of this lemonade in the refrigerator for a nice treat when we are finished!
We like to buy our organic lemons and oranges in bulk during the winter months when they are freshly harvested because it saves us money. I keep our citrus in the cold mudroom when they first arrive and we eat what we want fresh.
But then after a few weeks the citrus starts to ripen and it’s time to preserve them. (See my orange scrap vinegar post for details on how I use citrus scraps to make vinegar!)
After saving and freezing the lemon zest, I juice about half of the lemons and save the juice in 1 cup measures in pint jars and store them in the freezer just for making lemonade during the summer months.
I cut and quarter the rest of the lemons and store them in snack-size freezer bags for use in cooking. Put a few wedges inside the next chicken you roast for a delicious lemony flavor! Lemons also go well with fish and roasted veggies.
Health Benefits of Lemons and Lemon Juice
Lemons are a powerhouse of vitamin C and antioxidants. Scientists have found that lemons may reduce risks of stroke, lower blood pressure, and it might help prevent cancer!
Read more about the health benefits of lemons and lemon juice in this news article from Medical News Today.
How to Make Healthy Honey Lemonade
Follow my tips below to make this delicious and healthy honey lemonade.
What you’ll need:
measuring cups – You’ll need a dry measuring cup and liquid measuring cup.
half-gallon glass mason jar with lid – Any pitcher and lid will work, though.
spatula – Any stirring spoon will do.
optional: small pot – Just in case your honey is crystallized.
Ingredients:
lemon juice – I like to use organic lemon juice but use what you have on hand.
sugar – Use what you have, but organic sugar has a hint of maple flavor. Plus, it has extra vitamins and minerals and it’s delicious!
honey – Raw honey is best if you want a health boost.
water – Use good, filtered water.
There’s an old civil war-era grist mill up the road from our farm that sells the best local honey. The bees are generations old because their hive is actually inside the walls of the grist mill.
The owner added bee hives when it was built, and the workers used beeswax to grease all the mechanical parts of the mill. Anyway, the bees have never left!
Instructions:
This is definitely not a complicated recipe and feel free to adjust the sugar and honey to your taste and liking. But just in case you haven’t made lemonade before, try this simple recipe.
In a half-gallon mason jar, mix the following:
- 1/4 cup organic cane sugar
- 1/4 cup raw honey
- 1 cup lemon juice
- top with filtered water
You can easily turn crystallized honey back to a liquid by gently heating it. Try putting your jar of honey in a pot of water simmering on your stove and stirring frequently.
Alternatively, you can heat it in your microwave.
After just a few minutes of gentle heat, the crystallized honey will turn back into a liquid.
Now just mix all the ingredients together in your half-gallon mason jar, add the lid, label it, and refrigerate it!
Add a Twist!
There are some fun things you can do to jazz up this healthy honey lemonade, too.
Try adding some sparkling mineral water or fermented lemon juice to have a nice fizzy drink, for example. You can also add numerous herbs like ginger, peppermint, dandelion, or lemon balm.
If you like drinking sweet tea, try adding some of this lemonade to your glass for a refreshing twist! You can even combine it with homemade cranberry juice for extra health benefits.
Recipe for Healthy Honey Lemonade
Healthy Honey Lemonade
Equipment
- 1 half-gallon mason jar
- measuring cups
- spatula
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup organic sugar
- 1/4 cup raw honey
- 1 cup lemon juice
- 6 & 1/2 cups filtered water
Instructions
- Add sugar, honey, and lemon juice to your mason jar.
- Top with filtered water.
- Mix well and refrigerate.
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I’d love to hear how you like to drink your lemonade!
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A really delicious way to hydrate during hot summer months
Yes, it is!
This is great! I have literally tons of lemons and honey so this will basically free to make 🙂 Thank you for sharing! Have you tried making it only with honey?
Thank you! I found that when I made this with all honey, for me personally, I thought that the honey flavor was too strong. And then when I cut the honey to half and didn’t add sugar, the lemonade wasn’t as sweet as we like. But if you like the flavor of strong honey in drinks, there’s nothing wrong with using all honey! This is our favorite summer drink.