Best Homemade Raspberry Lemonade

When the weather heats up, this Homemade Raspberry Lemonade over ice is so refreshing! Our recipe is made with fresh lemons, ripe raspberries, and natural cane sugar. We use a special technique for our lemonade that results in a mellow and extra flavorful drink!

There’s nothing quite like fresh lemonade over ice when the weather gets warm! Raspberry lemonade is even better, with the fresh tastes of sunkissed raspberries.

My grandma used to have raspberry bushes in her yard in Montana, fresh raspberries have always been a favorite of mine right off the plant!

Instead of making raspberry lemonade with dry mixes or artificial flavors, our homemade raspberry lemonade is made with fresh lemons, ripe raspberries, and natural cane sugar. The bright colors and flavors are natural!

Allergy notes:

• Grain free
• No corn syrup or artificial colors or flavors
• Top 14 allergen free

How to make homemade raspberry lemonade

Our lemonade recipes have several steps, but they are worth the bit of extra effort for truly amazing lemonade!

Here are the steps to make our raspberry lemonade. The full recipe card is at the end of the post, this is just an overview of the steps:

1. Wash and juice the lemons until you have 1-1/4 cups fresh lemon juice (it usually takes about 5-7 lemons depending on their size).
2. Strain the lemon juice into a small saucepan (to remove the seeds), and add the sugar, 1 cup of water, and lemon slices.
3. Bring to a simmer over medium/low heat, and simmer for about 12-15 minutes until the lemon slices start to turn translucent.
4. Make raspberry puree: while the lemon juice is cooking, add the fresh raspberries and 1 cup of water to a small blender (like a Nutribullet), and process until pureed.
5. Strain out the raspberry seeds: pour the raspberry juice through a strainer to separate the seeds, discard the seeds and set the juice aside.
6. Once the lemon juice is done simmering, stir in the raspberry puree.
7. Add 1 quart (4 cups) of ice to a 2 quart pitcher and pour the lemon/raspberry juice over the ice.
8. Add enough cold water to reach 2 quarts as needed. Stir until mixed well and most of the ice has melted.
9. Serve cold with lemon slices for garnish.

With adding fruit puree to this recipe, the lemonade can be a little bit on the thick side, which we don’t mind personally. But if you prefer, you can add a little bit of additional water to taste if this feels too concentrated for you.

Do I really need to cook the lemon juice?

We highly recommend making this lemonade as written, by cooking the lemon slices with the lemon juice and sugar for the best tasting lemonade.

The cooked lemon slices add lemon oil from the rind to help mellow the acid in the lemon juice and it adds another dimension of flavor to this recipe that is amazing.

I explained a bit more of how I originally came across this method in our recipe for guava lemonade (which is phenomenal by the way!), so you can read more about that there.

As tempting as it may be to skip cooking the lemon juice and lemon slices to make this faster, it will taste the best when the recipe is made as written!

How to make this raspberry lemonade lower in sugar

If you’d like to make a lower calorie or lower sugar lemonade, you can experiment with this recipe by replacing some or all of the sugar with granulated erythritol (such as granulated Swerve), monk fruit, or allulose.

Whatever you use, just make note of conversions between your sweetener and sugar. Test taste to see how much you prefer, starting with less then adding more (you can’t take it out if you add too much!).

Just be aware that erythritol is a sugar alcohol and may cause GI problems in some people, especially if they have IBS. Allulose is supposed to be IBS friendly, however I have a pretty sensitive stomach so I notice that it does bother me a litte.

Another option is to use liquid stevia drops and skip the sugar altogether (or use half), however depending on how much stevia you use, this may alter the flavor of the lemonade. We personally don’t like to use too much Stevia due to the aftertaste, but you can use it if you prefer.