February 25, 2014

Sugar Free Lemonade Recipe

Name: Sugar Free Lemonade Recipe
Prep time: 10 min
Total time: 10 min
Yield: 6
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: 1 cup freshly squeezed organic lemon juice; 5 cups water (I prefer sparkling water); about 4 droppers full of liquid stevia (I use Trader Joe's); a few fresh mint sprigs

posted by Marina Delio | 3 Comments

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Find out how to make healthy homemade lemonade with this easy recipe! This refreshing homemade lemonade is sugar-free! Well, other that the sugar that’s naturally found in lemons. This post was originally sponsored by Bon Appetit.

Homemade healthy sugar-free lemonade in a glass with a paper straw.

Though lemonade seems like a summer beverage, I like to make it year-round. Lemons are naturally cleansing and detoxifying, but traditional lemonade has so much sugar that’s it’s not something I would want to put in my body on a regular basis. This healthy sugar-free lemonade recipe is refreshing and easy to make.

I was recently contacted about Bon Appetit’s new online series called Out of the Kitchen, which showcases how face-to-face interactions are vital to the success of notable chefs, restaurateurs and food influencers in the culinary world. I was challenged to think about the importance of face-to-face communication in the home kitchen environment, and gladly took on that challenge.

My girls have been cooking with me since they were teeny tiny. At first it was just mixing ingredients in bowls and lining muffin tins with liners. I’ve always known that cooking with kids was good for them, but over the past few weeks I really have been noticing just how good it is for our relationships. I’ve been bothered lately by how drawn to screens we are – one wants to watch rainbow loom videos on an iPad while the other wants my phone to do a “puzzle” app and I’m on the computer getting a few minutes of work done. No one is talking to each other – it’s like we are zombies staring at these rectangular devices. So I’ve made a point of doing real puzzles on the floor, building with blocks, or cooking together when we have free time.

How to Make Healthy Sugar Free Lemonade

This has to be one of the easiest lemonade recipes. Juice your lemons however you like: a hand juicer like we used or an electric juicer. Then we add filtered water and sweeten to taste with liquid stevia. I like the organic stevia drops form Trader Joe’s best. I don’t notice any aftertaste and there aren’t added chemicals, as far as I can tell.

Lately when we cook together the girls work together surprisingly well. Quite a change from the toddler screaming of the recent past. They’re taking turns and sharing. My oldest is helping her little sister. We are working together and talking about what we are making, but also about other important things that are going on in our lives. And laughing hysterically together when mom accidentally gets sprayed with blood orange juice.

It took four years, but our lemon tree is finally producing lemons. The girls have been asking to pick them and make lemonade ever since the first one turned yellow. So this afternoon we made lemonade, but I wasn’t willing to add the usual two cups of refined sugar. I’ve been adding a squeeze of lemon and a drop of stevia to my water for ages – it makes it taste delicious and lemon has vitamin C and detoxifying properties. Today I used that same method for our lemonade. The girls had no idea this lemonade was sugar free and it was great to have organic lemons to use.

After our lemonade, we juiced some blood oranges. Why not? A little orange in lemonade is fabulous and takes away and stevia taste if that bothers you.

I hope you’ll make this yummy lemonade with someone you love – whether it’s your kids or a friend. Read more about how I quit sugar in this Sugar Detox article.

Yield: 6 cups