Climate changes and global warming around the world cause summer months to be much hotter than before. In fact, summer comes earlier than summer and the heat begins to stifle. Summer also lasts longer than before. For this reason, a refreshing drink during the day during the long summer season can be very good for your body. If you want to prepare this kind of drink quickly at home, the homemade lemonade recipe I will present to you will provide the solution you are looking for.
Lemonade is one of the healthiest, most delicious and practical drinks that can be made at home, no matter which country in the world you go to. In summer, it is almost difficult to find a drink that can replace iced and cold lemonade. Moreover, lemonade, with the natural lemon it contains, allows you to meet your vitamin C needs. It even helps your body retain water and refresh you. This type of healthy drink can be consumed without hesitation; no matter what age you are or even if your body has a chronic problem.
What You Need to Know About Lemonade
Although lemonade is included in beverage cultures in all countries of the world today, in fact, such drinks first started to be seen in Arab and Iranian cuisines in the middle Ages. In fact, while a fruit called citrus was used before lemon in the Mediterranean geography, this fruit was consumed by making syrup. Moreover, the homeland of this fruit is countries such as China and India. There are also very interesting details you can learn about lemonade, which you do not know where it comes from or how it is made for the first time, in a very practical way.
While lemon, sugar and water are needed to make lemonade, many ingredients can be used for refreshment and taste. Lemonade-like drinks, which are known to have first started to be made in the 6th century by cleaning the material called citron in Anatolia, have survived to the present day due to the abundance of lemons in the Mediterranean. However, it is even known that it was used for cleaning in ancient times by making a lemonade-like material.
On the other hand, it is known that lemon juice was traded in Egypt in the 12th century, and in the following centuries, Egyptian people made drinks by mixing foods such as lemon, honey and dates. It is also stated in earlier manuscripts that this drink, found in Egyptian culture, was seen as the ancestor of lemonade.
My Instant Homemade Lemonade Recipe
After learning interesting information about lemonade and seeing how special lemonade really is, we can now continue by giving a practical homemade lemonade recipe. You will only need 3 ingredients to follow the recipe. So, you can easily prepare your material list as follows.
- 6 large lemons
- 15 tablespoons of granulated sugar
- 3 liters of warm water
Before preparing the lemonade recipe with these 3 ingredients, you will need to wash and clean the lemons thoroughly. Afterwards, we will grate the peels of the cleaned lemons with the fine side of the grater and put them on a separate side. We will prepare the grated lemon peels by rubbing them with the sugar in the ingredients list to give the lemonade a pleasant colour and taste as we wish.
After completing the first stage, we will squeeze the juice of 6 lemons with grated peel and add them to the mixture. After ensuring that the ingredients are thoroughly mixed together, we will add 3 liters of warm water to the mixture and whisk the mixture until all the sugar dissolves.
You will need to keep the lemonade mixture we have obtained in the refrigerator for 2-3 hours and stir it occasionally to prevent it from settling to the bottom. When our lemonade, which has been waiting in the refrigerator, reaches a drinkable consistency, we can strain it and consume it plain or with different flavours of our choice.
What are the Benefits of Homemade Lemonade?
Homemade natural lemonade, which will refresh you on hot summer days, has many different benefits. I attach importance to consuming lemonade recipe not only in summer but also in winter. Because, thanks to the vitamin C it contains, it provides a natural nutritional source compared to artificial sweeteners and acidic drinks on the market. Moreover, instead of consuming too much tea or coffee, I prefer to consume lemonade healthily in every season, as it strengthens immunity with its vitamin C content.
The lemonade we prepare naturally at home will preserve its vitamin value with freshly squeezed lemon juice. In fact, when you use less sugar than stated in the recipe, it will prevent your body from taking in too much refined sugar. Especially in autumn and winter, the abundance of fruits such as lemons and oranges will help you make more lemonade in this season. In this case, you can choose lemonade to accompany every meal, from breakfast to snacks or dinner during the day.
Thanks to the natural acids and vitamin C in lemonade, it helps the brain activate quickly in the morning. While many people try to fulfil this function with coffee, lemonade has fewer calories than coffee and acts faster. While it helps the body to hydrate more, it contributes to maintaining acid balance and offers a beneficial drink for your kidneys.
How to Consume Homemade Lemonade?
Lemonade, which you naturally prepare at home, can be consumed at any time of the day with its healthy structure. You can also use different ingredients to sweeten it, especially if you do not contain much sugar in the recipe we prepared. Because the sugar in the recipe I offer is one of the most practical ingredients that should be used to make lemonade.
However, if you want to make lemonade with natural sugar instead of refined sugar, you can also choose to add sweet fruits or honey to your lemonade. For example, you can make lemonade by completely removing 15 spoons of sugar and adding 3 spoons of natural flower honey instead.
The basic ingredient that creates the slightly sour and delicious taste of lemonade is, of course, lemon and the acidic structure it gives. However, if you want the lemonade to be different in terms of colour, flavour, smell and sweetness, you can use different ingredients. For example, you can prepare a drink by adding watermelon juice to lemonade, or you can prepare lemonade with ingredients such as strawberries, orange juice, kiwi, basil, fresh mint leaves, ginger or turmeric.
Using refined sugar or honey as sweeteners in lemonade may be considered a problem for some people. Because lemonade naturally contains a certain amount of sugar due to lemon. This rate, which increases with the addition of sugar, may be at a disturbing level, especially for diabetics.
You do not need to avoid drinking lemonade if you have a condition such as diabetes. Instead of using overly sweet fruits or refined sugar, you can sweeten lemonade with a small amount of honey. Additionally, you can use add-ins such as soda. Adding cinnamon bark, especially to prevent sugar spikes, will make lemonade more problem-free.
In order to consume homemade lemonade in a healthy way, you should generally consume it on the day you make it. As long as the lemonade is kept in the refrigerator or left out in the open, it will taste bitter after about 1 or 2 days. Since lemon peels are grated while preparing the recipe, these peels may cause a bitter taste to appear after a while. You can consume your lemonade on hot days as a fresh and always refreshing drink by adding ice cubes and a few leaves of mint.
See you in the next post,
Anil UZUN