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Turmeric is a wonderful spice with so many benefits. I love using it in cooking and in natural beauty recipes, but another way to get your daily dose is in a refreshing glass of lemonade! We keep this turmeric lemonade recipe on hand as a festive drink for summer barbecues, park picnics, and friends just stopping by.
Easy Turmeric Lemonade Recipe
We mostly know turmeric as a cornerstone of Indian cuisine and curry powders, mustards, and more. Unfortunately, many of the foods I love adding turmeric in, like soups, stews, and this turmeric tea recipe, don’t sound as good in hot summer weather.
This turmeric lemonade recipe is the ideal solution and now is a family favorite. I’ve been making it often for the kids so they can rehydrate while they are playing outside. It is incredibly easy to make and tastes great!
The turmeric provides gorgeous color, but its earthy taste is mostly hidden by the tang of the lemon. Personally, I like to use liquid stevia to sweeten this, though any natural sweetener would work.
Benefits of Turmeric
So why is turmeric so great?
Doctors and naturopaths often recommend turmeric as a way to help lower inflammation in the body. Thousands of studies show its benefits in promoting heart health, mental health, reducing inflammation, and ensuring balanced blood sugar. It also turmeric supports digestion and liver function and is high in beneficial antioxidants as well.
You’ll also find turmeric in many of my beauty recipes and natural health remedies thanks to its external benefits. Turmeric can improve skin, whiten teeth, and even soothe rashes when added to a poultice. For a full list of turmeric benefits and uses, see this post.
Here’s how to make this superfood lemonade:
Iced Turmeric Lemonade Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 cups water
- 1 ½ cups ice
- ½ cup lemon juice (fresh, or to taste)
- 1-2 tsp turmeric powder
- ½ tsp stevia extract (or to taste, or other natural sweetener of choice)
- 1 tiny pinch black pepper
Instructions
- Combine all ingredients in a high speed blender and blend for 60 seconds or until ice is completely blended.
- Let rest for about 30 seconds before pouring into cups to serve. I prefer to serve over more ice.
- Consume immediately.
Notes
Nutrition
Like this recipe? Check out my new cookbook, or get all my recipes (over 500!) in a personalized weekly meal planner here!
Other Healthy and Delicious Summer Drinks
- Refreshing Lemonade Recipe (With Probiotics)
- Iced Lime Dandelion Tea Recipe
- Lavender Peach Iced Tea (Herbal and Caffeine-Free)
- Refreshing Ginger Honey Switchel Recipe
- Elderberry Kombucha Soda Recipe
- Real Food Margarita Recipe (With Delicious Low-Sugar Variations)
Do you use turmeric in your recipes? Share your favorite tips below!
Ice Bath Benefits: How Cold Therapy Improves the Body and the Brain
Hey, WM! Don’t forget a lil dash of pepper – critical to enhance the bioavailability of the curcumin in turmeric! Just a bit will do!
This looks great, and I love the idea of finding a way to get turmeric in when it’s so bloody hot out. Like you, I’m just not digging the soups and stews and rich food I usually add it too. I would second someone else’s comment that the turmeric needs the addition of black pepper to be bioavailable. I’ve also recently learned that turmeric not only needs the black pepper, but also needs to be consumed with fat and activated by heat. That definitely changed how I consume it these days. Not sure how to incorporate fat into this (MCT oil frothed in before drinking, maybe?), but I would probably heat part of my turmeric / water mixture up first to get the turmeric activated and then blend that in with ice after it cools off. Stay cool!
I heat up the water and cook the turmeric and black pepper, allow to cool then add the other ingredients. And the fat? Well remember avocadoes are fruit so along with the lemon helping, it should break up the oiliness.
Loving the idea about tumeric ideas.
I made one addition. a full twist of black pepper. Just as with your experience with cinnamon in the Jamaican Jerk Seasoning, the pepper adds to the zing of the lemon AND it binds to the turmeric so the turmeric doesn’t just wash out but work in the body as well. 🙂
I will be adding this to my list of variations of lemonade.
D.
Add a little ginger and skipping the sweetener completely is another great way I’ve found to make this! Tastes so refreshing.
I tried it with orange juice fresh squeezed b/c I had no lemons. It was delicious and used your same measurements (1 cup of OJ). I also added a little protein powder. Very good. Thanks for sharing.
I heard it stains – is that true?
Turmeric? It can stain cloth and other surfaces but I’ve never had trouble with that.
Yes it does stain plastics and porous surfaces. I always use glass with turmeric
I thought turmeric was best absorbed when combined with a fat?
It actually needs black pepper to become available to our bodies.
I’m so glad I saw this. I’m going to the store after work and getting lemons. Can’t wait to try it. I put turmeric in my bone broth before drinking and also in my smoothies. Sometimes I add it to my oatmeal.
This looks delicious! I can’t wait to try it. I love all your posts! Thanks for taking the time to write them. I appreciate you so much : )