Strawberry Lemonade

Lemonade is a great refreshing summer drink, but what makes it even more amazing is throwing in strawberries!  Here are two ways to whip up a glass this summer, plus you can always freeze it and enjoy a delicious Frozen Strawberry Lemonade treat!


*I meant to make this back on the day I made the Easy Frozen Lemonade, but I held out too long and my strawberries molded the morning I needed them :(  So, after the lemonade tasted so awesome, I had to still try to make a strawberry version.

This is pretty simple and you can replace things as you need to.

Ingredients:

• Strawberries
• Sugar
• Lemons
• Water
• Simple Syrup (you probably don't need this, I just like how it sweetened it up, also you could just try adding more sugar to the strawberry sauce/compote)

Utensils:

• Blender, or Hand blender and Magic Bullet
• Lemon Juicer
• Sauce Pan
• Ice Cube Trays (the small ones if you can)
• Measuring Utensils

First you need to prepare your fruits. 

Lemons
Squeeze the juice from your lemons.  Easy.  I only used 3/4 cup, but it never hurts to have more!

Strawberries
We are going to follow the steps from my Strawberry Sauce Instructable.  I ended up needing 2 cups worth of this.  I think I used up most of what I made so here is what I used.

• 3c Strawberries (1c = approximately 10 strawberries)
• 1/2c Sugar

Chop up your strawberries.  You are going to blend this so they can be any size, but I always like to cut them into small cubes.  Cook the strawberries and sugar on the stove until they are soft.  Once you are done, let it cool and blend the strawberries with hand blender or blender until smooth.  Cool mixture.

I mixed up some and then added more so I will give you the approximation of my end strawberry lemonade.  Change amounts to suit your taste.

• 5c Water
• 2c Strawberry Compote/Sauce
• 3/4c Lemon Juice
• 3/4c Simple Syrup

Blend it up.  You can strain it if you want, I did not.  Enjoy it right now or...

Everything is good frozen!  Freeze up some of the strawberry lemonade and mix it like you did with the Easy Frozen Lemonade. 

Blend it all up, throw on some strawberry chunks and enjoy!

For this version you just use raw strawberries instead of the sauce/compote.  This is the faster, easier, less fancy version.  Also doesn't have the deeper red color.

Recipe (increase amounts as needed):

• 1 c Water
• 2/3 c Strawberries
• 1/3 c Lemon Juice
• 1/3 c Simple Sugar

Mix it all together and then blend with the hand blender.  Strain if you would like.

Even though both versions are similar, I prefer the strawberry sauce/compote version.  I personally felt it had less of that bite you get when you eat a raw strawberry.

In the last image, you can see them side by side.  The one on the right is the compote/sauce version and the left is the raw.  Pretty similar looking.