Stir Up A Pitcher Of Neon Pink Lemonade With This Natural Dying Agent

Is pink lemonade its own thing, or is it just regular lemonade plus food coloring? In most cases, the latter is true. In fact, its pinkness may have been created by accident, with one origin story claiming the first pink lemonade was made from the water in which a circus performer had washed her non-colorfast pink tights. Red food coloring, as an additive, is far less unappetizing than tights water, but nevertheless, some people wish to avoid it since it's been linked to conditions ranging from ADHD to allergies to cancer. Fortunately, there's a trendy all-natural substitute with a sufficiently vivid hue to provide you with bright pink lemonade: beet powder.

About a teaspoon of beet powder should be sufficient to dye a quart of lemonade. Don't just dump it into the liquid, though, as it may clump up. Instead, mix it with a small amount of water or lemon juice and then stir it into the rest of the ingredients. You may also want to strain the lemonade, since otherwise there may be visible floating flecks of undissolved beet.

As a bonus, not only will beet powder tint your lemonade pink, but it will also provide a slight boost to its nutrient level. A teaspoon of beet powder is equivalent to one beet, so for each cup of lemonade you drink, you'll be getting about 2% of your daily fiber along with small amounts of potassium, vitamin C, iron, protein, and phosphorus.

The one drawback of beet powder is that if you use enough of it, as you might want to do to achieve a really bright pink color, it will impact the flavor and could result in a slightly earthy-tasting, beet-flavored lemonade. If you're a big beet fan, you might not find this off-putting. In fact, you may even want to skip the beet powder and use half a cup of beet juice per quart of lemonade to make a magenta-colored drink with a stronger beet flavor. If you're not that into vegetable-fruit fusion, though, there are a number of other natural substances that can give your lemonade a pink tint.

To make homemade food coloring for pink lemonade, you can start by choosing a red fruit with a complementary flavor. Cherries, pomegranates, raspberries, and strawberries would all work. For a stronger dose of fruit flavor, mix fruit juice into the lemonade. If you want something subtler, you can look for freeze-dried fruit, then grind it up and employ it in the same way you'd use beet powder.

Dried hibiscus flowers can also be used to turn lemonade pink. In order to extract their flavor and color, though, you must first steep them in hot water, then use the strained liquid to replace part of the water in your lemonade recipe. Since hibiscus has a taste that's more sour than floral, it's a good choice for all-natural pink lemonade that's not drastically different from the standard yellow kind but lacks any overtones of beets.