Most Refreshing Frozen Mint Lemonade (Limonana)

Name: Most Refreshing Frozen Mint Lemonade (Limonana)
Yield: 4
Cuisine: Middle Eastern
Ingredients: ½ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice; 1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lime juice; ½ cup fresh mint leaves; ⅓-½ cup sugar (start with ⅓); ⅔ cup water; 4 cups ice

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Refreshing frozen mint lemonade (or Limonana) is a Middle Eastern classic made with just a handful of ingredients and blended together to create a deliciously sweet, slightly tart, and minty slushie drink!

frozen mint lemonade in short glass with flowers on white marble with ice

Most refreshing.

Frozen mint lemonade, also known as Limonana, a recipe made with 4 simple ingredients if you don’t count the ice and water. It’s like a slushie with adult flavors, and it’s delicious to serve a crowd on the 4th of July or a regular old hot spring or summer day. This frozen lemonade with mint would go beautifully with burgers, kebobs, and almost anything else!

That first sip of homemade frozen mint lemonade cools you down from head to toe. It’s slightly sweet with a bright lemony flavor and infused with fresh mint. Take this from someone who doesn’t even love mint; I am completely obsessed with this homemade frozen mint lemonade. It’s a harmonious blend of sweet, tart, and minty flavor. One that’s addicting and makes you keep wanting to go back for another sip. And it doesn’t hurt that it requires just a handful of ingredients and a blender to put this together!

And sure, if you too don’t care all that much for mint, you can always use less, or swap it for basil here (that would be yummy and similar to my homemade strawberry basil lemonade.)

blended mint lemonade slushie in glass on white marble

What is Limonana?

Limonana is a beverage made with fresh mint and lemons. It is most commonly served in many Middle Eastern countries such as Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Israel. The word ‘limon’ translates to lemon, and the word ‘nana’ means mint in Turkish.

What ingredients are in frozen mint lemonade?

Lemon juice: freshly squeeze lemon juice works best for this recipe. In the summertime, I love buying bulk bags of jumbo lemons and making this lemonade often. If you use one of those huge lemons, you’ll probably only need about 1- 1 ½ lemons!
Lime Juice: isn’t something you commonly see in a recipe for Limonana. But I like to use just a hint of lime to cut through some of the sweetness of the sugar and introduce another flavor to the frozen lemonade! Feel free to omit this if you only have lemons on hand.
Fresh Mint: A handful of fresh mint leaves really kick the flavors up a notch in this frozen lemonade recipe. In the summertime, I usually head over to my parents’ place with my gardening scissors to snip fresh mint from their garden. It’s so much more delicious that way!
Sugar: For this recipe, I provide a range of how much sugar you can use. I like to use ⅓ cup of sugar because we prefer a bit more tartness in the frozen lemonade than on the overly sweet side. However, you can use up to ½ cup if you’d like to make this sweeter, or you can even do somewhere in between the two measurements.
Water + Ice: You’ll need just under a cup of water and 4 cups of ice to make homemade Limonana.

fresh mint leaves in blender with lemon and sugar

How to make frozen mint lemonade:

Mix everything but the ice. Start by combining the lemon juice, lime juice, sugar, mint leaves, and water in a blender. Blend the ingredients until the sugar dissolves, and the mint leaves break down into teeny tiny pieces.
Add the ice and serve it up. Once blended, stop the blender, remove the lid, add in ½ of the ice and continue to blend. If you have a blender with a lid with an opening, slowly feed ice through the lid until all the ice is added and the limo nana is blended. Pour it into your favorite glass and decorate with a lemon slice or fresh mint!

blender with blended lemon juice, lime juice, mint, sugar, and water on white marble

What foods pair well with frozen mint lemonade?

Grilled Chicken Kebabs
Beef Shawarma Bowls with Persian Rice
Lentil Rice Pilaf with Caramelized Onions (Mugadara)
Chicken Shawarma Fries
Extra Smooth Hummus
Homemade Naan Bread (and Garlic Naan)

If you like this drink, you might also like:

tall glass with frozen mint lemonade, glass straw and lemon slice in glass

Yield: ~4 servings