Watermelon Mint Agua Fresca

In Massachusetts, we're on day three of a heat wave.  After picking strawberries from the garden this morning, I could already tell it would be a scorcher.  The first thought after going inside was that I must find something to drink.  This weekend I made batch of watermelon mint agua fresca and a cool glass definitely hit the spot.

I first saw the recipe in an email that linked over to the NatureBox blog. I googled a couple more recipes, but went back to this one because there was no additional sugar.

The recipe is simple:

8 cups cubed seeded watermelon
Juice of 2 limes
Mint to taste (I used 4 sprigs)
2 cups water

Juice the fruit.  Blend the mint with 1 cup of juice and strain out the pulp.  Add water and serve over ice.

We used our Breville juicer for the watermelon and limes because we figured there would be less straining needed than using a blender. The juicer doesn't do a very good job on leafy things, so I put about a cup of the watermelon lime juice in the VitaMix with 4 springs of mint).  Then poured the mixture through a strainer to catch the pulp.

The original recipe calls for 8 sprigs of mint.  In a juicer or regular blender, I suspect you wouldn't get a ton of flavor.  On the other hand the VitaMix pulverizes the leaves and extracts lots of flavor, so I halved the mint to prevent it from overpowering.  Was my plan successful? Our friend who was visiting loved the drink as did I.  My girlfriend didn't care for the mint and thought it was too strong.

To be honest this would be super refreshing without any mint, so use your own judgement.   Either way, you should make some agua fresca soon.  Get creative!  One morning, I added some fresh strawberries and blended it up.  It was also delicious.  I'm looking forward to trying some of the cucumber agua fresca recipes   I've also seen online.