Honey Rhubarb Lemonade

This honey rhubarb lemonade is a healthier way to enjoy a spring drink, with rhubarb incorporated for a tart and colourful naturally pink lemonade. This even works with green rhubarb stalks using a special trick – and it’s not strawberries. 

This post was originally published in May 2018. It has been updated as of April 2020 with improvements to the text and recipe.

There aren’t too many drink recipes kicking around here, I think partly because I don’t have a good blender (hello Vitamix you can send one my way anytime you like) and because drinks seem a bit too simple sometimes. But this was a hit, and it’s a great way to use rhubarb.

I shared a rhubarb almond cake recipe a while back and there are a few other healthy rhubarb recipes on OE, but I’d never used it to make a drink before. If you haven’t, either, try it! It was a pleasant surprise.

Rhubarb Lemonade

If you’ve never had rhubarb lemonade, or rhubarb in a drink at all, you’re in for a treat. It adds a lovely subtle flavour without overwhelming the lemon and honey. Plus! It’s a fun twist on a typical pink lemonade and very spring-like.

This’ll keep in the fridge for a while, and if you want to make a sparkling lemonade, you can reduce the amount of water by half and then do half rhubarb lemonade and half sparkling water when you serve it.

Keeping things pink

If you’re lucky enough to get forced or fully pink rhubarb, great! Then you don’t need to worry about swamp-coloured rhubarb lemonade.

If you have regular pink/green rhubarb, typically you’ll see strawberries combined with it to improve the colour and add sweetness. Honey is plenty sweet for this recipe, but the colour is still a bit of a problem. Enter beets!

The trick to getting a perfectly pink lemonade is adding a piece of red beet (peeled) to the rhubarb as it cooks. It’ll colour the whole mixture a pleasantly rosy colour and you can’t taste it at all. Just be sure to take the beet out before blending.

Substitutions

If you don’t have a spare beet, of course you can blend a handful of strawberries into the mix here, or add a few raspberries to get the pink colour (both will taste good).

This would be vegan but for the honey, and I don’t think maple syrup is a great substitution here as it’s a bit of a strong flavour. Of course I use maple syrup with rhubarb all the time, but it is a little much in a drink.

That’s it, because this recipe has a grand total of four ingredients, including water.

More Rhubarb Recipes

Rhubarb Ginger Muffins
Strawberry Rhubarb Cobbler
Rhubarb Chia Pudding
Rhubarb Almond Cake
Rhubarb Streusel Cake

Let’s connect! If you liked this recipe, make sure to leave a comment below, I love hearing from you! Tag me on instagram @occasionallyeggs and #occasionallyeggs so I can see what you’re making, and stay in touch via email, facebook, and pinterest.

Sign up for email updates!

First Name Email Address   Sign up