This lightly honey sweetened lemonade is a breeze to make and is a great way to get rid of an overabundance of lemons!
I feel silly even posting this because it’s hardly a recipe and certainly not groundbreaking but the world needs honey sweetened lemonade, right? :) What I really needed when making this was a way to get rid of my zested lemons. I had about 20 of them (I really like lemon zest in my baked goods!) and I was desperate to make anything using lemon juice that didn’t require zest.
Anyone have any other heavy-on-the-lemon-juice recipes? At any given point, I usually have about a dozen zested lemons in the fridge. I need to find more to do with them!
Different sources say 1 large lemon yields anything from 2 tablespoons to 1/4 cup lemon juice, hence the wide range of lemons (4-7) given in the recipe. But it really doesn’t matter because 1 cup of lemon juice always = 1 cup. I’m sometimes frustrated when I find a recipe that calls for the juice of so-and-so lemons or oranges. I have no idea how much that yielded for the recipe creator! So I usually don’t bother making those recipes.
Lime juice also sounds fun (although lime + honey? I don’t know…) but I haven’t tried it. I read that the lime shortage is over but they’re still insanely expensive over here. Up until a few years I was able to buy a box 40-50 limes for about $7 at the Turkish market. That was nice while it lasted. We had fajitas all the time!
One last thing – sorry for the lack of posts the last few months. I only have about 5 or 6 more weeks before the book manuscript is due. Then stuff should go back to normal with me posting regularly and posting some things that are a little more involved than mixing water, honey and lemon juice together. Thanks for being patient!
Honey Sweetened Lemonade
- Prep Time:
- Cook Time:
- Ready in:
- Yield: 6-8 servings
Ingredients
- 4 1/2 cups (1065ml) water
- 1/3-1/2 cup (107-160 grams) honey
- 1 cup (240ml) freshly squeezed lemon juice - from about 4-7 large lemons
Directions
- Warm the water and 1/3 cup honey in a pot or saucepan over low heat. Stir to dissolve the honey and once dissolved, remove from the heat. This should only take about a minute.
- Add the lemon juice and stir. Add more honey, if desired.
- Chill and serve.
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43 comments on “Honey Sweetened Lemonade” — Add one!
Thank you for sharing this! I’m using it for my first Business Launch tomorrow, in the brutal summer heat of Georgia. I know it’s gonna be a hit!
I hope it will! Good luck with your launch. :)
My Mother made a very frothy lemonade when we were kids. None of us know just what the recipe was. Any suggestions? Thank you.
I’ve never heard of anything like that and couldn’t imagine what frothy lemonade was. I googled it and found this. Was it something like that?
I was thinking about making this one for sure! I was thinking about substituting the whey I have leftover after making cottage cheese to make a protein drink…what do you think? I am six months pregnant, and CRAVE lemonade for some reason, maybe I will go try it!
It’s an interesting idea! I’ve never added whey to a drink before, though, so I really have no idea. I hope it works out well! I’d love to hear how it comes out. :)
Love seeing these recipes. I live in rural Australia. Have a lemon tree in the back yard, work for a beekeeper and my house runs on rainwater so I am fortunate enough to be able to make drinks like this at no cost. It is good for me to see the responses and comments as it makes me appreciate how fortunate I am. Except now I need to plant a lime tree :)
Wow! That sounds like a wonderful situation. :) And I agree. A lime tree would definitely be nice!
I made this with limes and it was amazing! Great job keeping it simple.
Thanks so much, Val! I’ll have to try this with limes next. :)
I’ll give this a try sometime but honey is an expensive substitute for sugar here in Barbados. Currently, I use brown sugar (genuine Barbados brown sugar, not some nutritionally depleted white sugar with molasses added back in!).
“Lemon-limeade” would be the appropriate name for my recipe because it includes limes as well as lemons. Recently, I’ve been adding the zest of both to the mix and that REALLY increases the “wow factor”. Besides sugar, lemons and limes, I include a dash of each of the following:
ginger
cinnamon
nutmeg
and a “half-dash” of clove.
I’ll provide all the measurements after I figure out how much lime juice and lemon juice I actually use ;)
Cheers
Your recipe sounds delicious! Thanks for sharing. :) I especially love the added spices. I’d love to try it when you have the measurements down!
Hi Wayne. It’s been a year since your original post but did you ever figure out the measurements for you lemon-limeade? I would love to try the recipe
Not a “recipe,” per se, but I use the juice of half a lemon (or one tablespoon! Don’t discount me!) in a cup of hot water first thing every morning. If you love lemon like I do, the flavor is pleasing and the warmth is wonderful, especially in the colder months. The practice has many benefits, the least of which is starting your day with a little vitamin c kick. Great way to use up zested lemons!
Haha. Thanks for the lemon juice measurement specificity. ;) I’ve heard about the warm lemon water in the morning thing but never tried it. It’s already getting pretty cool here and I could certainly benefit from a little vitamin C kick at the beginning of the day so I guess I’ll give it a go! Thanks a bunch for the tip. :)
I love homemade lemonade! I made it for the first time this summer. Now my son will point out when it is a mix and not homemade, because the fresh stuff was just “so much better”!
Good boy! He knows his stuff. ;) PS – I never got homemade lemonade growing up. I think it’s nice you made him some!
What a wonderful idea to use honey instead of caloric sugar!
Here in sunny Cyprus we have wonderful lemons so making fresh lemonade is something I really enjoy! Will definitely try this.
Thanks! :) I hope you’ll enjoy the lemonade! Enjoy the sunshine and lemons for me. :)
I make my daughter lemonade with honey. It’s her favorite! we tried maple syrup too but she prefers honey.
Ooh! Maple syrup sounds interesting in lemonade. I’ll have to try it! :)
There’s no “to easy to post” recipes. It’s always good to see something even simple, as we usually don’t remember about it. I love to have a glass of warm water with a lemon juice in the morning, so now I can have your lemonade :D
Warm water? That’s interesting. I’ve never tried that! Hope you’ll like the lemonade if you try it. :)
I could seriously use two or three glasses of this right now!
Same! Luckily I still have, like, 40 zested lemons. :D
A perfect summer drink! Love that you used honey as the sweetener!
Thanks, Jessica! :)
I’m not likely to drink lemonade, but I love lemons. Right now my favorite recipe using lemons is for Lemon Coconut Overnight Oats from My Whole Food Life. Unless you have huge lemons, one serving takes most of the juice of one lemon, plus I like to add a touch of lemon zest to it. I also add a scoop of vanilla protein powder to the oats to bring up the protein levels. Hearing you talk about having an over-abundance of lemons makes me miss my former lemon tree, even though I left it behind 25 years ago…
Thanks for the tip! I’ll go take a look at those. :) And I can’t wait to have a house one day, just so I can have lemon trees (and apple / peach / plum / apricot trees and all kinds of berry bushes!)
I’m glad you posted this because I still haven’t tried honey sweetened lemonade. Kinda insane. Limes are still horrendously expensive here too. The shortage may be over, but prices still haven’t gotten the memo!
Best of luck with the intense last few months of the book! And let me know if there is anything I can do to help :)
Aww, thanks, Nora! You’ve already been so very helpful. You get a break now. ;)
If you want to experiment with fermentation and add probiotics to your beverage, try this lemonade recipe http://www.foodrenegade.com/?s=lemonade It uses sucanat as a sweetener and whey (the kind you drain off yogurt or kefir)as the ferment medium. I’ve made it several times, and it’s really good.
That’s perfect for me! Thanks for the link. I’ve tried making a few different fermented recipes but it always ends badly. This sounds doable. :) Thanks again!
lemon-lemon-lemonade-most effective beverage for hot summer.
Haha. Agreed! :)
I wonder if you could freeze the juice? I bet if you measured it out in ice cube trays and freeze then put it in a ziplock bag and you could just grab what you needed.
That is the best idea ever! Thank you so much. :) I’m definitely doing that!
Hi Erin!
What a wonderful idea to use honey instead of caloric sugar!
Here in sunny Cyprus we have wonderful lemons so making fresh lemonade is something I really enjoy! Will definitely try this.
Just an idea for the lime version….couple of mint leaves will give it a wonderful aroma and should also go well with the honey! :)
I am so sorry for my slow reply, Laura! I don’t know how I missed your very nice comment. I hope you’ll enjoy the lemonade if you try it and I love the lime and mint idea! Sounds very yummy. Enjoy some of that Cyprus sunshine for me! :D
This sounds so refreshing! Love the natural sweetener. And yes — limes are slowly becoming more inexpensive again in the States. Hopefully the trend makes it your way soon! :)
Thanks, Ali! :)
Sometimes I feel the same way about posting recipes that I consider “easy” or “hardly a recipe” but they are always a hit..and this is no different! I love lemonade…and I love naturally sweetened more!
Yeah, I could just see some people scoffing at this recipe. But whatever. At least you and I like it. :D