Honey-Sweetened Lemon Balm Lemonade

This Honey-Sweetened Lemon Balm Lemonade is the perfect drink to cool down and relax on a warm and sunny day. The addition of Lemon Balm not only helps you relax, it also adds a very pleasant earthy-lemon taste to an already lip-smackingly delicious lemonade. You’ve gotta try this!

So, here’s my lemonade story.

First, I went to a local chili cook-off and had homemade lemonade. It was SO good and afterwards, I was craving lemonade big time. Every day since, I have been wanting to make homemade lemonade.

Second, I was weeding my garden the other day, and I noticed that my lemon balm is taking over. It’s quite happy and healthy, but since lemon balm can be a bit invasive, I knew that I needed to harvest a bunch of it ASAP.

And there I was, craving lemonade and trying to think of ways to use up lemon balm….and naturally….I put two and two together and thought that lemon balm lemonade sounded like it MUST be a thing. 

I googled some ‘lemon balm lemonade’ and found a few recipes for inspiration, but tragically, all of the ones that I liked had LOADS of sugar in them. Blegh. 

So then I researched ‘honey-sweetened lemonade’ and found some delicious ideas for a honey-sweetened classic lemonade recipe. 

This recipe is a merging of both of the types of recipes I was finding: it merges a honey-sweetened classic lemonade with an infused lemon balm lemonade recipe. 

The results? This honey-sweetened lemon balm lemonade is absolutely delicious! 

As I mentioned in my very popular Everything You Need to Know About Lemon Balm post, lemon balm is amazing for relaxing and reducing stress. I cannot think of a better lemonade addition! 

After I made my delicious honey-sweetened lemon balm lemonade, I sat in the backyard with my hubby, and we just rested for a good hour. This beverage really helped us relax.

Honestly, even MAKING this lemonade made me relaxed! The smell of infused lemon balm filled the home, and I was super chill while making it. I call that a win-win. 🙂

If lemonade isn’t your thing, make sure you check out my Lavender and Lemon Balm Herbal Iced Tea recipe!

Honey-Sweetened Lemon Balm Lemonade: Ingredients

I used 6 HUGE lemons in this recipe. If you have small lemons, you might want to use more than 6.

I also used raw honey, so that I could get some of the health benefits of raw honey in my diet. Honey is a bit difficult to thoroughly mix into beverages unless the liquid is warm, however, since I’m using raw honey and I want the benefits, I also couldn’t add the raw honey when the mixture was boiling (that reduces the health benefits). That’s why I added the raw honey after the warm infusion had cooled for 15 minutes. 

For the fresh lemon balm, I did not measure out exactly 3 cups. That would be silly. I also didn’t pull off leaves individually. Instead, I cut stems with lots of leaves and I guessed that it was probably about 3 cups of packed lemon balm. No need to be super picky and accurate here. Just eyeball it. Keep the lemon balm on the stems and just make sure you wash it really well. Those leaves can be folded up with little spider webs inside, so wash the stems and leaves as thoroughly as possible. 

Honey-Sweetened Lemon Balm Lemonade Recipe

Ingredients:

• 6 medium/large lemons, for both the zest and the juice
• 3 cups of packed fresh lemon balm
• 1/2 cup – 3/4 cup of raw honey (see notes below)
• 8 cups of water
• Ice

Directions:

1. Scrub/clean your lemons. Rinse off your fresh lemon balm.
2. In a large pot, add the lemon zest of 6 lemons, 3 cups of packed fresh lemon balm, and 6 cups of water. Bring this JUST to a boil, and then turn off the heat. Let the mixture infuse: cover and cool for about 15 minutes.
3. Next, add the honey, then stir and let it cool for another 15 minutes.
4. After adding the honey to the infusion, squeeze the lemons for their juice into another container or bowl. Don’t worry about picking out the seeds, since we are straining it all in a later step.
5. Add the freshly squeezed lemon juice of 6 lemons to the lemon balm infusion. Stir well.
6. Strain your mix with a mesh strainer and pour it in a glass pitcher (or vessel of your choice).
7. Add ice cubes to the pitcher (I added an entire tray of ice cubes to fill it up to the top). Let it cool in the fridge or pour in a cup full of ice and enjoy.

Notes:

**I added 1/2 cup of honey, because I LOVE sour/tart things. My hubby said that he wished it was slightly sweeter. So maybe next time I’ll add 3/4 cup of honey. It depends on your preferences for sour or sweet!

**I abhor pulp in my beverages. Since I used a mesh strainer, there is no pulp in the pitcher, however, it still needed to be stirred between each use.