Easy Healthy Strawberry Lemonade
This Easy Healthy Strawberry Lemonade is the perfect naturally-sweetened drink for summer--or all year long. Made with no heating and no straining, you'll love the simplicity AND the taste, plus it's easily made into a keto / sugar-free lemonade too.
There's nothing like lemonade to satisfy your thirst and brighten up any day. Drinking water is of course great (as long as it's filtered water), but there's something about lemonade that really hits the spot.
Interestingly, the "hitting the spot" thing is rooted in science. The acidic nature of lemonade is known to satisfy your thirst since it creates more salivation action. (source)
We've been making and drinking this Sugar-free Lemonade for years and we love it, but I've been playing around with other lemon-based drinks to have more delicious options to choose from.
And since we've been having all kinds of fun with berries in our kitchen, so naturally, Strawberry Lemonade just had to happen.
I think we just might have made the best strawberry lemonade ever. With only a few simple ingredients.
Tastes great and it's super easy to make. Doesn't get much better than that.
No Heating or Straining
One of my goals with this recipe was to make an Easy Strawberry Lemonade that anyone (including kids) could whip up in a hurry. There are so many recipes for Strawberry Lemonade out there that call for heating and straining.
With this recipe, there's no need to heat since the blender mixes the sweeteners well. If you'd like to make sure they blend even better, use a powdered form of any granulated sweetener you choose or make your own powdered sweetener.
It's great to not have to heat something on the stove in warmer months too,
About the straining, I like having the berry fiber in the drink. It's more nutritious and I love the body that it adds.
Just put everything in the blender. Blend. And serve.
Better Than Store Bought
Why not just buy Strawberry Lemonade from the store?
First of all, it's not that readily available.
Secondly, the ingredients of many strawberry lemonades in stores are not the best. One of the worst is this Strawberry Lemonade mix from Country Time.
Ingredients in Country Time Strawberry Lemonade Powder:
Sugar, Fructose, Citric Acid, Ascorbic Acid, Natural Flavor, Soy Lecithin, Malic Acid, Magnesium Oxide, Xanthan Gum, Artificial Color, Red 40, Red 40 Lake.
No need for Red 40 or Red 40 Lake, or "natural flavor" in this recipe because the strawberries have all the natural flavor and gorgeous color you need.
What's the Difference Between Pink Lemonade and Strawberry Lemonade?
While working on this recipe, I wondered this and just had to find the answer.
It turns out that Strawberry Lemonade is just what it sounds like: lemonade with strawberries mixed in.
And Pink Lemonade is simply pink-colored lemonade.
There are 2 potential origins of pink lemonade---and both were mishaps; one more problematic than the other.
One possible origin was a circus where a salesman ran out of water for lemonade and used water that a bareback rider had used to wash out her red tights. Ick!
The other involved a circus promoter who accidentally dropped red cinnamon candies into lemonade, resulting in the new pink drink.
So there's the answer to that conundrum.
Serving Ideas
Some great places to serve this Strawberry Lemonade are.....
- baby shower
- wedding reception or rehearsal dinner
- girls' (or boys') night out
- birthday party
- book club
- potluck
- anywhere!
Recipe Notes
Measuring Strawberries: Measure a heaping cup of berries for each cup.
Lemon Juice: Fresh lemon juice is best, but organic bottled lemon juice works well too (we love it!)
Blender Notes: If you use a high powered blender like a Vitamix or Blendtec, your strawberry lemonade will be foamy in appearance. I personally LOVE this.
Strawberries: You can use fresh or frozen strawberries. If using frozen, the resulting drink will of course be colder and more "foamy."
Sweeteners: Any sweetener can work for this recipe. Honey is fantastic--you will use about 1/2 the recommended amount since honey is sweeter than other sweeteners. Another great option is this Sugar-free Simple Syrup. See this post about substituting sweeteners for more information if using honey.
Low-carb sweeteners like xylitol, erythritol, Lakanto, stevia, or monk work great. (use code wholenewmom to get 20% off your Lakanto order.)
When using alternative sweeteners, blending 2 or more together will result in a better taste. More on that in this post about stevia taste.
Healthy Easy Strawberry Lemonade
Ingredients
- 6 cups water
- 2 cups strawberries (organic preferred)
- 2 cups lemon juice
- 1 cup low carb sweetener (see Recipe Notes for alternatives)
- 1/4 teaspoon stevia extract
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 cup strawberries (optional; for garnish)
- lemon peels (optional; for garnish)
- ice
Instructions
- Place all ingredients (except garnish and ice) into all in to the blender (regular or high speed) and blend until smooth. A food processor should work as well.
- Pour into glass and serve with ice, if desired. Alternatively, add some frozen strawberries to the glass.
- Garnish with strawberries and/or lemon if desired.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutritional information is provided as a courtesy and is merely an approximation. Optional ingredients are not included and when there is an alternative, the primary ingredient is typically used. We cannot guarantee the accuracy of the nutritional information given for any recipe on this site. Erythritol carbs are not included in carb counts since they have been shown not to impact blood sugar. Net carbs are the total carbs minus fiber.
Do you love lemonade as much as we do?
Hi! Take it from this here old lady, Pink Lemonade isn't just "pink colored" - it is made with the syrup from a jar of Maracino cherries. That is what gives it it's distinct flavor. It is not too sweet since you only use a little of the syrup. Some more modern recipes call for adding cranberry juice, or Grenadine to make ir pink - I haven't tried either of these yet.
THANK YOU for posting such wonderful, healthiier recipes, as a diabetic person with other health problems, I appreciate your help.
Hi there! I think I remember hearing that! Cranberry is so wonderful -- you might be interested in this: https://wholenewmom.com/homemade-cranberry-juice/
You are SO welcome. Your comment made my day. We've got a lot of tough stuff going on so the encouragement was even more meaningful. I hope to have more recipes up really soon. My mom was diabetic and I had blood sugar issues, but they appear to be under control now, thankfully. You might be interested also in this little bit about our journey. I might reach out via email with some more information. wholenewmom.com/about-me/. Hang in there :).