Best Homemade Lemonade

The finest lemonade? Homemade from genuine lemons. Make it at home with freshly squeezed citrus and you’ll understand why this drink got so famous in the first place. Make a large pitcher for parties, or serve it by the glass. Either way, you’ll be completely smitten! Here’s the best homemade lemonade recipe, which is also faster and easier to make than most other techniques.

Ingredients for this lemonade recipe

You only need two ingredients to make fresh lemonade (three if you count water!). Here’s what you need to make this homemade lemonade recipe:

• Lemons: You’ll need about 7 to 8 large lemons to make a full pitcher of 8 servings. This is a lot of squeezing, so if you prefer you can make a single glass using 1 lemon.
• Sugar: The best sugar to use for lemonade is plain old granulated sugar. This type of sugar makes for the best yellow lemonade color. You use other sugars like cane sugar or coconut sugar: the color will just be slightly darker. If you prefer natural sweeteners, it works with honey or maple syrup, too.

How to make lemonade

Many lemonade recipes call for boiling a simple syrup on the stove. This can be time consuming, so we decided to make our recipe even simpler. You can’t stir sugar right into cold water because it doesn’t dissolve, but we found a trick! Here’s all you have to do for this easy lemonade recipe:

• Juice the lemons. This is the most time consuming part…by far! See below for a few tips on juicing.
• Mix the sugar with 1 cup warm water. No simple syrup necessary! All you have to do is mix sugar into warm water and it dissolves.
• Add the cold water and lemon juice, and some ice. Cool it back down by adding cold water, lime juice and some ice. Voila: homemade lemonade!

The best way to juice lemons

Juicing lemons might not sound intimidating, until you have to juice 7 to 8 in a row! If you don’t have a great citrus juicer, this recipe will do a number on your finger strength. Here are the best juicers we recommend:

• Top choice: a press citrus juicer. This type of juicer is incredibly efficient and ends up getting out even more juice than other types. Here’s the press juicer we use. It’s held up the best of any method, after making 150+ cocktails.
• Next best choice: a handheld citrus juicer. The next best juicer is the type with a ridged top.

Whatever the case: don’t try to juice them with your hands only! Not only will your hands hurt, you’ll get seeds into the lemonade. Of course, you can strain those out if you don’t have a juicer and are dying to make this recipe. (We won’t judge!)

Make lemonade by the glass

Don’t want to make an entire pitcher of lemonade? We hear you. This recipe makes 8 to 9 cups of lemonade, so it’s intended for parties or entertaining. Of course, you can also make a big pitcher and refrigerate it. But want to make lemonade by the glass? Here’s what to do:

• Squeeze 3 tablespoons lemon juice into a glass. That’s 1 large lemon or 2 small.
• Add 2 tablespoons sugar and 2 tablespoons warm water and stir until it dissolves.
• Add 1 cup cold water and a handful of ice. Water it down more if necessary. Enjoy!