Non-Alcoholic Drinks
113 recipes found
Cold Brew Coffee
Cold-brewed coffee is actually dirt simple to make at home using a Mason jar and a sieve. You just add water to coffee, stir, cover it and leave it out on the counter overnight. A quick two-step filtering the next day (strain the grounds through a sieve, and use a coffee filter to pick up silt), a dilution of the brew one-to-one with water, and you’re done. Except for the time it sits on the kitchen counter, the whole process takes about five minutes. If you really like cold brew coffee, you can buy one of the best cold brew coffee makers recommended by Wirecutter.
New Orleans Cold Drip Coffee
Unless you’re familiar with coffee concentrate, New Orleans iced coffee is a puzzling ritual. The first time I had it, I watched skeptically as a friend’s mother filled a plastic Mardi Gras cup with ice, poured in an inch of inky coffee from a mayonnaise jar, then topped it off with milk. It was as smooth as a milkshake but had a rich coffee flavor and packed a caffeinated punch. It was easily the best iced coffee I’d ever had, yet another thing that tastes better in New Orleans.
Hot Chocolate Mix
Fancy hot chocolate mixes can be wildly expensive, but they’re extremely easy to make at home. This one uses a mix of bittersweet and milk chocolate to give it a deeply complex flavor. (For a vegan version, you can substitute vegan milk chocolate.) This makes an excellent winter gift, packaged in festive jars or tins and will keep for at least six months stored at room temperature. Feel free to double or triple the recipe as needed.
Shakerato
There isn’t much to the shakerato: a shot of espresso poured over ice cubes and simple syrup, then shaken. But when those three elements are rattled around in a cocktail shaker for what seems like an eternity (it actually clocks in at 15 seconds), they undergo an alchemical transformation: the dense espresso, now frothy, sweet and flecked with ice, is as refreshing as it is flavorful.
Spicy Hot Chocolate
Gently seasoned with a touch of chile powder, cinnamon and vanilla, this fragrant hot chocolate recipe is not too sweet and very complex. Using both cocoa powder and chocolate gives the roundest, deepest chocolate flavor while a mix of whole milk and cream makes it wonderfully rich and thick.
Mexican Hot Chocolate
Mesoamerican women are believed to be the first to ferment and roast cacao beans, a crucial step in chocolate making that is still used thousands of years later. Then, it was prepared as a frothy, unsweetened drink for rituals and medicinal purposes. Later, Spanish colonists brought the ingredient back to Spain, where sugar, cinnamon and vanilla were added, making it more similar to the spicy-sweet beverage we know today. This recipe is adapted from Churrería El Moro, a restaurant in Mexico City known for churros and hot chocolate. To get the signature foamy top, use a molinillo, a Mexican wooden whisk, or a wire whisk to make it light and frothy. And while it’s not traditional, you can also put the hot chocolate in a blender for about 2 minutes.
Creamy Vegan Hot Chocolate
For a vegan hot chocolate that rivals even the creamiest dairy-laden variety, add a few tablespoons of nut butter like almond, sunflower or peanut to the nondairy milk, chocolate chips and cocoa powder. Whisking is also essential here; nondairy products tend to contain stabilizers that keep them emulsified, so they can separate when boiled. If you keep whisking the mix as it heats and remove it from the stove when it’s nice and steaming, but before it boils, you’ll end up with perfectly smooth hot chocolate. Don’t worry if it breaks: You can simply blend it with a whisk or immersion blender over low heat to bring it back together.
Rumplemayer’s Hot Chocolate
This version, adapted from Rumplemayer's, a now-closed New York restaurant once known for its hot chocolate and pastries, is rich, sweet and smooth. It calls for real semisweet chocolate (we bet a mix of semisweet and bittersweet would be delightful, too) so there's none of the chalky aftertaste hot cocoa often leaves behind. A dollop of whipped cream and a sprinkle of cinnamon, if you wish, take it over the top.
Coconut Hot Chocolate
Fudgy, decadent, slightly bitter from the cocoa and very, very creamy, this treat is a cup of hot chocolate good enough to serve to a lactose-free Valentine.
Ingrid's Spicy Hot Chocolate
Apple Cider
To understand the difference between apple cider and juice, think of it like this: Unfiltered cider is a complex dark brown multigrain, whereas filtered apple juice is a plain sweet white bread. There’s a place for both, but to fully savor the fruit, make raw, fresh cider. Benford Lepley, the co-founder of Floral Terranes, a small-batch cidery and winery on Long Island, suggests using a mix of apples, ideally fresh ones grown in your general area, but Pink Lady is a supermarket favorite. Adjust the variety based on your preference of sweet to tart, then crush and press. (This recipe calls for a blender or food processor and a cloth-lined colander.) Drink and repeat all season long.
Strawberry Hibiscus Limeade
Red drinks are central to Juneteenth celebrations, as the color red represents the blood shed by enslaved people. Strawberry soda is commonly served, but this punch builds on that tradition, adding hibiscus, lime juice and mint to a strawberry base. It’s a great way to use up slightly overripe strawberries. (It’s better to use overripe berries than underripe ones, since underripe berries can have bitter notes.) The pineapple juice ice cubes are a little extra effort, but they melt right into the drink, changing its flavor as you drink it. At first, it’s good. Over time, it’s incredible.
Sweet Tea
This sweet tea toes the line between just right and puckery sweet. The formula reflects the way my grandmother Leona Johnson made sweet tea: strong tea, lots of lemon juice and even more sugar. Start by adding half a cup of sugar to the batch, then add up to 4 more tablespoons to your preference. By making it extra potent, tart and sweet, this brew still tastes good even after the ice starts to melt.
Vietnamese Iced Coffee
This popular coffee drink requires only three ingredients: coffee, water and condensed milk. Traditionally, a Vietnamese press is used to make the coffee, but this recipe calls for a simple pour-over cone. (If you don't have a coffee cone, you can substitute brewed espresso for the coffee.) Vietnamese iced coffee is normally made one serving at a time, but for ease, this recipe makes a batch that will serve about four. Be sure to use a boldly flavored dark roast coffee, since the condensed milk and ice will dilute the drink.
Horchata
Horchata is a Latin American beverage that’s made by soaking nuts and grains in water then seasoning the mixture with sugar and spices. The drink originated in Spain over 1,000 years ago, but many countries have their own regional variations. This is an adaptation of a Mexican version, also known as agua de horchata, that’s made with rice, sugar, cinnamon and almonds, which provide rich flavor and texture, but leave them out if you like. Serve horchata over ice alongside a plate of spicy food — or try this dirty horchata recipe for a caffeine kick.
Kombucha
To make this effervescent fermented tea, you will need a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast that is known by its acronym, Scoby. Also some already-brewed kombucha that you will most likely receive from the same source as the Scoby — a friend or the Internet. You'll need very clean glass jars in which to brew your sweetened tea and ferment it with your Scoby, and very clean clamp-top bottles into which to funnel it when you’re done. You’ll need flavoring agents for that second fermentation. Start with apple juice, perhaps, and ginger. With later batches you can try turmeric, pomegranate, cayenne, orange, whatever you like. Welcome to the kombucha lifestyle.
Whipped Coffee
This Instagram-famous drink, known as whipped coffee or dalgona coffee, is made by whipping instant coffee with sugar and water, resulting in a butterscotch-hued foam that’s spooned over milk. While it seems like a trend, many have been making whipped coffee for years. In India and Pakistan, whipped coffee has long been a popular home brew, known as phenti hui. In Greece, the frappé is dalgona’s older, frothier sibling. And, more generally, there are versions that are shaken with egg whites and served with condensed milk.
Nimbu Pani (Limeade)
Funky, salty and exceedingly sour, nimbu pani is a cool reprieve from the sweltering summer days in Lahore and across most parts of South Asia. It also makes for an excellent iftar drink: It’s instantly nourishing, and the salt hits differently after a long day of fasting. Kala namak, or Himalayan black salt, adds pungence to an already punchy drink. Add sugar, if you prefer balance over funk.
Ryazhanka (Fermented Caramelized Milk)
Ryazhanka, a classic Ukrainian drink, is cool, tangy and lightly sweet, like yogurt with a touch of dulce de leche. This recipe comes from Olga Koutseridi, who spent her childhood summers in Mariupol, Ukraine, where vendors sold chilled ryazhanka that she’d guzzle after a day at the beach. The slight caramel flavor comes from slowly baking whole milk, which can be done in the oven or a slow cooker, before mixing it with a fermented starter like sour cream or kefir.
Hibiscus Punch
This bright beverage, inspired by Caribbean sorrel drink and Mexican agua de Jamaica, is made by steeping hibiscus flowers to extract flavor — and color. It is then lightly sweetened and served chilled, like iced tea. Add cinnamon, ginger and allspice if you wish. It makes a great ruby-colored cocktail mixer as well.
Watermelon Juice
Simple Syrup
A bartender’s staple that everyone should consider having on hand, basic simple syrup is made by heating water and granulated sugar together just until the sugar dissolves, then cooling the mixture to room temperature. Because sugar crystals don’t dissolve as easily in cold liquids as they do in warm or hot liquids, simple syrup is often used instead of sugar to sweeten chilled beverages and cocktails, such as lemonade, Arnold Palmers and daiquiris. This recipe may make more than you need for one batch of drinks, but any leftover syrup will keep in a sealed container in the refrigerator for up to two weeks.
Cha Yen (Thai Iced Tea)
This homemade Thai iced tea gets its complex flavor from black tea, rooibos tea, star anise and cloves, and its sweetness from condensed milk. Adapted from the cookbook “Bangkok” by Leela Punyaratabandhu, this version is hardly typical: Most Thai iced tea sold on the streets of Bangkok — or in Thai restaurants stateside — contains an immoderate amount of sweetened condensed milk and uses a store-bought mix, which contains food coloring. The tea blend used here is intense on its own, but mellowed by ice and milk. Chill the tea fully before pouring it over ice so its flavors don’t get diluted.
Rhubarb Syrup
Rhubarb cooks down so quickly, this project takes less than an hour and the payoff is astonishing. It also has a pleasing economy: you get a lovely syrup to make drinks with, alcoholic and nonalcoholic, while the fibrous pulp that you strain off may in fact be the best part, spooned atop yogurt with fresh strawberries, or as a silky, tart ice-cream topping. This could be made as a simple syrup, but it's hard then to adjust the sweetness for differing tastes and applications. Sometimes you want to incorporate it as a sour into drinks that have other sweetened ingredients; and if you want to use the pulp on ice cream or sweetened yogurt, keeping it tart is a better option. So, just just simmer down the fruit with one vanilla pod and use it unsweetened, which offers more room to maneuver.