Happy National Watermelon Day! Today is all about celebrating this sweet, and juicy fruit that’s just perfect for these hot days. I had a few ideas for recipes, but this Watermelon Kiwi Mocktail blew them all away. It’s so colorful, and I love that it has red and green worked into it. Plus it’s a mocktail, so everyone can partake. Let’s give this cute drink a try!
Summertime has its favorite flavors, and watermelon is high on the list. Add refreshing kiwi, and it becomes one of the tastiest combos around.
The Ingredients
With only 4 ingredients, this was an easy recipe to shop for. I had ice, of course, and sugar on hand, so my shopping list was only 2 items. My usual grocery store had kiwi fruit and a small watermelon. I bought 4 kiwis: 3 to make the kiwi slush and 1 for garnishes. It worked out perfectly.
The kiwi fruit wasn’t quite ripe when I bought it, so I let it ripen on the counter. This can take as long as 4 days, but I sped up the process with a little help from a banana and a paper bag. Bananas (and apples) release ethylene gas as they ripen, and that gas causes some fruits to ripen faster. I put the kiwis and banana into a paper bag, folded it closed, and left it on the counter for 2 days.
On a hunch, I also looked up how to ripen a watermelon faster, and you can’t. Watermelons stop ripening when they’re picked, so it’s important to pick a sweet watermelon at the store. Fortunately, I managed to pick one that was sweet and juicy.
The Process
My Watermelon Kiwi Mocktails were so easy to make! Making each type of fruit slush was the same. I started out by cutting up the watermelon into chunks and filling a 1 cup measuring cup. Then I added the chunks to my blender with 2 tablespoons of sugar. A quick step over to my freezer let me fill the same measuring cup with crushed ice.
A press of a button, a short pause, and I had watermelon slush. I poured the watermelon slush into a temporary container and set that into the freezer while I made the kiwi slush. With a quick rinse of the blender pitcher first!
Kiwi is nice and soft making it easy to peel. I cut the fruits in half and used a spoon to remove them from their fuzzy peels. Then I roughly chopped them until I had 1 cup. It took me 3 kiwis and left me 1 for garnishes. Actually making the kiwi slush was the same method as the watermelon slush. Add the fruit, sugar, and ice to the blender and blend until smooth. Easy!
To make the mocktails I began by spooning some kiwi slush into the bottom of each glass. I tried to gently spoon the watermelon slush over the kiwi slush, but it wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. My mocktails didn’t end up looking as perfect as the photos, but they were close enough.
By the way, I used 2 12-ounce balloon glasses and had plenty of kiwi slush—even some leftovers. However, I didn’t have quite enough watermelon slush, so I had to make another batch. Oh, and I didn’t use any food coloring. The colors are au naturel.
Timing
This recipe lists a total time of 5-10 minutes, and I came in at 10 minutes. However, that does not include time to make the garnishes or the second batch of watermelon slush. It’s the time it took to make the recipe as it is written. The extra watermelon slush took 3-4 minutes, and the garnishes were 4-5 minutes because I had to finagle them a bit.
