From the roundup: 12 Easy Non Alcoholic Drink Recipes: Mocktails, Smoothies, and Lemonades

This cucumber mint lemonade is the drink I make when I need something that looks like I put in more effort than I actually did. You blend a peeled cucumber with water, strain out the pulp, then stir in fresh lemon juice and a quick mint simple syrup. Start to finish it takes about twenty minutes, and most of that is waiting for the syrup to cool.

The flavor is clean and lightly sweet without tasting like cucumber water from a spa. The mint syrup does most of the work, and the lemon keeps it sharp enough that it doesn’t feel flat. My kids who won’t touch plain lemonade will drink this one, which tells me something.

It keeps well for two days covered in the fridge, so it’s worth making a full pitcher the night before a cookout or a long afternoon outside. Just stir it before you pour because the cucumber settles a little as it sits.

How this one started

We had a bunch of mint taking over the garden last July and I was trying to use it before it went bitter. I’d made mint simple syrup thinking I’d do something with it later, then forgot about it in the fridge for two days. When I finally blended a cucumber for this lemonade and added the syrup, the extra steep time had made it taste even better than fresh. Happy accident.

Now I make the syrup the night before on purpose and let it sit. It takes one less step off the day of, and the mint flavor comes through more clearly in the finished drink.

Why you will love this

Twenty minutes total, including cooling time for the syrup
Make it a full day ahead and the mint flavor actually gets a little stronger overnight
Naturally lighter on sugar than most store-bought lemonade
The pale green color looks good in a glass pitcher without any extra effort
No fancy equipment: a blender and a fine mesh strainer are all you need

Tips for success

Let the mint steep in the syrup for the full ten minutes off the heat before straining. Pulling it early gives you a faint mint flavor that gets lost once the lemon goes in.
Press the cucumber pulp firmly against the strainer with the back of a spoon. Skipping this step leaves a lot of liquid behind and the batch comes out thin.
Taste before you add the last two cups of water. This is the point to adjust sweetness or tartness, because once you dilute it, corrections are harder to dial in.
If you peel the cucumber you get a cleaner pale green color. Leave the skin on and the flavor is a little earthier and the color goes deeper, which is fine but different.

Common questions about this drink

Can I use a regular cucumber instead of English? Yes, just peel it and scoop out the seeds before blending so the pulp doesn’t overwhelm the strainer.
Can I make this fizzy? Swap the last two cups of still water for cold sparkling water, and add it right before serving so it doesn’t go flat.
My lemonade tastes bitter: this usually means the mint steeped too long (over fifteen minutes) or you blended the cucumber skin on and it was waxed. Peel it and try again.
Can I cut the sugar? You can reduce it to a third of a cup in the syrup, but taste before serving because the lemon will seem sharper.

Substitutions

Lime juice works in place of lemon juice if that’s what you have on hand. The color shifts slightly warmer but the flavor is still bright. For a lower-sugar version, a half cup of honey dissolved into the hot water makes a fine substitute for granulated sugar in the syrup, though the flavor is a little more floral. If someone in your house avoids added sugar entirely, skip the syrup and muddle a few mint leaves directly into the pitcher with the cucumber juice and lemon, then taste and adjust.

English cucumbers are the easiest to work with because they have fewer seeds, but a standard garden cucumber is fine once peeled and seeded. Persian cucumbers also work well, just use two of them to match the volume of one medium English cucumber.

Make-ahead and storage

You can make the full pitcher up to two days ahead and store it covered in the refrigerator. The mint flavor deepens a little overnight, which is actually a good thing. Stir the pitcher before pouring because the cucumber solids settle at the bottom as it sits. Add ice to individual glasses rather than to the pitcher so the lemonade doesn’t get watered down before you’re ready to serve.

Do not freeze this lemonade. The texture turns grainy after thawing and the pale green color goes dull. It’s quick enough to make fresh when you need it.

Brittany Stage