This honey lemonade is truly a 3 ingredients all-natural goodness. It's super refreshing, healthy, and takes just minutes to prepare!
Lemonade is a much-loved drink, especially on a hot day! It's cooling, refreshing, and comes with loads of vitamin C too! And this honey lemonade is an even better option as it is sweetened with natural honey instead of sugar.
Jump to:
❤️Why you will love this recipe
- This is an easy honey lemonade recipe and requires only 3 simple ingredients - honey, lemons and water.
- It's quicker to make than regular lemonade as there is no need to make simple syrup with sugar and is much healthier because honey is a natural sweetener.
- Honey is a good for sore throat and combined with the great source of vitamin C from the lemons, this honey lemonade has great health benefits.
- The recipe makes absolutely delicious lemonade, way better than store-bought lemonade.
- There are no artificial flavors or artificial sweeteners in this cold drink.
- It is a summertime favorite and makes a refreshing drink on hot summer days.
Here are my other posts you might want to check out:
- How to Make Frozen Lemonade Concentrate
- Brown Sugar Lemonade
- Classic Homemade Lemonade Recipe
- Blueberry Lemonade
- Lemonade Popsicles
- Lemonade Sorbet
📋Ingredients
- Lemon juice- use freshly squeezed lemon juice from fresh lemons for best results. Strain the juice to remove any seeds before using.
- Natural honey - you can use any variety of honey to make this fresh lemonade. Make sure it is natural honey and there is no added sugar. Honey should be room temperature.
- Drinking water (Chilled) - use filtered water.
- Ice Cubes (optional)
- Lemon slice or lemon wedge - this is optional and is meant for garnish only.
*Refer to the recipe card below for exact quantities of the ingredients above. For best results, use a digital kitchen scale where applicable*
🧾Substitution and variations
- Natural honey is honey that has been pasteurized. You can substitute natural honey with raw honey (unpasteurized), however, do note that raw honey may not be suitable for very young children.
- Lemons can be juiced ahead of time and frozen. That way, all you need to do when you want to make a glass of lemonade is thaw the juice and use it or simply pop a cube or two of the frozen lemon juice (if you measure the juice before freezing it) into your glass, add water and honey and give it a quick stir a totally refreshing homemade honey lemonade.
This recipe has not been tested with other substitutions or variations. If you do try, please let me know in the comments section below!
👩🏻🍳How to make
- Start by adding half of the water into a drinking glass.
- Juice the lemon with a citrus juicer. For easy juicing, roll the fruit over your kitchen table or countertop to soften the skin before cutting and juicing them. Strain (with a fine mesh strainer) and measure the juice into the glass.
- Measure the honey and mix it into the lemon water. Stir well to completely dilute the honey.
- Top with the remaining water. Add ice cubes before serving.
🍽️Serving & storage
- The honey lemonade drink is best served cold. You can serve it immediately or keep it refrigerated for 4 to 5 days. Store in a covered jug.
- If you like your lemonade with ice cubes, add them right before serving. This will avoid the lemonade from getting too diluted as the ice cubes will melt even when kept in the refrigerator.
💡Expert tips
- The best way to juice a lemon is to roll it on your kitchen counter by applying some pressure with the palm of your hand before cutting and juicing it. This helps loosen the pulp inside and make juicing easier.
- When making the full recipe quantity below, you can use a measuring jug (with marked milliliter measurement) to measure the honey. When pouring it into the water in a large pitcher, use a spatula to scrape the sides of the measuring cup to ensure you get in all the honey measured. This is because honey is thick in consistency and merely pouring it out of the measuring jug will take a long time to get it all out.
- And, when you measure the honey in tablespoons (i.e. when making smaller, individual-sized servings), after pouring the honey from each spoonful into the water, dip and shake the spoon in the water to remove all the honey on it before pouring in the next spoonful of honey. Otherwise, given the thick consistency of the honey, you will end up with half the honey still remaining in the spoon even after pouring it out into the water, unless you wait for a long time for all the honey to slide off the spoon or you use another smaller spoon to push it out completely.
💭FAQs
The main difference is that this recipe uses honey as the sweetener, while the regular lemonade typically uses white sugar. You can also make lemonade with brown sugar like in my brown sugar lemonade or use other sweeteners you like.
Do take note that the amount of sweetener you use in your lemonade will vary depending on the type of sweetener you use as well as your taste buds and preference. For example, in making a glass of regular lemonade, I use 2 tablespoons of white sugar. When making brown sugar lemonade, for a glass of 350ml lemonade, I use 3 tablespoons of brown sugar. This is because brown sugar tends to be less sweet than regular white sugar. Similarly, when making this honey lemonade, I use 3 tablespoons of honey for a glass of 350ml lemonade.
Yes, you can. I have used regular white sugar to make the classic lemonade and brown sugar to make brown sugar lemonade and both are good. I have not tried other sweeteners. I have also seen recipes with agave syrup, maple syrup, and stevia but have not tried those.
From my experience in making this lemonade with honey, I have not had any problems with dissolving honey in water without heat. All you need to do is stir the honey in the water well, until it dissolves.
It will be easier to stir and dissolve honey is smaller amount of water than the whole 1.5 liters, hence the steps that require the honey to be mixed with 500ml water before adding the remaining water.
Lemonade concentrates are often already sugar-added. These will not be suitable for making honey lemonade as it will make the lemonade too sweet.
Yes, you certainly can.
You can squeeze lemon juice ahead of time and freeze it in either individual sizes (in tablespoon measures) or in larger serving sizes (for example in 150ml sizes).
This way, you save time on squeezing fresh lemon juice every time you want to make the lemonade. You can either wait for the frozen juice to melt before adding to the water and honey, or simply pop the frozen lemon juice cubes or blocks into your glass or pitcher. Let the juice melt completely before serving.
As for bottled, store-bought lemon juice, so long as it is not already sweetened and concentrated and no other ingredients added, it should work fine for this recipe.
❤️More recipes you will love ❤️
Do you like this recipe? Please leave a 5-star ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐rating in the recipe card below and consider a review further down this page. I would love to hear from you. Thank you!
📖Recipe
Honey Lemonade
For best results, use the metrics measurements. US customary measurements have not been tested and are only meant for guide.
Ingredients
- 150 ml lemon juice (juice of approximately 2 lemons, strained)
- 225 ml honey
- 1500 ml drinking water (chilled)
- Ice cubes (optional)
- Lemon slices or wedges (optional)
Instructions
- Measure 500ml water (at room temperature) in a measuring jug. Add the honey and stir to dissolve completely.
- Transfer the honey solution into a 2 liter pitcher. Strain the lemon juice in.
- Add the remaining chilled water and stir to mix.
- Keep the honey lemonade chilled until ready to serve. Garnish with lemon slices or lemon wedges if preferred. (Refer to notes below if you wish to add ice cubes to your lemonade)
Notes
- This recipe makes 2 liters of homemade honey lemonade made entirely with chilled water and without ice cubes.
- If you wish to add ice cubes, reduce the chilled water in the recipe accordingly. This will avoid the lemonade from becoming too diluted as the ice cubes melt.
- To make the lemonade in a single serving of 350ml glass, use 2 tablespoons of lemon juice, 3 tablespoons of honey and 300ml of chilled water. Stir to dissolve the sugar. If you wish to add ice cubes, reduce the water accordingly and top up with ice cubes.
Leave a Reply