Homemade raspberry lemonade – with fresh berries

If you’re looking for a delicious, refreshing complement to store-bought pink lemonade, look no further than this fresh homemade raspberry lemonade. Made with a simple lemon syrup base and lots of fresh pureed raspberries, this pink lemonade is bright, fruity, and SO refreshing.

It contains no alcohol (but it might be) and will relax you on a hot summer day. APPLAUSE!

Make your own lemonade

While the raspberries are the star of this lemonade, the most important part of the recipe is the lemon syrup. It starts, like all simple syrups, with equal parts sugar and water. I use one cup at a time. Just heat it until the syrup has dissolved, then let it cool.

When it comes to lemonade, the speed of the mix is ​​what speaks most. But when you’re in the mood for a truly refreshing beverage, nothing beats freshly squeezed juice.

I use a juicer for the lemons, but if you don’t have a juicer you can just press the inner half of the lemon with a fork while squeezing. This will maximize your juice content.

Depending on the size of your lemons, you may need more than six. You will need about a cup of lemon juice. Six really big lemons gave me just over a cup, which is perfect.

I recommend stirring in the fresh lemon juice after heating the simple syrup to keep the juice really fresh. If you want to add some lemon flavor to your simple syrup as well, you can add a few squeezed lemon halves to the syrup as it heats.

Prepare raspberry puree

As for the raspberries, I just assumed that a small container of raspberries would do. That’s six ounces of fresh berries.

i love raspberries It might be my favorite berry.

Of course, you can’t juice a berry, so you have to process or puree it to get the juice out.

You could use a food processor, blender or, I guess, a fork if you want to work a lot.

I think a food processor is the easiest, but there are many ways to puree a berry here!

Just blend it until smooth!

However, there is a problem with this mess: seeds. Raspberries contain lots of small pips and just aren’t appealing in a drink. It would feel like having loads of little pebbles in the lemonade.

Not good.

So I think one of the most important steps is to make sure you strain the raspberries.

If you now pour your raspberry puree into the sieve, it just stays there. It’s pretty thick.

So go ahead and mix your simple syrup and fresh lemon juice together. Then slowly pour it through the sieve. Along the way, it picks up the raspberry juice but also leaves behind the raspberry pips and lemon pulp that got through.

I’ve poured my juice through my strainer a few times. Simply place a new bowl under the strainer and pour the liquid in again. Each time it takes on a little more raspberry color and flavor. Also, use a fork to mash the pulp and squeeze out the juice.

After two or three passes, basically only seeds are left.

So you now have about 4 cups of really intense juice. I think if you try it you will find that it is Away too strong.

I recommend diluting it to about half strength. So add 3-4 cups of cold water and stir.

It will keep for a few days in the fridge. Not that it will last that long.

I poured some of this over crushed ice and added a few sprigs of mint.

The mint sprigs are pretty optional, but I like them.

If you can’t beat the heat, try this homemade raspberry lemonade.

Substitute for that fresh lemonade

This is obviously a pretty flexible idea for a recipe, but here are some ideas to tweak it!

• Change the berries! You could use strawberries, blackberries, or blueberries!
• Add herbs to the simple syrup. Fresh basil and mint are always good, but you can also try rosemary, lavender, or even fresh thyme for an interesting flavor twist.
• Instead of regular sugar, use other sweeteners like honey or agave syrup.

Here’s how to turn this homemade raspberry lemonade into a cocktail

If you’re planning on using this lemonade as a cocktail base, I think that’s a great idea. I would dilute it less and maybe just add a cup or two of water to the base. Then use it as a mixer with gin or vodka!

Add 1 1/2 ounces of vodka or gin to a glass of this for a really powerful cocktail.

My Homemade Raspberry Lemonade Recipe

Here are a few more great recipes to try!