194

This purple lemonade drink is low sugar by substituting stevia for some of the sugar. The natural purple color comes from butterfly pea flowers. This easy to follow recipe has plenty of photos and a link to purchase the flowers. This beverage can be ready in 15-20 minutes, only requires 4 ingredients, and makes an instagramable drink to serve on ice (or to mix with alcohol). It’s a fun addition to picnics, parties, and BBQs.

This recipe makes around 10 glasses of naturally-colored lemonade (if you use ice).

Table of Contents

(click the links below to skip to the section you’re looking for)

• Ingredients
• Recipe Instructions
• Ingredient Substitutions
• Nutritional Information
• Contact Me with Questions
• Similar Recipes

My beverages of choice are water, coffee, and tea. But, on hot summer days, there’s something about lemonade that just feels right. It might be that I’m too old to have a lemonade stand even though I still really want one. Or it might be that sometimes friends give you a big bag of lemons from their tree and you’ve already made lemon cake too many times to count.

This purple lemonade is low in sugar by substituting stevia for some of the sugar, but if you don’t have stevia, the recipe has an option to use all sugar. The natural purple color comes from butterfly pea flowers. This indigo beverage can be ready in 15-20 minutes and makes an instagramable drink to enjoy over ice (or with added alcohol). It’s a fun and easy addition to picnics, parties, and BBQs. I made it for a socially distanced backyard baby shower and it was a big hit.

Cooking mode

Keep your device from going to sleep while you cook

Ingredients for Purple Butterfly Pea Flower Lemonade

(jump to the substitutions section to see ingredient details and suggestions for substitutions)

• 9 cups water
• 1 cup vegan or organic sugar
• ½ teaspoon stevia
• a handful butterfly pea flowers
• 1 ½ cups lemon juice (or around 8 lemons)

How to Make Purple Butterfly Pea Flower Lemonade

prep time: 5 min | cook time: 15 min

Simmer 4 cups of filtered water, 1 cup of vegan or organic sugar, and a handful dried butterfly pea flowers for 10-15 minutes stirring periodically, and remove from heat when it has turned a dark blue color.

Juice enough lemons to make 1 ½ cups of lemon juice while your sugar water is simmering.

Strain the blue liquid (once it’s a dark blue color) by pouring it through a sifter over a heat resistant container (I use my chemex).

Mix together the following into a pitcher: ½ teaspoon stevia, 5 more cups of filtered water, the blue liquid, and the lemon juice.

Chill in the fridge or serve over ice.

Ingredient Substitutions for Butterfly Pea Flower Tea Lemonade

• Sugar: For the sugar in this recipe, you can use any number of sugars, as long as they’re vegan: sucanat, coconut sugar, raw sugar, organic sugar, or demurara. If you’re not sure if your sugar is vegan, you can contact the company and ask, but basically, just avoid conventional white sugar or granulated sugar, and you should be ok. If you want to make sugar-free lemonade, replace the cup of sugar in this recipe with a teaspoon of liquid stevia.
• Stevia: I use sweet leaf brand stevia that comes in a small bottle with an eyedropper. Read the ingredients label when you buy stevia so you can make sure there are no additives. If you don’t want homemade lemonade with stevia, replace the ½ teaspoon stevia with another half cup of vegan sugar.
• Butterfly Pea Flowers: I used dried butterfly pea flowers for this recipe, but you can also use butterfly pea flower powder. If you prefer to avoid all caffeine, replace the butterfly pea flowers with vegan food coloring.
• Lemon Juice: All lemons are not created equal. I use meyer lemons because I prefer their flavor over other lemons, and they usually have a lot of juice inside them. If you use meyer lemons, you should be able to get 1 ½ cups lemon juice from 8 lemons. But if you use other lemons, this may not be the case. You can also replace the lemons in this recipe with limes, or even with store-bought lemon juice.

Nutrition Facts for Magic Butterfly Pea Flower Lemonade

• Servings: 10
• Calories per serving: 194
• Calcium per serving: 0mg
• Cholesterol per serving: 0mg
• Dietary Fiber per serving: 1g
• Iron per serving: 0mg
• Potassium per serving: 250mg
• Protein per serving: <1g
• Total Carbohydrate per serving: 51g
• Total Fat per serving: 0mg
• Total Sugars per serving: 48g
• Sodium per serving: 79mg
• Vitamin C per serving: 29mg

Comments or Questions?

If you make this low sugar lemonade recipe, I would love it if you’d snap a pic, post to instagram, and tag me @vegandollhouse. It seriously makes my day/week/month!

Please message me (instagram or email) if you have any questions or feedback about the recipe.

Similar Recipes

If you like this butterfly pea lemonade recipe, may I suggest some other purple recipes?

My homemade sugar cubes are purple and heart shaped. Those go well with hot tea, coffee, or hot toddies.

I also colored the rice purple in this vegan spam musubi recipe using butterfly pea flower powder.

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

I use mostly organic ingredients when I cook. I realize that not everyone has the disposable income to buy only organic ingredients. So, I only specify organic on the ingredients that matter: when buying the organic version is the only way to ensure that an item is vegan.

This post links to items I used when I made this recipe. If you click on the purple Buy Now button on a product page, you will go to a website (like Amazon) where you can buy the same product I used. Sometimes, the store you purchase from (Amazon, Etsy, etc.) will pay me for referring you. This costs you nothing extra, and I would never recommend a product that I don’t use. These affiliate programs help me buy the ingredients to create these recipes for you. Read more about this in my privacy policy.

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆