How To Make Lemonade Even More Summery With One Ingredient

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There are few soft drinks that signal the arrival of summer better than a glass of tart, sweet lemonade. While minimalist, traditional recipes consisting of lemon juice, sugar, and water are perennial hits, they can get a little repetitive over the course of the season. But you can switch it up by adding one luscious ingredient: coconut. You may have heard a song about putting a lime in a coconut, but reversing the lyrics and putting coconut into something citrusy actually works fabulously well. The key is to use cream of coconut, and not something else with a similar-sounding name.

While cream of coconut and creamed coconut both consist of a high-fat coconut milk that is smoother and more buttery than coconut oil, they are completely different ingredients. Creamed coconut is a semisolid and unsweetened paste, whereas cream of coconut includes a generous amount of sugar and has a thick, syrupy consistency. If you've tasted a piña colada, you've tasted cream of coconut — and the most popular brand, Coco López, even features an image of the Puerto Rican national cocktail on its label. Coconut cream, on the other hand, is unsweetened and contains more water, making it more like a coconut version of heavy cream than the buttery syrup you need to make a tart and creamy lemonade.

Taking inspiration from the Harry Nilsson song, I went to my local grocery store to get some fresh limes (instead of lemons, which are considerably more expensive where I live) and a can of Coco López (which you can purchase on Amazon). I opted for common Persian limes, but you can use more unique varieties. Because cream of coconut can be difficult to mix with other liquids, I opted to make this coconutty limeade in the blender. To one can of cream of coconut, I added half a cup of freshly squeezed lime juice and four cups of water, then blitzed it for about 30 seconds. I then poured it over ice and took a sip.

At first, it tastes like you've just made the ultimate piña colada recipe, but then the puckery citrus juice hits you, and you realize that you may have found your new favorite summer beverage. It's rich, creamy, sweet, and tart, and it'd probably be great with a shot of rum, too. If you get tired of drinking it, you can also freeze it in popsicle molds for a quick dessert or anytime treat.

Out of curiosity, I decided to test the recipe using coconut cream and sugar to taste. The result was milkier, but not as rich and considerably less coconut-forward than the version made with Coco López. If you'd like more control over the amount of sugar in your summer lemonade, or prefer an alternative sweetener, I recommend playing around with the ratios to customize the profile to your liking.