Raspberry Lemonade

Name: Raspberry Lemonade
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 5 min
Total time: 10 min
Ingredients: 6 cups water (divided ); 8 oz raspberries (fresh or frozen ); 1 cup granulated sugar; 1 cup lemon juice (freshly squeezed )

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My Raspberry Lemonade can be made with fresh or frozen raspberries and takes just 10 minutes to prepare. It’s incredibly refreshing and perfect for sipping all summer long! Recipe includes a how-to video!

Glasses of homemade raspberry lemonade garnished with fresh berries, lemon slices, and striped straws.

Refreshing Raspberry Lemonade

Pour yourself a pretty little glass of this 100% homemade raspberry lemonade! Full of summertime flavor, today’s recipe is incredibly simple and refreshing. We’re combining bright, sweet, and tart raspberries with classic homemade lemonade, and they go amazingly well together. In fact, this is probably my favorite lemonade version on the blog!

Unlike my strawberry lemonade, which gets its flavor from pureed strawberries and simple syrup, we’re cooking our raspberries down today to make a homemade raspberry syrup (not to be confused with raspberry sauce). Don’t worry, it’s very easy and requires just a few minutes on the stove.

Glasses of red colored lemonade garnished with fresh berries and lemon slices.

This lemonade would be so pretty at a picnic or even as a chilled option at a tea party (alongside some petit fours, of course!). I highly recommend having some extra raspberries for garnishing, along with some fun straws.

What You Need

This raspberry lemonade requires just 4 ingredients, and it tastes so much better than the store-bought kind! Here’s what you need:

Overhead view of ingredients including lemons, raspberries, and sugar.

Raspberries. Fresh or frozen raspberries work equally well here. If you have fresh, in-season berries available to you though, I’d definitely go with those.
Lemons. I find I usually need roughly 6-7 lemons to get 1 cup of lemon juice. Bottled lemon juice can work too, but the flavor just won’t be as nice. If you have any lemons leftover, slice them up and use them as a garnish!
Sugar. Granulated sugar is part of the base for our raspberry syrup. See tip below if you’d like to try honey, instead.
Water. We’ll use 1 cup to make our syrup, and the rest will be added at the end. I like to use cold water to speed up the chilling process.

SAM’S TIP: If you’d like, you can substitute an equal amount (1 cup) of honey instead of sugar and follow the recipe as indicated. Your raspberry lemonade will taste more like honey and have a more natural flavor, whereas the granulated sugar has a more conventional, sweet flavor.

Remember, this is just an overview of the ingredients I used and why. For the full recipe please scroll down to the bottom of the post!

How to Make Raspberry Lemonade

Collage of four photos showing raspberries being cooked into a syrup for lemonade.

Cook the raspberries, sugar, and 1 cup of water in a small saucepan over medium low heat.
Stir occasionally until the sugar dissolves and the raspberries become juicy and fall apart.
Pour and press through a fine mesh strainer into a bowl, making sure to squeeze as much juice out of the seeds as you can. Discard the seeds and pour the raspberry syrup into a heat-proof pitcher.
Str in the lemon juice and remaining water until combined. Serve immediately over ice, or place in the fridge to chill before serving.

SAM’S TIP: I find it easiest to strain my raspberry syrup into a bowl first, then pour it into the heat-proof pitcher. It can be challenging to strain directly into a pitcher, especially if it has a narrow spout.

Overhead view of eight glasses of red raspberry lemonade garnished with lemon slices and topped with striped blue and white straws.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I use a different kind of berry?

Black raspberries would probably work just as well here, but I’m not sure about blueberries. If you’d like to make strawberry lemonade, I suggest you make my strawberry lemonade recipe–it’s a bit different from this one!

Can I make raspberry lemonade with bottled lemon juice?

You could, but the flavor will be much better with fresh lemon juice. I highly recommend trying it with fresh squeezed lemon juice at least once to taste the difference.

Can this recipe be doubled?

Yes! Doubling this recipe will make 16 cups or a gallon of raspberry lemonade. To do this, simply double all ingredients in the recipe. Just make sure you have a heat-proof pitcher big enough to store it before you start 😊

Single glass filled with a red beverage garnished with fresh raspberries.

Want to make a spiked version of this lemonade? Vodka would be my suggested pairing!

Enjoy!

Let’s bake together! I’ll be walking you through all the steps in my written recipe and video below! If you try this recipe, be sure to tag me on Instagram, and you can also find me on YouTube and Facebook