Spring IS HERE!!!! I love a good lemonade. 95% of the time when I go out to eat I order a lemonade. When I have company I always make a drink with alcohol, and a drink without, which is normally some type of lemonade. Blueberry Peach Lemonade, Ginger Mint Watermelon Lemonade, Strawberry Jolly Rancher Lemonade. It definitely doesn’t have to be Spring for me to drink lemonade 😂😂but I find that the lemons this time a year are a little bit more juicer.
Last week Jeremy and I met for lunch. He ordered a Coconut Mango Lemonade to drink with his meal. It was really good, I had a sip of it. It was creamy, looked a bit milky. I’m guessing they used coconut milk or a coconut cream to make it. I didn’t love the creamy texture for a lemonade, but it was really tasty. I told him I would try to make my own version at some point.
I had a few people over and decided to give it a shot. I knew that when I made mine I wouldn’t use coconut milk. I wanted to make mine more like a lemonade, so I used coconut water. I juiced a few lemons, made a simple syrup, purchased some coconut water and mango nectar. It was good after I mixed it all up, but I wasn’t 100% satisfied. The coconut flavor didn’t come all the way through for my liking. So…. I tried it again.
This time, I bought the coconut water with pulp. In a pot, I simmered the coconut water and some coconut flakes, and let the coconut flakes steep in the water to really draw out the coconut flavor. I let that sit about an hour before straining the coconut water into the lemonade.
Juicing lemons could be a lot of work. I have an electric citrus juicer, but before I got that, Jeremy would juice all of the citrus by hand. Not a fun job. Now this recipe doesn’t absolutely have to be made with real lemons. You could use a lemonade powder, but the fresh lemons give it such a fresh taste.
Coconut Mango Lemonade
Makes 1 gallon
Ingredients
2 quarts of Coconut Water with pulp
2 cups of unsweetened shredded coconut
1 quart of Mango Nectar
2 cups of fresh squeezed lemon juice (about 8 lemons)
2 cups simple syrup (Recipe to follow)
1 tbsp coconut extract (optional)
Directions
- Pour 1 quart of coconut water into a two quart sauce pan. Add unsweetened shredded coconut. Bring to a simmer. Remove from heat, and allow the coconut flavor to infuse into the coconut water for two hours up to over night.
- Juice lemons
- Add mango nectar, strain the coconut water, and add 2 cups of simple syrup to the lemonade. You can also add 1 tbsp of coconut extract for a little more coconut flavor.
Simple Syrup
2 cup water
2 cup sugar
Directions
1. In a sauce pan mix sugar and water.
2. Simmer until the sugar has completely dissolved, and remove from heat.
