Watermelon Lemonade
Watermelon Lemonade
The intense heat of summer will make you crave the refreshing ice-cold sweetness that is lemonade. Even more refreshing than lemonade, is watermelon lemonade! It’s a great twist on pink lemonade, for its coloring naturally comes from watermelon. The best part is that it actually tastes of both lemons and watermelon!
To make a gallon, you need:
10 lemons
A large watermelon
Sugar
Water
To start, wash the lemons, and use your palm to roll the lemon back and forth on a hard surface; this makes it easier to extract all of the juice from the lemon. Cut the lemons in half, and use a reamer to juice the lemons, or squeeze the lemons by hand. You should have about 1 ¼ cups of lemon juice. Pour the lemon juice through a fine mesh sieve to remove any seeds and pulp. Set the lemon juice aside in a gallon pitcher.
Wash the watermelon and cut it into wedges (cut the melon in half lengthwise, cut the halves in half lengthwise, and then cut the quarters in half lengthwise). Cut the flesh of the melon into cubes. You’ll need about 7 cups of cubed watermelon.
By hand:
Over a bowl, fill a fine sieve with the watermelon cubes. Use a spoon to smash the watermelon against the inside of the sieve. Remove the fibrous pulp from the sieve. Continue smashing the watermelon up until your bowl is full of watermelon juice. Rinse the sieve, and then strain the watermelon juice into another vessel. Continue juicing the melon into the first bowl until you’ve juiced all 7 cups of watermelon, transferring and straining the juice when necessary. Rinse the sieve again, and strain all of the watermelon juice for a second time. Now you should have about 3 ½ cups of watermelon juice.
Mechanically:
You can run the watermelon through a juicer or blender instead, as long as you strain the juice, and end up with about 3 ½ cups of watermelon juice.
Now, you can add the strained watermelon juice to the lemon juice in the pitcher. Add 1 ¼ cups of sugar to the juices if the watermelon is sweet (adjust the sugar to your taste), and stir well. Fill the rest of the pitcher with cold water (about 11 ¾ cups), stirring as you add. You now have watermelon lemonade!
Chill the lemonade, or serve immediately with ice.
There are still tiny watermelon particles in the lemonade, and they tend to sink to the bottom. We recommend that you stir the lemonade before serving.
That’s all there is to it!
Yum! This recipe is simple, and great for when you're entertaining; especially on those super hot days!
- The Grey's Posy Team