Today on The Stay At Home Chef
I'm showing you how to make Homemade Lemonade.
Nothing beats a glass of fresh squeezed lemonade.
Today I'm giving you all the tips and tricks for making homemade lemonade,
including ways to make it with honey and without sugar.
For traditional homemade lemonade start by bringing 2 cups of water and 2 cups of granulated sugar to a simmer on the stove.
Give it an occasional stir until the liquid runs clear again,
which means that the sugar has completely dissolved in the water.
What we're making right now is called a simple syrup.
It's actually a chemical process which allows sugar to completely dissolve in water.
You could just add sugar to water and make lemonade,
but if you take the extra step to heat it, the sugar is completely dissolved into an actual syrup,
which means that there's no separation and no grainy, grittiness to your lemonade.
Just before this mixture comes to a simmer you'll see that it's clear again.
That is a simple syrup.
Simple enough, right?
Turn off the heat and set that aside.
If you wanted to make lemonade using honey,
then you'd simply dissolve 2 cups of honey into 2 cups of water,
just like we did for the sugar.
If you want to go completely sugar free for your lemonade,
simply dissolve 1/4 cup of ground stevia in 2 cups of water,
just like you would with the honey or the sugar.
Next you'll need 5 pounds of lemons.
Now you can just use 2 cups of bottled lemon juice,
but nothing beats freshly squeezed.
Before you juice a lemon it helps if you roll it between your palm and the countertop to release the juices.
It breaks things up inside and you can actually feel that the lemon is squishy.
Then just slice it in half right down the middle.
Next it's time to juice your lemons.
There's lots of different juicing products on the market,
but I just like to use hand juicing tools for lemonade.
I like this one in particular because it filters the juice and catches all the seeds and captures the juice in the bottom,
and it also has measuring markings so I know how much juice I'm getting.
Keep on going until you have 2 cups of lemon juice.
And there we have it, 2 cups of freshly squeezed lemon juice.
How many lemons it takes to get to 2 cups of lemon juice is a little hard to tell,
because lemons vary in how much juice they have inside.
5 pounds is a good rule of thumb,
although today's lemons were pretty juicy,
and we only used 4 pounds.
Now since I don't like pulp in my lemonade, I strain my lemon juice through a strainer into a pitcher,
but of course if you like pulp in your lemonade feel free to just pour it directly into the pitcher.
Next we'll take that simple syrup and pour it directly in with our lemon juice.
Give this a stir and what you have now is lemonade concentrate.
You can actually freeze this.
So if you want to make it in big batches, you can freeze it in portions to serve throughout the summer.
That way you can have freshly squeezed lemonade all summer long!
To serve you'll just add water and ice to taste.
Some people like their lemonade super tart like me,
and so we add a little bit less water.
But if you are a normal individual and you like yours a little more thinned out and an even balance between sweet and sour,
you'll add a little bit more water.
So just keep on tasting it and adjust the water to your personal taste.
Now if you wanted to turn this into a fruit lemonade, you'd simply add your fruit to the lemonade concentrate.
So you can add raspberries for raspberry lemonade,
strawberries for strawberry lemonade,
or maybe even some blueberries for blueberry lemonade.
Just smash them up and mix them in with that concentrate.
Thanks for watching!
You can find the full written recipe in the video description.
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