Let's talk about how to make lemonade! There are a couple little tricks to make it perfect, but the ingredients are simple - lemon juice, sugar, water, ice! That said, the proportions are what is important here.
Looking at that photo is almost enough to taste the perfectly blended tart, just-sweet-enough lemony goodness of homemade lemonade! Mouthwatering!
Anyways, I'm kind of a lemonade expert. The TL;DR version is: we bought a house with established citrus trees and have been juicing our hearts out for over a decade.
If you want more details about our dreamy citrus situation, keep reading, otherwise you can just scroll down to the recipe and I won't be offended!
One of our favorite things about our property is that it has three established citrus trees: lemon, orange, and grapefruit! We love having an abundance of citrus, and we usually eat the oranges and grapefruits without preserving by just eating them as-is! Here's a peek at our lemon tree:
Eating lemons is a different story.. we don't slice 'em up for eating plain! We typically consume their juice (with the exception of lemon zest or candied lemon peel) and that means that we have to do a whole lot of juicing. It's worth it - we freeze a good amount of the juice so we can enjoy lemonade all year round!
How to Make Lemonade
To get started, prepare an area to juice those lovely lemons.
Rinse the lemons, and then cut them in half. It's way faster to juice if you take the time to cut all of the lemons in half first!
Next, set up your juicer! I highly recommend a cast iron citrus press. We've had ours over a decade! I think electric juicers are obnoxiously noisy, and I simply don't want to squeeze all the lemons with a simple hand press. Talk about hand cramps...
Make sure you opt for a press with a stainless steel juicing cup, not aluminum. Stainless steel can handle the acidic nature of citrus juice, aluminum cannot.
Juice!
If you are juicing a lot of lemons, juice in 1 cup increments. We pour 1 cup of juice into quart size freezer bags, gently press out the air, and lay flat on a shelf in the freezer until frozen.
Once you have at least one cup of juice, we can get to the fun stuff!
Mix ½ cup of sugar with ½ cup warm water in the dispenser/pitcher of your choosing. The warm water will dissolve the sugar more quickly - no gritty, undissolved sugar granules in your lemonade!
After this step, the rest of the water in the recipe can be cool/cold.
The pitchers I used are vintage, from my great-aunt and great-uncle.. and yes, they have oranges on them. My husband asked me, "Are you sure you should use those for your lemonade recipe post? They have oranges on them.."
Call me a rebel. How could I NOT use them? They're adorable. If I didn't have these, I would probably opt for something cheap and simple with a lid.
Add 1 cup of lemon juice and 4.5 cups of water to the pitcher. Stir to combine.
I usually add ice to the pitcher and I always serve lemonade over ice!
Lemonade Recipe Tips
Here are some pro lemonade tips to keep in mind (and a couple bonus flavor ideas for the adventurous):
Keep in mind that every batch of lemons can be unique - I might get some moderately sweet ones from the tree, and get some really tart ones from the store, and exceptionally sweet ones from a friend. So just because the lemonade was perfect today doesn't mean you shouldn't taste it before serving next time! I always taste!
You can always add more sugar and more water easily. After you first mix your lemonade, let it sit for a few minutes. Give it another stir, and taste. Usually, mine is a little strong and lemony at first, but serving it over ice makes it perfect.
We freeze lemon juice in 1 cup portions in order to make it easy to make lemonade. Depending on the lemons you are using this could be 5 large lemons, or 12 small/medium size lemons! Always measure the amount of lemon juice, NOT the number of lemons.
For something unique, rim your lemonade glass with Tajin!
And if you really like a little salty/sour combination, (we do!) put a saladito (dried, salted plum) in your glass with the ice before or after pouring the lemonade. The salt dissolves off of the saladito into the drink adding a mild saltiness that is addicting!
Homemade Lemonade Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 cup lemon juice fresh squeezed is always best!
- ½ cup sugar
- ½ cup warm water
- 4.5 cups water cool or room temp is fine
- ice
- Tajín for rim optional
- saladito optional
Instructions
- If juicing, rinse and slice whole lemons in half.
- Juice until you have 1 cup of lemon juice. This will be much faster if you use a citrus press!
- In pitcher, combine ½ cup sugar with ½ cup warm water. Stir until dissolved.
- Add 1 cup of lemon juice & 4.5 cups of water to pitcher. Stir until combined.
- Add ice to the pitcher (I usually add 1 -2 cups of ice, not crushed).
- Taste again just to make sure you don't need more sweetener or water.
- Rim glasses with Tajín (if using), add ice to glasses, fill glasses with lemonade and serve. Add a saladito to the glass if you really like the sour/salty combination (yum)!
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Buzzy says
A summertime classic!