Sparkling Watermelon Sippers
All week we’ve been talking about healthy substitutions! Substitute homemade crackers for store bought ones. Substituting vegan sugar free jello, for traditional jello made with dyes and sugar. Today, we’re substituting a soft drink with a fun bubbly drink! Not only is this drink delicious, but it contains WHOLE FRUIT! I don’t know any soft drinks that could say the same thing.
This was super simple, and could literally be done with any fruit. We started with 2 cups of watermelon in our blender. We added 1/2 cup white grape juice (I used Welch’s White) to really liquify it. If you use fruit other than watermelon, use enough juice to thin out the fruit so it is very smooth.
Then, we combined the fruit juice with some sparkling water. First put the fruit juice in, (about half the cup full), then fill the rest of the cup or jar with the sparkling water. Serve with a cute and colorful straw.
Why watermelon? We love watermelon right now! It’s the perfect summer fruit, making this the perfect summer drink!
Watermelon is:
- High in lycopene (just like tomatoes!) Lycopene is vital for cardiovascular health and also bone health!
- Watermelon is high in Citruline. This is super interesting about Citruline:
The flesh of a watermelon contains about 250 millligrams of citrulline per cup. When our body absorbs this citrulline, one of the steps it can take is conversion of citrulline into arginine. Particularly if a person’s body is not making enough arginine, higher levels of arginine can help improve blood flow and other aspects of our cardiovascular health. There’s also some preliminary evidence from animal studies that greater conversion of citrulline into arginine may help prevent excess accumulation of fat in fat cells due to blocked activity of an enzyme called tissue-nonspecific alkaline phosphatase, or TNAP. (source)
We love this Sparkling Watermelon drink! Not only is it fun to be fancy on a summer afternoon, you can serve it at parties and gatherings as well!
Our other fun drink ideas includes this one with whole fruit:
Sparkling Watermelon Sippers
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup white grape juice i used welch’s
- 2 cups watermelon
- 1 cup sparkling water
Instructions
- Combine watermelon and grape juice in a blender, and blend until smooth.
- In a glass, pour watermelon juice till the glass is half full.
- Top off the glass with sparkling water.
Nutrition
www.superhealthykids.com
Natalie Monson
I'm a registered dietitian, mom of 4, avid lover of food and strong promoter of healthy habits. Here you will find lots of delicious recipes full of fruits and veggies, tips for getting your kids to eat better and become intuitive eaters and lots of resources for feeding your family.
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Pinned and Pinned!
This looks awesome! My mother has a huge group of black berries and we always have more than what we know what to do with, so now we can add this to our list 🙂
Good recipes
Made this for my sons birthday party, and nobody liked it : ( I was disappointed. I tried to add more/add less on everything, didn’t make a difference. I didn’t think it was bad, it was a little bland.
And you used grape juice Angie? It was super sweet for us!
Perso, I blend the fruit and make fresh icelollies with it. We have great fun using whole and chopped fruit as well as seasonal fruit.
Would this work well served in a punch bowl? My son wants punch at his upcoming birthday but we don’t serve him any soda. This seems like a good alternative.
We don’t drink soda but I wanted to make frobscottle for our BFG breakfast after finishing the book- the watermelon sipper was perfect, thank you!
Made this last night with our leftover, sweet tasting, watermelon. Nobody liked it, I couldn’t even drink 6 oz of it and my kids wouldn’t even finish their cups. It was bland and probably would have tasted better if Sprite zero was used instead of soda water.