This Surprising Trick Makes Homemade Lemonade Even Easier

Homemade lemonade is an almost weekly occurrence in my kitchen — I started making a pitcher of lemonade to entice my kids to drink more water this winter. Juicing the lemons is a favorite task of my 3-year-old, but if left alone to it I find juicing 10 lemons a little arduous.

So imagine my delight when I learned a simple hack for getting the most juice out of my lemons without individually juicing them using a tool already in my kitchen. This simple hack works well for big-batch lemonade (and margaritas). Here’s a surprising trick for making homemade lemonade even easier!

When you’ve got more than a few lemons to juice, use your stand mixer and it’s paddle attachment to beat the juice (and lemon oil) out of the lemons. Yes, seriously! I saw this trick in A Couple Cooks‘ Instagram stories a few months ago when they were using this technique to juice limes for margaritas and then gave it a try with my weekly lemonade. I was worried that smashing the lemons might give the juice a more bitter, sharper flavor, but was pleasantly surprised that a gentle mashing made the lemon juice taste even more vibrant and sunny, since this method also extracts the lemon oil.

Here’s how it works: Quarter the lemons or limes and pile them into the bowl of your stand mixer and then use the paddle attachment to mix the lemon quarters on low speed. The paddle naturally squishes the lemon quarters, releasing their juices and the natural oils from the lemon skins. Beat for about 2 minutes and then strain the juice and use for lemonade, cocktails, salad dressings, and the like.