Homemade Limonata Soda 🍋

all you need is lemons, sugar & seltzer to replace store-bought with homemade

When I last popped in, I shared a very weather inappropriate recipe for this chocolate cake. If you turned on the oven to make it, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do, and found it worth the extra bit of heat (or maybe you’ve bookmarked it for cooler weather). Today’s recipe is definitely more in tune with the season, and since the temperatures are about to climb to 100ºF (38ºC) again, an icy cold glass of homemade limonata will definitely be welcome.

I used to buy six packs of Pellegrino limonata and aranciata but think their formula has changed because it tasted different, in not a good way,  last time I picked them, about six months ago. Then I discovered A’Siciliana limonata and fell hard for it, stocking up whenever I saw it. Flash forward a few weeks ago, I was about to add some more cans to my shopping cart, and then put it back on the shelf, realizing I’d been spending money for years–let’s face it, decades, on something I could easily make for a lot less money.

Lemon Sherbert

I guess it was more motivation than revelation that occurred that day in the grocery store. Making lemonade was nothing new or unique, and it starts out the same way as making limonata. You begin by making a simple syrup, which is equal parts water and sugar.

For lemonade you just need to combine simple syrup with fresh lemon juice and water. You could go this route to make limonata, just swapping out the water for seltzer but I wanted an even quicker fix for limonata on demand, and decided to make a limonata syrup to keep in the fridge. The idea is the same as making simple syrup with a little more than half the water swapped out for fresh lemon juice (always use fresh squeezed please!).

The cute bottle you see in the photo is just an old soda bottle I keep for storing homemade syrups and other kitchen potions. The cork is one I saved from an old wine bottle. Thrift in the kitchen extends to more than just using up your food scraps. If you have a seltzer machine, then a fresh, fizzy bottle of seltzer is always at your fingertips. All you need now is to make a batch of this limonata syrup.

Hope you’re staying cool (or I guess warm if you’re in the Southern Hemisphere). Be well and remember to be kind. –xo, j.

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